After opening its doors in the 1980s, English-language manga essentially never looked back, even with a few false starts. Manhwa, or Korean comics, have had a far more difficult time becoming widely known in English. Manhwa started to gain popularity among manga readers about 2006, though those of you who were reading at the time may recall that they weren’t always branded as such.
In his 2007 piece Warriors, Doctors, and Exploding Deliverymen, David Walsh states that early Korean versions were published as comics with no attempt made to differentiate their real source. Supporting this assertion in 2007 was Jeremy Ross, the head of new product development at Tokyopop, who stated, “Although we recognize the nationality of each and every one of our creators, we don’t think it should be presented as a key criteria for categorization… For better or worse, Americans only embrace a small number of novel foreign ideas or products at a time, so we believed it would be futile to attempt to popularize the phrases manga, manhwa, and manhua [Chinese comics] among a large audience.” Whether you agree with that assertion or not—and things have undoubtedly changed since 2007—here in 2024 we’re witnessing the seeds planted by the first manhwa localizers start to bear fruit. However, to dismiss manhwa as “Korean manga” in the abstract would be misleading; it is a byproduct of its own culture and contributes its own storytelling sensibility and style.
Gaining an appreciation for that involves comprehending the notion of hallyu. Jean-Yves Colin claims that manhwa, Kpop, and Korean TV dramas are examples of Korean pop culture that have been exported as hallyu. Smartphones and internet connectivity have become widely available, making things much more accessible to anyone with an interest. The rise of webtoons resulted from that. The proliferation of smartphones has benefited those in particular, and platforms and apps such as Webtoon, Manta, Lezhin, Tapas, and others have further facilitated people’s ability to discover and produce webtoons. Even though Korean comics are still the standard, the term “webtoon” is no longer exclusively used to describe them. Western properties like the Bromance Book Club (Manta) have been adapted into webtoon form by Korean artists, and series like Cursed Princess Club (Webtoon) are not exclusive to Korea.
So what distinguishes a manhwa from a webtoon? Since “manhwa” refers to comics, webtoons are theoretically still considered manhwa even though print magazines and black-and-white manhwa are still in circulation. Webtoons, independent of their nation of origin, are expressly defined as vertical scrolling comics, according to academic Dalma Kálovics’ article Manga Across Media. In addition to using full-color artwork, this style has wide gutters and a narrative rhythm that aims to “carefully create a wavelike visual flow.” (Kálovics) The narrative is supposed to organically direct the viewer’s gaze downward, imitating in some ways how old picture scrolls would have been read. For a generation raised online, having a trail to follow instead of a page to turn can be highly appealing and simple to read.
But it’s not flawless. Webtoons are a kind of art that rejects some of the more conventional components of the comics medium. Kálovics notes that the two-page spread is especially vulnerable because of the format. One can readily observe this by examining any webtoon that has been translated into print—WEBTOON Unscrolled, Ize Press, and Seven Seas have all started releasing print versions of their webtoons. Some work very well—Ize, in example, seems to have done better with books like Villains are Destined to Die and The Remarried Empress—but other works, like Noblesse, demonstrate that the shift isn’t always seamless or straightforward. When used online, Noblesse’s small, staggered panels and broad gutters perform incredibly well because the white space gives your eyes enough time to adjust to the descending screen. However, when it comes to print, we have to deal with large amounts of white space and pictures that don’t flow naturally from left to right. The story’s entire flow is broken, which detracts from the narrative’s overall entertainment value. After all, turning pages creates an artificial break, yet waves run continuously.
It’s also critical to consider the burden that internet serialization puts on authors. “Online serialization can increase the author’s burden, from immediate reader responses to volatile political contexts,” academic We Sung Yi noted in a 2019 interview with manhwaga Taeho Yoon, who made the switch from conventional manhwa to webtoons. Yoon was especially concerned with the latter as her historical fiction covers the Korean War and Japanese colonization within a larger framework. We’ve all heard of manga series that were discontinued early due to unenthusiastic reader replies and the scathing internet comments that appear when readers don’t like or agree with a specific work. When readers can leave comments right under a newly published chapter and on a creator’s social media accounts, that multiplies tenfold. As much as we writers may tell ourselves not to read the comments, it’s hard not to, and the guilt and pressure that comes with trying to please readers may be harmful.
Then, when talking about the distinctions between manga and manhwa, it’s important to take Korea’s history with Japan into account. There is a tense link in pop culture comparisons since many manga fans are aware of the horrors the Imperial Japanese Army inflicted on the Korean people in the middle of the 20th century. Communities of Craftsmen: Reflections on Japanese Manga from South Korea, written by Chloé Paberz, published in 2020 Manhwaga delves far into this, but the main lesson is that many Koreans have a very tense connection with Japanese culture, whether it is popular or not. It’s not a monolith, and there are clear visual parallels between manhwa and manga, particularly in the black-and-white print publications that were popular until the late 1990s when a financial crisis forced many to close. However, it’s possible that the move to digital, full-color webtoons is an attempt by manhwa artists to differentiate themselves from manga and produce work in a genre that is perceived as primarily Korean.
Webtoons’ structure is undoubtedly different from the more conventional comic format found in the majority of manga. Online manhwa, in addition to the wave-like digital scroll, is frequently separated into longer “seasons” and shorter, traditional chapters. The stories don’t hold back when it comes to controversial subjects, sex, or gore; larger sites will also feature a genre division and an R-rating toggle (or, like Manta, not publish the R-rated version, opting for an all-ages variation). Genre categories are more common on sites like Lezhin or Webtoon, which feels more inclusive even though gender divides still persist. Additionally, as some of the original stories demonstrate, creators may have greater freedom to transcend gender stereotypes and produce works that are exclusive to their own artistic preferences as a result of the internet publication. (Much like manga, a good number of webtoons are based on books, whether they be print or online.) The full-color format also makes it possible for the artwork to have a richness that isn’t usually present in manga, but the drawback is that poorly executed computer aids, such as filters, make their use more obvious.
Similar to comics and bandes-desinées, manga and manhwa are two facets of the same creative form. Although there is a good quantity of manhwa in print in both the French and Italian markets, we should be happy that more of it is being translated into other languages, including English, and that the days of concealing manhwa’s roots are over. Netcomics, one of the first publishers of manhwa in English, is still going strong. A combination of webtoons and traditional manhwa can be found on their website, where you can also see the evolution of what’s being localized. The most crucial thing to keep in mind is that manhwa and manga are not better than one another. Both have a wealth of interesting stories to tell, both in print and online, and have developed inside their own cultures.
