hankyoreh

Fifteen South Korean webtoon creators are forming a cooperative in a bid for the US market.

The list of artists includes “Misaeng” creator Yoon Tae-ho, “The Attorney” director Yang Woo-suk, “Hot Blood Kangho” creator Jeon Geuk-jin, and “Trace” creator Ko Young-hoon. They’re now working on serializing their webtoons sometime in the first half of 2015 on the influential US site The Huffington Post.

On Nov. 25, the artists head a general members’ meeting for Toonion, a kind of artists‘ cooperative they funded themselves.

Toonion is also planning to create Rolling Story, a global service company supplying Korean webtoons overseas, as a way of managing overseas copyrights and supplying web comics through independent apps.

“What I want to share with Koreans is something [original Marvel artist] Stan Lee said: ‘Look at the world outside your window,’” Marvel Entertainment senior vice president C. B. Cebulski said in a recent interview. But in terms of digital comic formats, South Korea and its webtoons are still on the other side of the glass. The US comic market, valued at an estimated US$1 billion, is dominated by two publishing giants: Marvel and DC Comics. Apart from Tokyo Pop, which went bust trying to bring Japanese manga to a global audience, no foreign cartoons have yet penetrated the North American market.

Yang Woo-suk may be best known to South Koreans as the director of “The Attorney,” a film that drew an audience of 11 million, but he is also a webtoon story creator whose works include like “Steel Rain” and “If Thou Must Love Me.” Perhaps the most knowledgeable person around on the inner workings of the webtoon industry, he was also reportedly the one who “midwived” the cooperative.

“I think the Korean webtoon format is definitely competitive,” he told the Hankyoreh in a telephone interview. “And we also thought we could get the best images if the webtoons could be offered through a site like The Huffington Post that’s familiar to North American readers.”

Yang went on to say the service would be “offered free through the site at first, with a partial paid model worked in later that would encourage people to use an independently developed app to access the comics more conveniently.”

Yoon Tae-ho said the move was a timely one.

“Nobody knowing what point we’re at in the history of webtoons right now, but I personally thought it was time to explore all the possibilities,” he said. “To me, it’s important for artists to be knocking on the door of foreign markets.”

“I see this as a way for artists to take responsibility for finding their own way into the US market, while cutting down the translation and marketing expenses.”

Toonion said it would work with service providers at home and overseas rather than maintaining exclusive transmission rights if it helps South Korean content find a foreign audience.

“We’ve been talking specifics on cooperation with some of the major domestic webtoon portals,” it added.

By Nam Eun-joo, staff reporter

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