Webtoons are the 21st century comics designed for your smartphone

The next step in the evolution of comics is called “Webtoons”

Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff, JR is the producer, and this is Plain English where we help you upgrade your English skills with current events and trending topics.

I don’t know exactly, but from my experience, I would guess the average age of a Plain English listener is somewhere between 28 and 32. And if you fall in that range or above, you might not know about Webtoons. I didn’t know about them and JR didn’t either. But they are popular with the generation behind us, primarily in Asia, and their popularity is spreading around the world. And that’s what we’ll talk about in today’s lesson. In the second half of the lesson, I’ll show you how to use the English phrase “identify with,” which is a really good phrase to know.

This full lesson, by the way, including the full transcript, can be found online at PlainEnglish.com/393. Let’s dive in!

Comics for the 21st century

Comics are cartoon drawings. In their current form, they date back to the 1800s, but they exploded in popularity in the mid-20th century in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Comic strips are a series of drawings, laid out horizontally, that tell a small story with quotes and captions. They were published in newspapers either every day or once every week. From day to day, or week to week, comic strips could build on one another to tell a larger story.

Some of the most famous animated characters began as comic strips like the X-Men, Avengers, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, and Wolverine. Comic strips evolved into comic books, where the illustrator had a larger canvas on which to tell a more complete story. And of course, comics transitioned to the small screen and the big screen, as television series and big movie franchises carried those stories forward.

But now we have a 21st-century adaptation of comics called “Webtoons.” We experience so much of the world these days on our smartphones. So, it’s only fitting that “Webtoons” are designed specifically to be consumed on smartphones. And they come from a place that is often a global cultural leader: South Korea .

I’ll describe a typical Webtoon in a second. But before I do, let me share a little bit about what these are exactly. They are digital comics intended to be consumed on a smartphone. They feature a mixture of drawings and text, but typically no sound or video. And they’re usually arranged as seasons, with multiple episodes. Each episode might be fifty or a even hundred illustrations in length. New episodes often come out weekly, just like a TV series.

The business model is similar to other online publishing models in that creators can make money from ads shown alongside their Webtoons. While some show a limited number of episodes for free and charge a small fee for the rest. Webtoons are available in Korean, obviously, English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Dutch, and a handful of other languages.

The biggest purveyor of Webtoons is a website called Webtoons.com . I’ll link to it in the transcript. On the site, you can discover new Webtoons by category like drama, romance, sports, daily life, fantasy, and suspense. I’ll warn you, though, the target market is definitely kids. Most of the Webtoons I scanned took place in high schools.

So, here’s what Webtoons are like. First, they have a vertical orientation, so you consume the comics by scrolling from top to bottom much like you’d scroll down a website from panel to panel. It has, in other words, an infinite canvas. Unlike a horizontal comic strip, which is limited to just a few panels, or a comic book, which has fixed page sizes, a Webtoon can be as long as the author wants. The only limitation is the width of a smartphone screen.

The illustrations in Webtoons can, therefore, vary in size. Some illustrations are small but wide. Others are tall and take up the full width of your phone’s screen. Webtoons illustrators borrow concepts from modern web design. They make generous use of white space to call attention to certain things. They use color contrasts, lines, and fading images to transition from illustration to illustration.

Quote bubbles are popular in traditional comics, and they feature somewhat in Webtoons, too. On a Webtoon, however, there are many more options for quote bubbles. They can be big or small. They can also be integrated into a drawing, hover above or below a drawing, or even separate one drawing from another. It’s 2021, so some illustrations also feature computer and cell phone screenshots, showing text message conversations between characters.

Below the Webtoons is an area where fans can comment and talk about the storyline with one another. Commenters talk about what they like, what they noticed, what they didn’t like, and especially how they identify with what happened in the plot.

I got through a few seasons of a Webtoon called Maya’s World. It starts out with a girl who’s crying and alone outside her school. A boy comes by to cheer her up, but she’s not in the mood to talk. Maya eventually goes to a different school in another city; she means to say goodbye to the boy, but they don’t connect before she has to leave. Although she finds academic success in her new school, she doesn’t seem to fit in socially. But then, a chance encounter…I won’t spoil the rest for you. You can look up the rest of Maya’s World on Webtoons if you want. The link is in the transcript at PlainEnglish.com/393.

Webtoons descriptions

I’m going to read you a few Webtoons descriptions so that you get a sense of what’s out there. I’ll put links to the English versions of all of these in the transcripts at PlainEnglish.com/393 so you can check them out.

First up, “The Makeup Remover” by Lee Yone, 8.1 million likes. “After years of being told to focus on studying, Yeseul feels lost when she starts college and is suddenly expected to pay attention to makeup.” It’s in the Romance category. That one, by the way, is on episode 88. That’s a long one.

But that pales in comparison to “My Giant Nerd Boyfriend.” Just guess. Just guess how many episodes there are of this one. First, here’s the description, “Having a boyfriend who’s a full foot taller than you might seem adorable at first, but it usually just ends up causing a whole bunch of minor inconveniences.” How many minor inconveniences do you think they could describe? They are on episode 619 and they have 49 million likes! 619 minor inconveniences of dating a tall boyfriend, wow, who knew? Good thing I’m only 5’8″!

Here’s one from the Drama category; it’s called “I Love Yoo” and Yoo is a person’s name. “Dogged by pain and misfortune from the very beginning, Shin-Ae decides she wants nothing to do with people nor anything to do with romance. Although content with her unsocial, boring, loveless existence, her lifestyle is challenged after she ruins an unsuspecting stranger’s clothes.” The average rating of that one is 9.78 and it has 28 million likes.

Here’s one more. “The Strongest Florist.” “Even though he’s built like a fighter with a fearsome scowl, Jaeho would love nothing more than to become a florist. Unfortunately, Jaeho’s overbearing father disapproves, pushing his son to become an MMA fighter instead.” So, he’s jacked and he’s really big and strong. He just wants to be a florist, but his dad pushes him to become an MMA fighter. Looking at the illustration, I can confirm he is the strongest florist I have ever seen.