The Origin of Webtoons

How and When Webtoons started?

The origin of webtoons and how it changed reading comics forever.

About Death by Sini & Hyeono

In 2000, Scott McCloud introduced a term called “Infinite Canvas” in his book “Reinventing Comics”. He suggested that webcomic creators could make a Web page as large as needed to contain a comic page of any conceivable size. This infinite canvas would create an endless amount of storytelling benefits and would allow creators much more freedom in how they present their artwork. The concept had not taken off since webcomics were primarily presented in the form of comic strips, which fit easily on a screen. It was not until three or four years later that his infinite canvas would be realized.

The word “Webtoons” originated from South Korea back in 2003 when the Korean web portal Daum (parent company of Kakao Talk) started a webtoon service for free. It popularizes the infinite canvas or commonly called long strip format. It was followed by Naver (parent company of Line) in 2004. In 2005, Naver launched Line Webtoon. Back then, most webtoons were in Korean language and were largely unknown to international audiences. It wasn’t until 2010 when English translations of webtoons were released and slowly gains readers throughout the world.

In 2011, the animated horror Bongcheon-Dong Ghost and Ok-su Station Ghost by horror writer Horang became viral as a horror challenge and prank among netizens. Because of its readability and meshing flash animation into comics, it created a thrilling sequence by sequence atmosphere that ended in a jump-scare.

Mommy wants your hug!

 The popularity of webtoons grew as more and more comic web and app services like Line, Tapastic, Spottoon, and Lezhin became a medium in which artists and creators can post their stories for free and reach more audiences. The creation of Patreon has also ensured that artists can get paid directly from readers without any major corporation to take a larger pay cut. Unlike manga, which relies heavily on fickle Japanese audiences and magazine producers, webtoon creators have more flexibility and much freedom to express their creativity with more diverse and accepting audiences from all over the world.

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