Getting Started with K-Comics - WEBTOON

K-Comics have exploded in popularity over the past few years, and there are a lot of sites and apps to choose from when you're looking for your next read. It might be helpful to give readers a place to start, especially since most of the sites have vast libraries that can be overwhelming at first glance. Last time, we looked at Manta, so now let's see what WEBTOON has to offer!

WEBTOON is one of, if not the oldest, platforms of its ilk. Originally founded in Korea in 2004, it made its English-language debut in 2014. In more recent years, it began teaming up with other publishers to put out print editions of some of its most popular works. The sheer breadth of what's available means that its quality isn't always as good as the comics in the previous entry in this series, Manta, but translations are still readable. There are plenty of well-written and drawn series as well. Many titles are available at least in part for free, with a set period to wait for new chapters to move out from behind a paywall; “coins” are the currency of choice and must be purchased from WEBTOON. Some series are only partially available on the site and continue on the app, which is a little annoying but hardly a dealbreaker.

Below is a small sample of what's available – five series in different genres to help you get started in your exploration.

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Rom-Com

There's an argument to be made that every office romance is an Office Romance from Hell. This series, adapted by Dangcheom from the book by Hwang DoTol and drawn by Nokhye, makes it very literal. Jineon Kim is about as down on her luck as possible, getting dumped and fired on the same day when she receives an offer to apply to the ominously named “The Hell, Inc.” Not really in a position to say no, she takes them up on the offer, only to discover that “The Hell” is, in fact, Hell – as in the underworld. Her new job is to be the archivist for King Yeomra, the god of the underworld and judge of souls: she transcribes all of his official interactions with the deceased. To say that this is not what she signed up for might be an understatement.

I almost classified this as “folkloric fantasy” rather than “rom-com” because it has nearly as much about Korean mythology as the occasionally mortifying romance between Jineon and Yeomra. (In true rom-com style, Jineon is a disaster when it comes to romance, which naturally includes the most embarrassing public confession ever.) Yeomra and his grim reapers, Jiwang, Inwang, and Cheonwang, are all gods in Korean mythology, and readers of Japanese fiction about the afterlife will recognize some similar folkloric elements, such as the stone towers dead children build on the shores of the river between life and death. The writing doesn't overwhelm you with information, but it still explores and explains a lot while also balancing bittersweet and silly. One of the first judgments Jineon witnesses is that of a child murdered by his father, and her very human reaction to the horrors he suffered, as well as how Yeomra handles it, prove that the series can be serious just as well as it can be fluffy. It's a wonderful blend of elements with a bit of mystery as well (who is the woman Jineon sees accompanying Yeomra in her dreams?), and if it has a slow first couple of chapters, it more than makes up for that later.

The art is also a major draw. Alongside the fabulous men, Nokhye does a great job of showing how the reapers combine modern and traditional clothing (especially Cheomwang, who works with humans the most), and there's a good use of the vertical scrolling format for the equivalent of two-page spreads. All in all, this is fun, interesting, and able to do more than scratch the rom-com itch.

Reverse Isekai

Is it reverse isekai if the protagonist isn't switching worlds, but switching times? I'd say it's close enough, and Cheongha Kim may as well be living in another world when she's reborn 500 years in the future in the body of bullying victim Dajin Park. High School Queen, written by critie and illustrated by Nehae, is the sort of cathartic yet violent, anti-bullying story that works better for me than, for example, Viral Hit. That's because Cheongha is such an interesting character: five hundred years ago, she was the strongest woman in Joseon and would much rather be a warrior than a wife. Unfortunately for her, she's in line to marry the king, even though he's actively afraid of her. When her marriage ends in execution, her soul flits in the form of a golden butterfly into the future, where it lands on the corpse of Dajin Park, a high school student who her bullies have just murdered. And that's something Cheongha isn't going to let slide.

The joy of this series is in watching Cheongha utterly turn the tables on who are some of the absolute worst bullies I've seen since my own middle and high school days. (The dodgeball scene is unfortunately familiar, and the ache of my left arm on rainy days says why.) Lead bully Songha is like a worse version of Manami from the manga Life, and seeing an actual warrior queen take on (and down) a high school queen bee is something else. Cheongha is unabashedly herself, viewing the modern world through a Joseon lens, with gym class as “training” and a marked reluctance to show bare skin before others, which makes changing clothes at school interesting. She's aware of why she's in Dajin's body, even if she doesn't know the full circumstances, and she won't let Songha and her minions continue tormenting the rest of the class. The first twelve chapters' main focus is taking down Songha's bruiser, Chaewon, and it looks as if Cheongha may eventually gain an ally in the new character Si-U, although I'm not sold on him as a good guy yet. The art does a good job of showing the viciousness of physical attacks while also throwing in excellent details, like the way Cheongha wears her socks or ties her hair ribbon, both of which are distinctly Joseon.

Queen of High School isn't necessarily for the faint of heart, and I could see it going off the rails later on. But right now, it's a good take on the reverse isekai genre with a heroine who kicks serious ass – both figuratively and literally.

Horror

Some storytelling formats are timeless, and that goes for the one best known from Giovanni Boccacio's 1353 novel The Decameron, though you might know it better from Geoffry Chaucer's 1392 The Canterbury Tales. But what's more important is that QTT's Ghost Teller updates it beautifully. The series' premise is a group of ghosts and other supernatural beings sitting around the afterlife, each taking a turn to tell their tale. Each ghost is a character in their own story, although not always (or at all) the main one. The tales explore the depths of human depravity and psychological damage; the results are eerie.

The first two stories, The Story of the Woman and The Story of This Place, both deal with murders. The former follows a nameless woman who is tormented by her appearance. She believes herself ugly, and she's certain that all of her bad luck in life is the result of her looks. An encounter with a shady fortune teller promises to reverse that situation, but with the caveat that “one bad thing” will happen to her. That “bad thing” is the crux of the story and central to the woman herself as a character. The plot also shapes the perspective of the ghost narrating it, which carries over into his reaction to the second tale, told by a child ghost.

Although both stories are relatively predictable in that we can guess the twist from the context clues fairly easily, they're also both still chilling in their exploration of man's inhumanity to man. The understated art doesn't rely on gore, instead using little details and muted colors to show us the terror of the situations, while also providing hints as to when each story takes place. For example, in the first, there's mention of the Olympics being hosted by South Korea, suggesting that events unfolded around 1988, while the second story features a bus that looks like something out of the 1950s or '60s. Ghost Teller doesn't overstate anything, welcoming us into its setting with cold, dripping arms, inviting us to sit at a table from which few ever arise.

Fantasy

Attention, Studio Ghibli: I have found what you should adapt for your next film. Tata the Cat is a charming fantasy story by picture book author Suwan Kim, illustrated by Subin Kim, that follows a family whose cat is suddenly reborn. Tata died thirty-odd years before the story begins, and he was buried beneath a large tree in the yard. When middle schooler Suyeon, whose family moved out of tiny Gorong Village a year or so ago, comes home to visit her grandmother, she notices an unusually large pink bud high up in that same tree…and when the flower blooms, Tata comes out. When he wears the blossom on his head like an adorable little hat, Tata can remember everyone he knew in the past – and he can fly, too!

I don't know about you, but I'd give anything to meet my lost pets again, and in that sense, Tata the Cat is almost painful wish fulfillment. The flying aside, he's exactly who he was years ago, and the scenes of his family (all of whom come back to the village when they hear about his return) realizing that their cat has miraculously come home are heartwarming. They don't know or care how this happened; all that matters is that it did.

Of course, a true return to the past isn't always possible, and as the family gathers, they talk about their father/grandfather, who has passed since Tata was gone, and also a friend named Seonghyeon. Seonghyeon died falling from a tree in childhood, and there's a sense that this has haunted everyone ever since. With Tata's return, there's a question of whether or not others might be granted a second chance and what Tata will make of his absence, especially since he sees everyone as they looked during his first life. The story has a picture book's deceptive simplicity, handling difficult themes with grace and ease, making it easy to read and absorb without getting bogged down in the darker issues at play. It's a quietly magical story about how much we love the ones we lost and the dream of them returning to us.

Historical Fiction

There's nothing quite like good historical fiction, and that's what That Which Flows By is. Adapted by softcorn from the novel by Eunbi Lee, the story takes place sometime between 1392 and 1642, when the Kingdom of Joseon overlapped with the Ming Dynasty in China and settled the various disputes that had existed between what is now Korea and China. Even more interesting, the heroine, Daniola, is a member of the Jurchen people, a distinct ethnic group in Northeastern China, later renamed the Manchurians in 1635. (Although whether they called themselves, that is perhaps unlikely.) Daniola runs a small tea shop in the north, isolated from all three peoples in the area, although her closest ties seem to be with the Jurchen village nearby. She was taught to speak Korean and Chinese by her late grandfather, and her shop was doing remarkably well…until bandits burned it to the ground. Luckily for her, Gyeol Seo, the Ghost of the North, was in the area overseeing Joseon's interests, and he rescued her. Eager to stay alive, Daniola tells him that her name is Dani and that she and her now-late family fled from Joseon when she was a child. Between that and the fact that she ran a tea shop, Gyeol decides to bring her back to the city we now know as Seoul with him to be his dabi - tea servant.

The first twelve chapters establish a story that's steeped in the geopolitics and plain old court politics of the time. Gyeol is the sole survivor of his family, all of whom were executed based on false evidence when he was a child. As a result of the trauma he experienced, he can't drink plain water, getting all of his hydration from tea, which is why he's keen to bring Dani with him. His affliction, however, is widely believed to be because of a curse, which gives him a terrible mystique – and by chapter twelve, it's starting to look like it's a rumor that the factions that wanted his father dead may be propagating to keep him out of the capital. There are crosses and double-crosses aplenty, with poor Dani caught in the middle of all of it, just trying to do her best, save her neck, and make her scary (but hot!) new employer the best darn tea she can.

There's a real effort to root the plot in history, and Korean titles abound, all nicely defined for English-language readers. We can see the clear differences between how Dani presents herself in her actions and not just her dress when compared to the other ladies. She comes across as a real person rather than a Strong Female Character – just a person who's less steeped in court or city ways, which makes her at least a little interesting to Gyeol, although he's fighting it hard. The art is beautiful, especially in its use of colors; some scenes have a bright translucence that almost looks like stained glass. There's going to be a romance subplot, but as of right now, I'd say this is just plain old historical fiction rather than historical romance, and if you like the Joseon era and are interested in a slightly different angle on it, do not pass this by.

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WEBTOON has one of the widest selections around, including titles from several countries. I've only covered Korean titles here, but several of the English-first webtoons are also excellent, such as Freaking Romance by Snailords, Cursed Princess Club by Lambcat, and Suitor Armor by Purpah. It can be intimidating, but it's worth exploring to see what's on offer.