hankyoreh

a webtoon by Yoon Tae-ho

This spring, Yoon Tae-ho’s webtoon “Moss” will be made available to American readers via the US website Huffington Post.

Rolling Story, a global syndicator of webtoons, recently reached an agreement with US online news media Huffington Post to begin providing South Korean webtoons to the US market as early as June of this year.

“Moss” will be the first webtoon to debut on the US news website, but it won’t be the last. Rolling Story will be working with Toon-ion, a collective of webtoon artists, to publish a few dozen comics by collective members. The webtoons will include Kang Do-ha’s “Romance Killer” (Daum World in Comics), Kim Bo-tong’s “Amanza” (Olleh Webtoons), Koh Yeong-hun’s “Trace” (Daum World in Comics), Park Hui-jeong’s “Kedendok” (Nate Comics), and Nam Eun-hye’s “Watch Repairman” (Comico).

Once the service is launched, six or seven webtoons will be syndicated each day, with two weekly installments for each.

“TribeX” a webtoon by Hyeon Jae-gwon

In addition, Rolling Story is also discussing the idea of publishing thirty webtoons that have been funded and planned by CJ E&M in the North American market. So far, Hyeon Jae-gwon, Park Yun-seon, and Hong Gi-woo’s “TribeX” (ComicZine/Jump) and Chara’s “Anti Anti Angel” (Kakao Page) have already been confirmed for publication in the US.

“From the planning stage, we had the overseas market in mind. We’re not just thinking about popular webtoons. Our goal is to publish high-quality comics in the US, comics that can be adapted in various ways,” said Kwon Jae-hyeon, director of Rolling Story’s comic development department.

The big question in the webtoon industry right now is who will be the first to succeed overseas.

In July 2014, South Korean web portal Naver launched a global webtoon service called Line Webtoons that provides Korean webtoons through its Line messenger. Meanwhile, NHN Entertainment is providing webtoons from South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan through a webtoon service called Comico. So far, the company has not released information about its profits or readership.

The reason that so much energy is being poured into publishing webtoons overseas is because the domestic webtoon market has already reached saturation and is dominated by a few companies, but there are still business opportunities in other countries. In addition, comics are a form of media that can be easily adapted as books or TV shows.

Movie rights have already been snapped up by producers in South Korea and other countries for nearly 60 of the 172 webtoons being syndicated on Naver.

After mulling over the question of whether to sell the rights of popular webtoons “Moss” or “Misaeng,” (“An Incomplete Life” in Korean) Yoon Tae-ho ultimately settled on “Moss,” a mystery comic, because its genre is more open-ended, sources say. “Moss,” which describes a series of suspicious incidents that occur in a secluded country town, was made into a movie in 2010, directed by Kang Woo-seok.

“We wanted to make a good mixture of various genres, including mystery, action, and romance”, said Lee Seong-wook, head of Toon-ion, who selected the initial twenty web comics to launch overseas.

“But most of all, we made an effort to bring together comic artists who are active on a number of channels, considering that domestic webtoon platforms like Naver and Daum have already explored ways to reach the overseas market,” Lee said.

With the South Korean comic industry dreaming of its own Korean Wave, the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency (KOMACON) is planning to launch a program this year to help export South Korean comics overseas.

“We are planning to use our 3.3 billion won (US$3 million) budget from Gyeonggi Province to support the production of media that can be published overseas. With Rolling Story and other platforms for exporting web comics starting to appear in the market, we mean to make high-quality media available,” said KOMACON Director Oh Jae-rok in a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh.

By Nam Eun-joo, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]