Korean Webtoon Graphics

• Lay out each episode as one continuous single-column strip, about as wide as a phone screen and read top to bottom by scrolling: no pages, no spreads and no grids of many small panels.
• Use the gutter as a clock: open long empty stretches of white, black or tinted ground between panels to pass time, change scene or hold back a reveal, and let the gutter's colour set the mood of the whole episode.
• Give each screen one beat, then stretch a panel far taller than it is wide when the reader should scroll through a fall, a tower or a slow descent, so that scrolling works like camerawork in a film.
• Colour everything digitally in full colour: clean line art and cel-shaded figures with soft airbrushed glows and gradients, over detailed backgrounds that are often built in 3D.
• Set dialogue in a comic font inside rounded balloons that may float outside the panels, the one to read first placed highest; move captions, monologue and drawn sound words out into the gutter.
• Draw for the phone and the weekly instalment: art and text must read at phone width without zooming, and a turning point may carry music, sound or a short animation.

South Korean web portals. Korean webcomics had appeared since the 1990s (Wikipedia names Han Hee-jak's Uninhabited Island, 1996, as the first), and those on Ch'ŏllian's 'Webtoon' site (2000) still used page layouts modelled on printed pages. Heekyoung Cho dates the first Korean webcomic in the vertical form to Sim Seung-hyun's Pape and Popo's Memories on a Daum group blog (2002), read by mouse wheel. Daum had opened its webtoon section, World in Comics (Manhwa sok sesang), in August 2002, and Kang Full's Sunjeong Manhwa there (from 24 October 2003) made the format popular; the government's KOREA webzine, unlike Cho, calls it the first to adopt vertical scrolling. Naver Webtoon followed in 2004, then smartphone apps, and from July 2014 Naver's LINE Webtoon carried translations worldwide. The style was born on the portals and blogs of the early web, but traded that web's crowded pages for long empty gutters. Wikipedia calls webtoons the digital form of manhwa, Korean comics on whose art Japanese manga had a strong effect; the atlas holds neither manhwa nor manga yet, so the webtoon has no parent

1. Heekyoung Cho, 'The Webtoon: A New Form for Graphic Narrative', The Comics Journal (18 July 2016): https://www.tcj.com/the-webtoon-a-new-form-for-graphic-narrative/ (vertical layout as the main difference from print; Ch'ŏllian's 'Webtoon' site, 2000, still in print page layouts; Sim Sŭnghyŏn's Pape and Popo's Memories, 2002, as the first Korean webcomic in the vertical form, and Kang P'ul's Sunjŏng manhwa on Daum, 2003, which triggered its popularity; the long pastel gutter of Sim's Pape Popo, 2009; gutters longer than panels whose length marks time and whose colour sets the tone; Ko Yŏnghun's Changma, 2009; text moved into the gutter in Kang Toha's The Great Catsby, 2005; Yun T'aeho's 1:8 panel in P'ain, Daum, 2014–15, likened to film camerawork; songs in Horang's A Song of Clouds, 2009–10; full colour dominant from the start; LINE Webtoon in the US, 2014)
2. Seo Bum Gang, 'Webtoons a New Era in Media', KOREA webzine, April 2024, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism / Korean Culture and Information Service: https://www.korean-culture.org/eng/webzine/202404/sub01.html (Kang Full's Sunjeong Manhwa on Daum's 'World in Comics' in 2003 as 'the first to adopt vertical scrolling'; Yang Young-soon's 1001 on Paran.com; Kang Do-ha's The Great Catsby on Empas; one-handed reading on small screens)
3. Wikipedia, 'Webtoon': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtoon (Han Hee-jak's Uninhabited Island, 1996, as South Korea's first webtoon; Daum Webtoon 2003, Naver Webtoon 2004; one long vertical strip per episode; usually in colour, unlike most East Asian print comics; music and animation in some episodes; LINE translations from July 2014)
4. Chung Ah-young, 'Webtoon's backgrounds created in 3D', The Korea Times (10 February 2014): https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/shows-dramas/20140210/webtoons-backgrounds-created-in-3d (Kakaa Studio's 3D backgrounds for full-colour webtoons, in two-tone, gradation and oil-paint styles)
5. Walter Ostlie, 'Letter Your Webtoon Like a Pro: Balloons, Fonts, and More', CLIP STUDIO TIPS: https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/3751 (rounded-rectangle balloons, balloons outside panels, the first balloon placed highest, text sized for phone reading, Smack Attack font)
6. Wikipedia, 'Tower of God': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_God; 'Yumi's Cells': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi%27s_Cells; 'Solo Leveling': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solo_Leveling; 'Lore Olympus': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lore_Olympus (creators, platforms and dates of the exemplars); 'Yoon Tae-ho': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoon_Tae-ho (Yoon Tae-ho, 윤태호, McCune–Reischauer Yun T'aeho)
7. Shin Jin-a, '강풀·윤태호와 성장한 20살 다음웹툰, 8월1일부터 카카오웹툰', Financial News (20 July 2021): https://www.fnnews.com/news/202107200926547691 (Daum's webtoon section opened in August 2002 on Media Daum as 만화속세상, 'World in Comics')
8. Watcha Pedia, 'Sunjeong Manhwa' (Kang Full, book edition): https://pedia.watcha.com/ko-KR/contents/b41DYER (serialised on Daum from 24 October 2003)
9. Wikipedia, 'Manhwa': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhwa (webtoons as the digital form of manhwa; the strong effect of imported manga on the art and content of manhwa)
10. Park Ji-ae, '다음, 웹툰 작가들에게 산돌구름 폰트 365종 무료 지원', Financial News (16 April 2014): https://www.fnnews.com/news/201404161115219377 (365 Sandoll Cloud fonts free for webtoon artists on 만화속세상, to use without font-copyright worries; before, artists bought fonts themselves and cleared font rights for print and other secondary uses); Wikipedia, 'Sandoll Communications': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandoll_Communications (South Korean type foundry; Malgun Gothic, Nanum, Apple SD Gothic Neo)
11. Seo Ji-eun, 'Creators boycott AI-generated webtoons on Naver', Korea JoongAng Daily (10 June 2023): https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/business/creators-boycott-aigenerated-webtoons-on-naver/11866608 (some 60 'AI Webtoon Boycott' comics in Naver Webtoon's Challenge Comics section from 2 May 2023; over 200 cartoonists intending to join; AI that 'learns without seeking permission from the original creators')

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