K-Comic Creator Spotlight: Moscareto

With the increase in official translations of Korean comics, we have the opportunity to discover new-to-us creators, many of whom have several works, if not an entire body of them, available in English. While the sadly defunct Netcomics did a remarkable job of bringing multiple titles by specific manhwaga into English – Wann and Kyungok Kang among them – the webtoon scene's sheer breadth can sometimes make it hard to find one specific author whose works resonate or to fully understand how much some of these creators have available. Like with its Japanese counterparts, manhwa creators don't always have all of their books translated into English, leaving fans with no legal way to read all of their favorites' works easily.

If you're a BL fan, though, you're in luck. MOSCARETO, the pen name of a prominent Korean author, has an impressive ten works available in English translation across two digital platforms and one physical publisher. According to one of her English publishers, she debuted in 2014 with the book 마귀 (there's no official English title or release, but the rough translation is “evil ghost”), and she also reportedly writes in other genres under a different name. But even though all of her works fall under the BL heading, they're still remarkably distinct, featuring different romance subgenres and a variety of themes. So let's take a look at what's available from a creator whose K-comics are many things, but never really the same.

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Of the ten works available in official English translation, fully half of them fall under the heading of office romance. This includes The New Recruit (art by Zec), which has by far gotten the most press and is the most textbook example of the genre. Available on both Manta and Lezhin, the manhwa has also been released in complete digital volumes and, as of this writing, is getting a physical release from Seven Seas as well. What's more, the original novels have also been released digitally from Mullebooks, so no matter your reading preference, there's a way to experience this particular story.

Despite this, it's also the work least likely to appeal to a broader audience – not because of the seventy-page sex scene in the second novel, but because when I say that the subgenre is “office romance,” I really mean it: a lot of the day-to-day activity in the series is focused on the office politics of the company where protagonists Seunghyun and Jongchan work. There are meetings, project details, and company politics…if you don't enjoy the basics of how Korean companies run, you may struggle with this series. The other barrier to entry is a little more prosaic in romance fiction: Jongchan is Seunghyun's superior at work, so there's a power imbalance in their relationship. On the plus side, MOSCARETO acknowledges that, so it's a deliberate story element. On the negative, that doesn't make it any more palatable if that's one of your deal breakers. But despite these issues, the series is also much more queer-positive than your average BL title and completely eschews the silly “gay for you” trope, so maybe there's something to this being so popular with publishers (and readers).

Coming close behind it in terms of sheer availability is Punch Drunk Love (art by Okdong), which only lacks the novel component when it comes to what's available. A much lighter – and raunchier – title, this office romance follows Seon-Woo's desperate attempts to get with Tae-Moon, who he accidentally discovers is also gay when he spots him on a dating app. Seon-Woo has the emotional intelligence of a cabbage coupled with the blind enthusiasm of a golden retriever, and poor Tae-Moon has zero idea of how to handle him. The subgenre here is “miscommunications,” and boy, does this story lean into it. Tae-Moon at first mistakes Seon-Woo's aggressive (and inept) flirting as blackmail, while Seon-Woo thinks that he has to pretend to be much more sexually experienced than he actually is in order to “woo” Tae-Moon. Poor Tae-Moon is so utterly confused by Seon-Woo's words and actions that he starts to assume some very odd things about Seon-Woo's family life and past…although as the plot progresses, we come to realize that he's basing it on his own difficult family life. Even with this darker element, however, Punch Drunk Love is on the lighter side as a whole, a story about two emotional idiots screwing their way to love and understanding.

If we're going from most available to least, the next office romance on our list is You Get Me Going (art by Oh DoYeon), which is available on both Manta and Lezhin. (Manta has both an all-ages and an adults-only version.) An enemies-to-lovers story, it brings us the reluctant romance between Youngwon and Hyunwoo, two rivals in the same office. The two of them have virtually identical credentials, with Youngwon having stayed in Korea and Hyunwoo doing his studies overseas. Youngwon, in particular, is keenly aware of Hyunwoo as a rival, although there's really no love lost between them. At least one person thinks it ought to be otherwise, of course – a mutual friend (who they're unaware is mutual) sets them up on a blind date that goes exactly how you'd expect it to. But it turns out that maybe that guy knew what he was talking about, because sparks fly when the two men find themselves on a business trip together that ends in the old “only one bed” trope. But their sexual encounters don't smooth everything over – and in fact, while the sex is good, it also forces them to realize that “great chemistry” doesn't translate to “likes the same things in bed.” The story is as much about them learning to get along sexually as emotionally, which allows little moments, like both of them talking about why they wanted to work in the automotive industry in the first place, standing out more than they otherwise would. Unlike The New Recruit and Punch Drunk Love, You Get Me Going does involve homophobia, and there's also an implication of a traumatizing car accident in one of the characters' past, so this is a bit darker than the other two. But it does a good job balancing its elements, and if you're a fan of the subgenre, it's absolutely worth it.

While all three of those series are on the longer side, Business as Unusual (art by DG and adapted by IHYEON) is complete in sixteen chapters and four side stories on Lezhin. This work is a second-chance romance, meaning that our protagonists were a couple at one point but broke up and now have a second chance to make things work between them. Minjun and Jinhwan first met in college, where they fell hard for each other. But after a terrible misunderstanding on Minjun's part, he fled, and the two broke up by default when Jinhwan couldn't find him. Now thirty years old, the two find themselves together again when Jinhwan comes to work at Minjun's company. The story is told in dual timelines, showing us what happened ten years ago alongside the present day, which works well, as it allows us to really get a feel for what their relationship was like and why they're both feeling so cautious now. Minjun and Jinhwan are hurt by how things ended (and the false assumptions Minjun made), and the strength of the story is how their pain and yearning to be together is shown. Minjun, who has a slightly feminine appearance, is fighting a lot of internal battles with self-esteem that Jinhwan wasn't aware of when they were in college. It's gratifying to see how they realize they perhaps needed to be grown up before they could fully appreciate each other – and themselves. DG's art is among the nicest in all of MOSCARETO's comics, which definitely doesn't hurt either.

The final office romance is, like Business as Unusual, only available on Lezhin and six episodes long. Merry on the Rocks takes place in New York City around Christmastime, and it spends the least time in the office of all of MOSCARETO's office romances. I'll admit that Noel immediately won me over with his grumblings about Christmas; despite (or perhaps because of) his name, he's not a fan of the holiday. Does that change when he walks into his favorite gay bar and picks up Lee June? Nope, because a great night turns into a one-night stand, and the lemon juice in that papercut is that the next time he bumps into June, it's when he outbids Noel's company for a contract. There are tensions of several varieties between the two men, and this is a study of how a good story doesn't have to be long. There are also some interesting cultural elements to this one, such as how June deliberately introduces himself with that spelling/pronunciation while in the U.S., and the little differences between how he and Noel interact with the world – how the two of them dress to make their pitches is an excellent example, with June in a full business suit and Noel in jeans and a button-down.

But what if men in suits aren't your thing and you prefer a different kind of business? Don't worry; MOSCARETO also has two idol romances available. Shoot for the Stars (art by mamadeul), available on Manta, is, to be perfectly honest, the weakest of MOSCARETO's available works. In part, that's because it takes so long to really get going, but the near-total lack of likable characters certainly doesn't help. The story is perhaps best framed as an idol game time loop, although that's not a perfect way of putting it. Protagonist Yoosung was never able to make it as an idol, eventually ending up in jail, framed for something his longstanding crush and erstwhile fellow trainee did. Yoosung is lamenting where his life ended up when he's whisked back in time to his training days, just before things went wrong. Now not only does he have the chance to try again, he's also got the ability to see people's stats – if he covers their eyes with his hand (or his own), a screen comes into focus that tells him all of their idol-related info. He's also still got access to all of the information on his phone from ten years in the future (2022), all of which stands to give him an advantage this time around…provided he doesn't allow himself to fall for the same jerk again. Neither the art nor the writing are as solid here as they are in the other webtoons available. While the story is fine, it lacks the panache of MOSCARETO's other pieces – even The New Recruit's office politics are a bit more interesting than Yoosung's second chance at a stage career, which feels wrong. In fact, I was surprised to learn that this wasn't MOSCARETO's debut comic when she mentioned that another title was.

That would be Miss You, Lucifer (art by Okdong), the other of her idol romances. Another short series – it's complete in sixteen episodes, four side stories, and an author's epilogue – this goofy little romance is a fun combination of a fan/idol and a celebrity story. That's because the fan in question is a megapopular celebrity himself: Kwonjung Kang is one of the best-known men in Korean showbusiness. He's a secret superfan of Lucifer, one of the singers in the struggling boy band Sweet Devils, and has been utterly obsessed with him from the band's earliest days of trying to drum up interest with street corner performances. When he overhears Lucifer fantasizing about him, Kwonjung is ecstatic: the object of his stanning and unrequited love is, in fact, also gay! But when he tries to ask Lucifer out, the younger man thinks he's being propositioned for sex, and the two have to sort out their misunderstandings from there. It's a bit like Punch Drunk Love, another of MOSCARETO's series with artist Okdong, but much, much fluffier, with plot points ranging from the basic misunderstanding to Kwonjung desperately trying to hide his extensive Sweet Devils merch collection and the fact that he runs the stan social media account that gives the series its title. With minimal angst and a high smut factor, Miss You, Lucifer is delightful…and also fills the niche for readers of IDOLiSH7 fanfiction.

Okdong and MOSCARETO have actually collaborated on three series together, with the third being the urban fantasy Love of Cloud and Rain, available on Lezhin. Although I can't say it for certain, this feels like an earlier story, with the characters a bit underdeveloped and the story suffering from an abrupt start. Veterinarian Choi Jung's opening day at his new clinic is derailed when the small lizard he finds outside turns out to be Woonwoo, a dragon prince from the kingdom under the sea. Woonwoo is in the human world in order to hone his skills and understanding of the world so that he can fully come into his power, and to do that, he needs to dine on human essence, which he'd like Jung to provide in the form of sex. In fact, Woonwoo can't even stay in the human world without sex, so Jung has a hard time denying him – after all, Woonwoo isn't just some random dude, he's an actual god.

This series takes for its romance subgenre light BDSM, although it does not have any real understanding of how actual people practice it. There are plenty of water tentacles and lots of dubious consent sex scenes, with the vet angle not really factoring in too much, although Woonwoo can communicate with Jung's patients. It's not the best of MOSCARETO's available works, but it also isn't terrible, although I'd caution that if you aren't into tentacles and dubcon, this could be a hard sell, at least in the early chapters.

On the other hand, Whispers Through the Willows (art by Sue and available on both Manta and Lezhin) is appealing despite its subgenre. This is the inevitable omegaverse series that frequent readers of BL probably knew was coming, and a fairly dark one at that. It takes place in an alternate Korea where the royal family still exists and rules, and there are some hints that the North and South never separated. To top it off, there have been people born with “unique traits,” the in-world phrasing for standard omegaverse second genders.

The youngest prince in the royal family, Reok, was born an alpha, and it was seen as a smart political idea to engage him to an omega, Sangyul. But politics being what they are, the omega in question is the adopted son of a major pharmaceutical company…or at least, he's supposed to be.

This is absolutely one of the darkest stories in MOSCARETO's bibliography, encompassing themes of homophobia, prejudice, and human experimentation. In fact, the “omega” in question wasn't born that way – he's the result of said experimentation that was trying to create drugs to create omegas for shady reasons. The only survivor of his cohort of human guinea pigs, Sangyul doesn't even really get to be Reok's real fiancé, because President Han of Jodong Pharma forces him to switch places with his illegitimate son, instead sending Sangyul to the palace as a servant. This being a romance, he still crosses paths with Reok, and the two hit it off in a big alpha-omega way.

Since Reok's not a fool, he quickly realizes that something is very, very wrong. (The evidence of Sangyul's beatings at the hands of Han's son certainly helps.) Sangyul is very much a damsel in distress, but Reok genuinely likes him; he's not looking to be a savior, he's just falling in love. Their romance is a bit of a slow burn, but the sexual and romantic tension is unquestionably there from their first meeting, making it easy to become emotionally invested in the story. It's darker and more serious than most of MOSCARETO's other stories, and it's a testament to her writing ability that it's every bit as good as her lighter fare.

It's also not the darkest of what's available in English. That would be the Lezhin-exclusive Card Shark, MOSCARETO's only title in the gangster subgenre. Adapted by 12929 and drawn by Yuwon, this is ongoing, having just finished its first season at episode twenty-three. It takes place in the world of shady gambling establishments, where money and blood can flow like water if players aren't careful. The kingpin of this underground world is simply known as “the Czar,” and hapless Kim Yoon has gotten involved with a gang of roaming card sharks who use him as a patsy. Yoon used to be a prodigy piano player, plucked from an orphanage because of his perfect pitch and mimicry skills, but eventually, the music world soured on him when people began to pick apart his inability to read music and began seeing him as just someone who could copy things well rather than create his own interpretations. But it's his music background that saves his life when things go bad for his gang: Yoon's perfect pitch allows him to hear when someone is dealing from the bottom of the deck or stealthily moving cards around, and that catches the Czar's eye.

As you might expect from a series set in the gambling underworld, Card Shark comes with plenty of content warnings. It's unremittingly violent in general, and it also features sexual assault and child abuse. There's also a question of whether Yoon is neurodivergent; if he wasn't born that way, he's certainly got PTSD now, and that's another barrier to entry if you're just looking for a light read. But it's hard to deny that there's something fascinating about this work, and it builds on the darker elements of the completed Whispers Through the Willows very neatly.

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Hopefully, all of this has shown you not just that there are plenty of subgenres and variations within BL, but also the sheer breadth of MOSCARETO's works. From fluffy to fraught, the office to the palace, and everything in between, there's a lot to enjoy from this prolific author.