Webtoon
Webtoons (Korean: 웹툰) are a type of episodic digital comics that originated in South Korea usually meant to be read on smartphones.
While webtoons were mostly unknown outside of South Korea during their inception, there has been a surge in popularity internationally thanks to the easy online accessibility and variety of free digital comics.
[3] Webtoons usually feature a few of common traits: each episode is published on one long, vertical strip (making use of an infinite canvas rather than multiple pages so that it is easier to read on a smartphone or computer); some feature music and animations that play during each chapter; and unlike the majority of East Asian comics, they are usually in color instead of black-and-white since they are published digitally on a website or app rather than physically in a magazine.
[5] While there has been webcomics uploaded and hosted by individual creators since the mid-to-late 1990s, the advent of the webtoon model dates back to 2000, when Lycos Korea, the Korean version of the American search engine Lycos, launched the comic Bang section in their portal site.
[8] South Korea's first webtoon is Uninhabited Island (Korean: 무인도; Hanja: 無人島; RR: Muindo) by Han Hee-jak in 1996.
There have also been sounds introduced to imply further expressions and tones, as well as interactive motions to create excitement and bring attention to certain objects for the viewers.
Another of Huh's works, Sikgaek (Le Grand Chef), was published in the Dong-a Ilbo for five years and sold 540,000 copies in paperback version.
Even web manga, which have seen a recent rise in popularity, are often in black-and-white instead of color, as is common in their Korean and Chinese counterparts, despite being released digitally.
[27] Lezhin, Comico, Naver, Line, and Kakao offer webtoon portals with translated works for Japanese readers.
[28] Kakao has also had success in the Japanese market by offering both licensed manga and translated Korean webtoons with their service, Piccoma.
This has been credited to the webtoon pay model that the service implements where some chapters are offered for free for a short period of time.
[29] Kakao Japan has announced that it will start offering original Japanese, Korean, and Chinese webtoons for Piccoma in the Summer of 2018.
[30] 2021 saw a great deal of tracking for webtoon in Japan with investment from traditional Japanese manga publishers like Shueisha and Shogakukan.
[35] Kross Komics launched the first dedicated Indian webtoon portal in 2020 targeting domestic audience and offering 40 translated South Korean titles in English, Hindi and Telugu.
It mainly targets the 15-24 age group, especially females, and supports both Korean and Indian webtoon content creators.
[39][40] Popularity of digital comics is now encouraging Indian publishers such as Graphic India to launch their own service called Toonsutra in the market.
[48] Spottoon and Tappytoon offer translated licensed works from various publishers including KToon, Bomtoon, Foxtoon, and many more.
[50] To better serve the US market and increase the intellectual property value chain, Kakao Entertainment in 2022 merged with Radish Media and the aforementioned Tapas to form a single entity.
