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The webtoon format, which began in Korea two
decades ago, has shaken up content creation for the movie
industry around the globe.
With relatively few overhead costs, webtoons have become a gold
mine for tens of thousands of visual stories, with a growing
number of adaptations on streaming services such as Netflix,
Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus. And readership for webtoons
themselves has become increasingly global.
"If a drama or movie fails, a bunch of people are in the red so
they can't experiment in various ways. But here, when we fail,
we fail alone. So we can experiment however we want," said Choi
Gyu-seok, the artist and co-creator of the "Hellbound" webtoon.
In South Korea alone, there are more than 14,000 webtoons by
9,900 creators, according to data provider Webtoon Analysis
Service. Tech companies Naver and Kakao are facilitating
adaptations and targeting global expansion through their webtoon
units.
"Our strength is that we have a lot of ongoing works. In many
platforms, when a hit series is over there aren't enough
alternatives. We have hundreds of works that are live right
now," said Lee Hee-youn, head of IP Business at Naver Webtoon.
Each series usually has weekly updates, increasing the amount of
material to draw from.
"It's a format you view in three minutes while waiting for your
friend... so almost every scene must contain elements that can
capture the reader. So there are a lot of ingredients to choose
from when taking the source material to other formats," Choi
said.
For the creators - who on average make 48.4 million won
($41,000) a year - the payoff for getting a webtoon adapted can
be huge. Only about 8% of creators say their income has been
substantially improved by adaptation rights, according to data
from the Korea Creative Content Agency.
"In a month or two, I made about three or four times the amount
of money I could earn a year," Hellbound's Choi said about an
adaptation of a previous webtoon. "It gave me freedom so I
didn't have to immediately begin the next work."
Ownership of the intellectual property rights for an adaptation
depend on the contract between the creator, platforms like Naver
and Kakao, and any agencies in the middle. Payouts can be a
single-digit percentage of revenue, a minimum guarantee or a mix
of the two, analysts said.
GLOBAL READERSHIP
Webtoons' PC and smartphone-specific innovations such as
vertical scrolling instead of page-flipping are intuitive for
people 24 years old or younger, who account for about 75% of the
14 million active monthly Naver Webtoon readers in the United
States as of September.
Naver's Webtoon app and Kakao's Tapas app are No. 2 and 3 in
U.S. downloads in Google Play's free comics app category, while
in Japan, Piccoma and Line Manga, backed by Kakao and Naver
respectively, are No. 1 and 2.
Naver's global webtoon business has seen quarterly sales jump
79% from a year ago as of July-September, and monthly active
users grow from 50 million to 72 million in three years, with
users outside Korea far outweighing those in Korea and global
streaming services' adaptations helping expand the market,
Naver's Lee said.
Webtoon creators work an average about 10.5 hours a day, six
days a week. The grinding schedule means a concept can take as
little as a week to move from drawing board to market.
Immediate audience reaction in the form of views, payments and
comments means webtoons can reflect ongoing trends or attempt
ambitious subject material.
The Netflix-backed adaptation of "Hellbound", which comments on
human fallibility, cost about 15-20 billion won ($12.7-$17
million) to make, South Korean media reported.
"In the past, the industry was small, so there were limitations
in the kind of adaptations. Now, streaming services have made
possible the inflow of new readers globally and more investment,
so they are asking for bigger ideas" such as settings in space
instead of earth, said Hongjacga, the creator of the webtoon
"Dr. Brain", which was adapted for Apple TV Plus.
Naver's Lee said 10 to 20 webtoons from its platform are
expected to be remade into other media next year through
partnerships with streaming services.
($1 = 1,182.7600 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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