The boom in Korean television in the US has been hard for anyone with a Netflix account to miss. But while American audiences were bingeing on Squid Game and All of Us Are Dead over the last two years, another Korean cultural phenomenon was quietly insinuating itself into the US media diet: the webtoon.
Webtoons are colorful digital comics designed to be scrolled through on mobile devices, usually consisting of serialized stories doled out in short episodes. Since emerging almost two decades ago, the medium has become a force in its home country, pushed by South Korean companies such as Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp. These platforms made it easy for authors to release content that may not have appealed to traditional publishers. As with other novel forms of digital distribution, this allowed new types of creators to reach large audiences and, in some cases at least, make significant money. The medium has thus gained a reputation for producing content whose appeal stretches beyond the traditional comic book audience of young males.
Naver, which also runs South Korea’s most popular search engine, established a Los Angeles-based subsidiary in 2016 to focus on the US market. The operation, run by Ken Kim, is part of Naver’s global webtoons division, Webtoon Entertainment. It has developed into the company’s second-largest regional platform for webtoons, after South Korea. Of the 86 million users Naver’s webtoons had as of last June, over 12 million were in the US, more than twice the total from 2019.
At first, Naver seeded its US operations with Korean content that was adapted for an American audience, but the company has also recruited non-Korean authors to make webtoons for global readers. Webtoon Entertainment is planning a US-based listing, according to Kim Junkoo, chief executive of the division. “You could say that we’ve tested the business in our home market,” he says. “It’s clearly a model that works.”
Naver’s webtoons subsidiary is still not profitable, and company executives told investors in a May 8 earnings call that they’d been cutting costs on the unit in part to prepare for its public listing, which they expect to take place next year. They described their efforts to make money from webtoons through advertising as “nascent” and said they expected the unit to become profitable, excluding certain expenses, by the end of the year.
In addition to subscriptions and advertising, webtoons can make money through merchandising, television, film or other licensing deals. One of Webtoon Entertainment’s biggest hits has been Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus, a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone’s abduction. The webtoon version, which comprises well more than 200 serialized episodes, was also converted into an award-winning graphic novel that topped the New York Times bestseller list for its category. Lore Olympus won the Harvey Award for digital book of the year in both 2021 and 2022, as well as the Eisner award for best webcomic in 2022. Its success shows the medium’s growth potential in the US, says Son Jeho, a Korean author who’s been writing webtoons for almost as long as they’ve existed. “When the market gets bigger, it’ll be tremendously big,” he says. “Probably something beyond my imagination.”
Son says the rapid-fire social nature of webtoons appeals to young users who grew up glued to their phone instead of whiling away their afternoons in comic book stores. Readers often respond instantly to new episodes by leaving comments, either through dedicated webtoon apps or general-use reading apps. “It’s an industry that’s supersensitive to the latest market trends,” he says. “That’s what makes it possible for this business to be the starting point for all content culture.”
Webtoons are also fueling other forms of Korean culture that are finding traction internationally. Netflix horror hits All of Us Are Dead—one of the platform’s most successful non-English-language shows, measured by hours watched in its first 28 days—and Hellbound were initially webtoons. Netflix Inc. announced on April 25 that it would expand its investment in South Korea, where it’s operated since 2016, by spending $2.5 billion in Korean content over four years.
It’s a good bet some of the shows that come from that commitment will have a connection to webtoons. About 30% of South Korean dramas in development can be traced to a webtoon, estimates Woody Lee, founder and CEO of Kenaz, a webtoon production company. Lee says producers in South Korea and abroad see a popular webtoon as a sign that a story has a built-in audience that can increase the chances of success. “I’m seeing a lot of green lights from Hollywood,” he says. —With Youkyung Lee
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