1.1 Introduction

In the third decade of the twenty-first century, comics have gained an unprecedented amount of visibility, with comics-derived content dominating multiple media from film to television to videogames. No longer perceived as the purview of insular fandoms, comics have emerged as a fundamental pillar of globalised popular culture. The fortune of comics within transmedia spaces has reflected positively on their original print medium, at least within the traditional English-language industry based in the United States. The turmoil of the 2020–2021 Covid pandemic served as a further catalyst to develop new strategies and channels to diversify its distribution and sales infrastructures, leading to unprecedented sales in 2020 and 2021 (Reference GrieppGriepp 2022).

Some of the most profound innovations in comics to emerge in the past two decades lie not within print, however, but in the emergence and consolidation of webcomics, which are an evolving medium that can be defined as ‘graphic sequential narratives that are created, published, and read on-line’ (Reference Priego RamirezPriego Ramirez 2011 p. 267). The majority of comics published in the twenty-first century are to an extent digital, as they are produced, distributed and consumed in ways that are ‘mediated through a computer’ (Reference ReshaResha 2020 p. 70). However, certain comics embrace the digital in every phase of their lifecycles and exist solely in non-material, digital formats. Defined widely as digital comics, webcomics and webtoons, webcomics represent an increasingly significant area for the readers and creators of comics, but remain still undertheorised from a scholarly point of view (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 218). The difference between digital comics and webcomics is, for example, still unclearly defined. Similarly, the very flexibility of webcomics, which are freed from the limitations of print technologies and of the printed page, make a formal definition challenging. Being often produced by independent creators without a publisher’s oversight, webcomics have little or no limits in terms of subject matter. This lack of barriers also renders them an ideal platform for creators from marginalised communities to address their audience directly (Reference RobbinsRobbins 2013 p. 168). Because of the ‘close association between the development of digital technology and the medium of webcomics’ (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 220), webcomics need to be studied within the historical and technological context of their production and reception. Within the last 30 years, the development and adoption of internet technologies have enabled webcomics to establish themselves as a ground for experimentation and exploration. The widespread adoption of ubiquitous mobile computing through smartphones and the diffusion of social media platforms have created new possibilities for webcomics in format, distribution and remuneration, which have converged in South Korea to give rise to a new and underexplored webcomics genre, the webtoon.

Inspired by the approaches of pioneering historians of the books such as Robert Darnton (Reference DarntonDarnton 1982), Roger Chartier (Reference ChartierChartier 1995) and William St Clair (Reference St ClairSt Clair 2004), of historians of the digital book such as Padmini Ray Murray, Claire Squires (Reference Ray Murray and SquiresRay Murray and Squires 2013), R. Lyle Skains (Reference SkainsSkains 2019) and Melanie Ramdarshan-Bold (Reference Ramdarshan BoldRamdarshan Bold 2018), and by webcomics scholars such as Leah Misemer (Reference MisemerMisemer 2019a, Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and Whaley2021) and Adrienne Resha (Reference ReshaResha 2020), this Element will assess the communication circuits of webcomics and webtoons and ask whether the growing success of the medium can be related to the level of participation it affords to female and nonbinary authors, and to the wider range of genres it includes. It will do so by comparing webtoon authorship and publishing practices with those of more mature formats such as US superhero comics and by plotting female and nonbinary participation in those circuits against those of webtoons. It will quantify the authorship and readership of what is currently the largest webtoon publisher, the English-language version of the South Korean platform (Naver) WEBTOON, which achieved 100 billion global page views in 2019 (Reference MacDonaldMacDonald 2020a). It will analyse the presence of female and nonbinary authors in a sample composed of the 80 most read WEBTOON comics, classifying them also by their genre. Finally, it will assess whether the opportunities and remuneration offered by WEBTOON enable more diverse comics creators to obtain recognition, or whether the mechanisms of the digital ‘attention economy’ (Reference GoldhaberGoldhaber 1997) and of the ‘platformisation’ of cultural production (Reference HelmondHelmond 2015 p. 1) confine them to gruelling and uncertain employment at the mercy of readers and new digital taskmasters.

Authors have always depended on capturing the favour of the public, as acknowledged by David Garrick in 1747, when he stated that ‘ … we that please to live, must live to please’ (Reference Johnson and GarrickJohnson and Garrick 1763). Garrick’s speech, as reported by Samuel Johnson, implies the complete dependence of the author upon the favour of the public, who will not purchase what it does not like. In the current attention economy, however, the challenge for authors is no longer how to make their work public, but how to get noticed by an ever-busier global audience. A platform such as WEBTOON can help authors with both: it takes care of the software systems that enable publishing, counts page views and audience engagement, negotiates advertisement deals, and for those few authors able to get contracted, it acts as a publisher, providing a form of regular income, as well as editorial assistance and promotion. It does so in exchange for a share of the profits and for a significant level of control on the creators’ freedom of expression, from content limitation and genre classification, to a more widespread ‘platformisation’ of creative labour (Reference Duffy, Poell and NieborgDuffy et al. 2019; Reference Kim and YuKim and Yu 2019). This Element assesses whether publication on WEBTOON represents a worthwhile trade-off for authors, especially if female or nonbinary, or whether it constitutes a backward step compared to the creative freedom of independent webcomics.

To understand these questions, the operations of WEBTOON must first be positioned within the context of webcomics and their development over the past 30 years.

1.2 Defining Digital Comics, Webcomics and Webtoons

The terms digital comics, webcomics and webtoons refer to contiguous or overlapping fields which must be clarified before developing the rest of this study.

1.3 Webcomics in the US: Historical Context

As shown above, webcomics can be considered ‘the comics vanguard’ in their innovations of the comics medium within constantly shifting digital technologies (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 221). The communications circuit of webcomics has been little studied so far, at least from a history of the book point of view. Where critical attention has been given to the comics medium, it has concentrated on the more established print genres of serialised magazine comics, such as, for example, superhero comics, or on graphic novels, a term now applied to all comics published in book format. This relative slighting of webcomics was understandable while webcomics and the internet itself were a novelty of uncertain future, but they have now been in existence for almost 40 years, with a history that is intertwined with the development of the World Wide Web and of its socio-technical evolution.

In order to evaluate the innovations introduced by webcomics, it is first necessary to locate them within the established circuits of print comics and to trace a brief history of their development. Both the communication circuit of print comics and that of webcomics can be plotted against Robert Darnton’s print ‘communications circuit’ (Reference DarntonDarnton 1982 p. 67), for example, by comparing the established production process of US superhero comics (Reference BenattiBenatti 2019). The ‘direct sales’ or ‘direct market’ system that held sway over English-language comics publishing for 50 years grants greater authority to certain agents within the circuit. While in Darnton’s model the author is the dominant force, in the US comics circuit, the most significant influence resides with the publishers, who exercise it through the activity of editors and sub-editors. This accumulation of power in the hands of the publishers depends largely upon their hold on the ‘economic rights’ (Reference Gordon, Gray and JohnsonGordon 2013 p. 223) of the most prominent US comics content, superhero characters, which resides with them and not with their creators (Reference SabinSabin 1993 p. 32). A lack of competition was evident until recently in other key areas of the print comics circuit. Periodical comics, known as ‘pamphlets’ or ‘floppies’, are available exclusively through specialist comics stores. These fulfil the role of Darnton’s ‘Booksellers’ and are in turn served by a limited number of distribution companies, which provide them with comics on a mostly non-returnable basis. Chief amongst them is still Diamond Comics, which, until 2020, had a virtual monopoly on the supply of periodical comics. The upheavals of the Covid-19 pandemic, which included a complete shutdown of Diamond’s operations for a number of weeks in 2020 (Reference MacDonaldMacDonald 2020b), prompted a reevaluation of this control. For example, DC Comics decided to shift its periodicals distribution to a new company, Lunar Distribution, in June 2020 (Reference McMillanMcMillan 2020), while Marvel opted in 2021 to work with Penguin Random House (Reference MacDonaldMacDonald 2021), where it was later joined by Dark Horse and IDW (Reference MacDonaldMacDonald 2022b). Once periodical comics have been collected into book format ‘graphic novels’, they can also be sold through book channels, such as physical and online bookstores, where more varied distribution and sales options exist. Several smaller publishers such as Boom! Studios, Oni Press and TKO, for example, employ book trade distributors such as Simon & Schuster to reach the bookstore market (Reference MacDonaldMacDonald 2022b). Comic stores, however, remain the only outlet for purchasers of monthly issues of ongoing periodical comics.

Models are always prone to the risk of oversimplification, and the one delineated above is no exception. It has been argued that already from the 2010s, the US comic books industry has fragmented into ‘range of different models in different formats and channels addressing different audiences’ and can no longer be equated solely with comics publishing (Reference WooWoo 2018 p. 38). Webcomics have played a decisive role in this diversification from the time they emerged with the growth of personal computers and of the World Wide Web. The first digital comics, such as Joe Ekaitis’ T.H.E. Fox (1986–1998) and Hans Bjordahl’s Where the Buffalo Roam (1987–1995) indeed preceded the development of the WWW, with the first webcomics in the sense of Priego’s definition (see Section 1.1) considered to be Stafford Huyler’s NetBoy and David Farley’s Doctor Fun, both begun in 1993 (Reference KleefeldKleefeld 2020 pp. 20–1). In this initial phase, webcomics authors relied on self-hosted websites, which they often designed and maintained on their own. As mentioned in Section 1.2.2, the high technological bar required for computer graphics and website creation limited webcomics publication, for a while, to creators who were skilled in web programming, who also often chose technology or videogames as subject matter (Reference KleefeldKleefeld 2020 pp. 22–6), as can be seen, for example, in several successful webcomics from the 1990s, such as Scott Kurtz’s PvP and Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins’s Penny Arcade, both started in 1998 and are still ongoing.

A determining trait of all early webcomics, which shaped the medium into the future, was their being offered to readers’ consumption without the need for any payment. This free and ubiquitous availability contributed to the dissemination of webcomics to wide global audiences. At the same time, it established a set of expectations that complicated future sustainability in terms of both providing a living for creators and covering infrastructural costs. In this initial phase, webcomics authors relied on self-hosted websites, which they often designed and maintained on their own. While the cost of web hosting reduced over time as the internet gained pervasiveness, it nonetheless still entailed expenditure and responsibilities for creators, which, in print circuits, would be delegated to publishers.

With the rise of online content platforms such as blogs, webcomics creators were able to rely on these standardised web technologies to aid them in the creation of their websites, for example, through plugins such as ComicPress for the WordPress content management system. These models lessened the burden of website design and led to the gradual establishment of common formats and structures (Reference RageulRageul 2018 p. 8) in webcomics sites, such as separate pages for current issues and archives pages (Reference KleefeldKleefeld 2020 p. 31).

Due to the technological restrictions discussed above (see Section 1.2.2), early webcomics tended to privilege short episodic strips, usually composed of a small number of panels. Thematically these early comics often focused on humorous content and were reminiscent in their structure of newspaper comic strips, which they also resembled in their frequent periodicity of publication (often daily or weekly) (Reference AllenAllen 2014 p. 152; Reference GarrityGarrity 2011). These shorter comics could be produced by a single author who created both words and artwork, in contrast with US print comics, which are usually ‘collectively produced’ (Reference Mag Uidhir, Meskin and CookMag Uidhir 2012 p. 47) as part of ‘an industrial form of art’ (Reference ManouachManouach 2019 p. 5). Many webcomics authors turned these limitations to their advantage, employing the freedom of creating and publishing their own content to explore controversial or niche topics that would have struggled to find acceptance through mainstream print channels (Reference Fenty, Houp and TaylorFenty et al. 2004 p. 2).

The absence of publishers meant that most readers tended to discover early webcomics through word-of-mouth recommendations or fan-created ‘aggregators such as Comic Rocket and Piperka’ (Reference ZhdanovaZhdanova 2021). Creators also organised to promote each other’s works, for example, through reciprocal guest comics, where two or more authors would create episodes in another author’s webcomic (Reference MisemerMisemer 2019a p. 6) or through authors’ collectives such as Hiveworks. These collectives offered creators the chance to achieve greater visibility and to establish a space where reader communities could coalesce into ‘correspondence zones’ where readers and authors could enter into a collaborative dialogue (Reference MisemerMisemer 2019b p. 10) that became fundamental for the webcomics communications circuit (see Section 1.4).

While the freedom to experiment with content and format could empower webcomics creators, securing an income through them proved a challenge. To address it, webcomics creators experimented with aggregation portals that provided access through a subscription model. The most successful was Modern Tales, created in 2001 by author and tech entrepreneur Joey Manley. Modern Tales charged readers a monthly fee in exchange for access to a selection of original webcomics such as Shaenon K. Garrity’s Narbonic, James Kochalka’s American Elf and Lea Hernandez’s Rumble Girls. Hernandez and Manley went on to launch a subscription portal focused on female authors, Girlamatic. As well as including already established authors such as Rachel Hartman and Hernandez, Girlamatic provided the first publishing opportunity for female comics authors such as Raina Telgemeier, C. Spike Trotman, Svetlana Chmakova and Hope Larson, who later secured contracts with print publishers. Despite these promising beginnings, ‘the money was never good’ (Reference GarrityGarrity 2013). The aggregation and subscription model pioneered by Modern Tales and Girlamatic never succeeded in providing a living wage to its featured comics creators, eventually closing down in 2013. Narratives of creative freedom and authorial autonomy in early webcomics must thus be balanced against the difficulties of establishing viable economic models that could enable authors to sustain an enduring career as webcomics creators alone (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 221).

As mentioned above, the rise of social media platforms such as Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram in the 2010s triggered significant changes in webcomics (Reference MisemerMisemer 2019a). Numerous creators switched to these as the main hosting site or at least the main promotional channel for their webcomics. While the ubiquity of social media enabled rapid distribution, creators that relied on them often faced struggles with their restrictions in terms of allowed content and suitability for long-form comics. Artist-focused platforms such as DeviantArt (www.deviantart.com), founded in 2000 to enable artists to share visual content, provided for a while a viable alternative for comics creators wanting to experiment with controversial content, including sexually explicit comics such as Stjepan Šejić’s Sunstone (Reference ŠejićŠejić 2018). Though structured to privilege the upload of standalone rather than sequential images, comics hosted on DeviantArt could act as a portfolio for aspiring creators. The popularity of Sunstone on DeviantArt, for example, persuaded Matt Hawkins, CEO of US publisher Top Cow Comics, an imprint of Image Comics, to publish the series in print, where it established itself as its bestselling graphic novel. Hawkins has noted in particular its appeal to an unprecedented audience, such as ‘women in their mid-30s’, who had never before been prominent among Top Cow customers (Reference Hawkins, Cheung and ŠejićHawkins et al. 2018 p. 123). The publisher proceeded to capitalise on this unexpected success by expanding the publication of Sunstone, which has now reached its seventh volume, and by producing further comics set in the same story world, such as Linda Šejić’s Blood Stain (2016–ongoing) and her collaboration with Hawkins, Jenni Cheung and Yishan Li, Swing (2018–2022). Stjepan and Linda Šejić are an example of ‘hybrid authors’ (Reference SkainsSkains 2019 p. 21) who have been able to use free digital content, such as webcomics, to propel or enhance a career in print. It must, however, be noted that their remarkable success is matched by only a minority of webcomics authors. Most webcomics creators fail to establish a network of similar proportions and gravitate instead towards the growing communities of digitally based, self-employed creatives threading multifarious paths in search of financial sustainability.

During the 2000s, perhaps the most important of such income streams was the hosting of online advertisements on comics websites (Reference AllenAllen 2014 p. 60). Crucial in this process was the establishment of programmes from search engines such as Google AdSense (www.google.com/intl/en_uk/adsense/start/). While this model was widespread, webcomics sites hosted online advertisements, usually placed on the margins of the page, such as being positioned as a banner above or below the main creative content. Their hosting paid creators a fee based on the number of ad impressions (how many times an ad is downloaded to a device), clickthrough rates (the number of readers who proceed to click on the advertisements) and conversions (actions performed on the advertiser’s website as a result of following the link). For comics with high readership figures, the revenue from advertisements could provide a useful baseline income. The potential of this revenue stream led comics creator Ryan North to launch a webcomics-specific online advertising service, Project Wonderful, in 2006, which until its closure enabled creators to publish unobtrusive, targeted ads on their comics’ website, something North hoped could benefit both creators and publishers. This approach was challenged from the mid-2010s by the development of adblocker software, which prevented ads from being loaded into users’ computers, thus reducing advertising income to negligible figures even for successful comics. Webcomics creator Rich Burlew, for example, remarked that for his comic Order of the Stick (discussed in greater detail in this section) ‘advertising revenue dropped off to zero a year or so ago’ (2020). These developments led to the demise of Project Wonderful in 2018.

Another income stream embraced early on by webcomics creators was merchandising sales, especially in the shape of t-shirts and other objects derived from the comic (Reference AllenAllen 2014 p. 56). Specialised companies, such as TopatoCo, arose to enable the production and distribution of these objects and continue trading to this day (https://topatoco.com/). These forms of monetisation proved popular in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but by the middle of the decade they too had witnessed a decline, as visible, for example, through the income figures posted yearly by webcomic creators such as Dorothy Gambrell, author of Cat and Girl, between 2010 and 2016 (see Reference GambrellGambrell 2017) and Ryan Estrada (see Reference DavisDavis 2012). Another income stream, the sale of original comics artwork, is often precluded to webcomics creators by their reliance on digital processes. As intrinsically born-digital works, the main components of a webcomic, such as script, line artwork, colours, and balloons, are produced through digital drawing and writing tools only, without a material antecedent. There is therefore no ‘original’ drawing that can be sold to dedicated readers and collectors. The only exception are artworks traded with readers who participate in the burgeoning circuit of comics conventions, where webcomics authors are making increasingly frequent appearances.

From the 2010s, webcomic creators began to place a greater reliance on direct financing from small but dedicated reader communities. Two of the most successful strategies to date include ‘subscription-based’ and ‘rewards-based’ crowdfunding (Reference DowthwaiteDowthwaite 2017 pp. 61–2). With subscription micropayments, readers contribute small amounts directly to the author, usually on an ongoing basis. The chief platforms for subscriptions are Patreon, founded in 2013, and Substack, created in 2017. Creators usually offer several subscription tiers, with additional rewards such as early access and additional content, for example, sexually explicit ‘not safe for work’ (NSFW) materials, as an enticement to higher contributions. The main goal of subscription remains the generation of a reliable baseline income for the creator rather than the provision of a specific product. This is instead the remit of rewards-based crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, which are principally employed to finance the creation of tangible objects, such as volumes collecting a sequence of issues in print, or specific items of merchandise. The advantage for authors of employing platforms like Kickstarter lies in their ability to verify the extent of their financial backing before embarking on the onerous processes of publishing and distribution. If a collected volume does not reach its funding target, it is not printed, and all money is returned to the prospective backers. The crowdfunding campaign that above all demonstrated the viability of this income stream for webcomics was conducted in 2012 by Rich Burlew, creator since 2004 of the webcomic Order of the Stick, which focuses on the apparently niche world of fantasy roleplaying games (www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html). Burlew was able to raise $1.2 million to republish in print the content of his free webcomic, breaking previous records for the amount raised by creative projects and showing other creators that ‘the whole “free content” model’ (Reference CavnaCavna 2012) had significant potential. The success of Burlew’s campaign also brought into sharper relief to the mainstream media the ability of webcomics to configure a communications circuit that is alternative to that of print comics. The next section will discuss how this circuit bears numerous resemblances to the digital publishing communications circuit highlighted by Padmini Ray Murray and Clare Squires (Reference Ray Murray and SquiresRay Murray and Squires 2013) and to the evolution of digital authorship outlined by Skains (Reference SkainsSkains 2019).

1.4 The Webcomics Communication Circuit

In the webcomics communication circuit, authors begin by publishing their content for free on the internet, usually through self-hosted websites. Webcomics authors enable and indeed solicit reader participation in processes such as editing, distribution, promotion and financing in a complex ‘reshaping of roles’ that has been described for books by Ray Murray and Squires (Reference Ray Murray and Squires2013 pp. 16–8) and for comics by Misemer (Reference MisemerMisemer 2019b p. 10). Webcomics instantiate this model by, on the one hand, fragmenting the various phases of Darnton’s circuit, as there is no centralized oversight by any organisation. On the other hand, webcomics rely on a ‘blending of creation and experience’ for the readers, who combine reading with engagement and reflection through, for example, social media activity, as articulated by Antonini, Brooker and Benatti (Reference Antonini, Brooker, Benatti, Bosser, Millard and HargoodAntonini et al. 2020 p. 297). The success of webcomics depends in part on the ability of authors to involve a base of dedicated and committed readers, who are willing to support the author in a relationship that sits between quasi-patronage and co-authorship. Webcomics readers cannot purchase physical artefacts with the same ease as print comics readers, but they can lend their support through other behaviours, such as regular reading, engagement through a variety of social media, and financial provision. This involvement with different phases of authorial production builds upon the foundational role that comics reading occupies in the creation of identities among their public, as discussed by Reference Cedeira SerantesCedeira Serantes (2019 p. 83). This strategy of continuous, two-way reader involvement is the cornerstone of the webcomics communications circuit and makes full use of their affordances.

First among them is the combination of reader involvement with serialisation, enabling frequent publication that receives almost immediate feedback from readers, for example, through comments or social media activities. Comics can be a serial medium irrespective of whether they are printed or digital. They differ from other serial media, such as television, by usually including an element of work-in-progress. A television serial is generally released in seasons composed of multiple episodes, whose filming and production are fully completed before their release to the public. In a print periodical comic, readers encounter the work at fixed intervals, usually monthly. Each instalment of a print comic has been fully finished before its release to the public, though the entire larger series or story arc it forms part of may not be completed before the first instalment is released. The publishing cycles of webcomics are even more accelerated. Shorter publication schedules, such as on a ‘daily or weekly’ (Reference Antonini, Brooker, Benatti, Bosser, Millard and HargoodAntonini et al. 2020 p. 289) basis, are preferred, through forms of continuous, rapid serialisation. Once certain milestones have been reached, such as a given number of pages or the conclusion of a story arc, the work-in-progress may be collected in formats such as digital or printed volumes. This frequent publishing schedule contributes to the heavy involvement of webcomics creators in the formation of parasocial relationships, imagined relationships that consumers have with the producers of content (Reference Horton and WohlHorton and Wohl 1956). In the case of webcomics, these relationships are usually expressed through the creators’ social media presence, where maintenance of an online persona becomes an expectation for readers and a requirement for authors. This shift to a more creator-centric approach therefore leverages the desire for continuous connection and interaction between readers and creators, which is also evident in other sections of the ‘digital literary sphere’ (Reference MurrayMurray 2015 pp. 322–3) and in the digital creative economy more broadly.

The second significant affordance for webcomics readers is their ability to inscribe their own interpretations on the very same page that contains the author’s utterances (Reference Liu, Price and SiemensLiu 2013). Avenues for these responses are, for example, comments in the margin of the comics page or even upon the page itself (such as in Japanese tsukkomi). In the resulting multiplicity of voices, the pronouncements from the readers surpass those by the author in quantity, if not in authority, and contribute to the creation of a communications circuit that is based on a decentralised, distributed and hypertextual model, rather than a hierarchical one. Through the digital webcomics circuit, readers take therefore on the feedback role traditionally ascribed to critics. They acquire the ability to target their observations with unprecedented granularity and rapidity, making their influence felt on the author before a webcomic series is even completed.

The third affordance of webcomics is their capacity to decentralise those editorial and financial activities that, in a print circuit, would fall under the remit of the publisher. As independent publications, self-published webcomics are not overseen by professional editors but are often supported by ‘self-organised volunteers or para-professional groups’ who coagulate from the reading public (Reference Antonini, Brooker, Benatti, Bosser, Millard and HargoodAntonini et al. 2020 p. 291). Readers’ roles range from the formal or informal feedback mentioned above, to proofreading, translation into other languages and word-of-mouth marketing through social media. Subscription-based and reward-based crowdfunding projects provide readers with the ability to spread the onus of supporting their favourite authors across a wider community. This condition resembles the subscription publishing models employed by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors and publishers (Reference Findlay, Suarez and WoudhuysenFindlay 2010), though, in the digital age, it is characterised by faster turnaround times and a more globalised subscriber base. To succeed at crowdfunding, authors need to rely on a combination of factors including their social media skills, their status or recognition and their project’s artistic style, which can entice and attract supporters (Reference Pereira de Carvalho, Brienza and JohnstonPereira de Carvalho 2016 p. 255). Even in the more level playing field of webcomics, novice authors experience greater difficulties than more established ones, who already possess ‘cultural capital’ and recognition (Reference Pereira de Carvalho, Brienza and JohnstonPereira de Carvalho 2016 p. 261).

Furthermore, the use of digital technologies for the creation, distribution and fruition of webcomics introduces challenges to their long-term access and preservation. With no material equivalent to fall back on, webcomics are ephemeral and at an even greater risk of disappearance than the already fragile periodical comics. This situation is again not a complete novelty. Nineteenth-century periodicals, which were arguably the first mass media, were similarly perceived as ‘ephemeral’ commodities (Reference Beetham, Brake, Jones and MaddenBeetham 1990 p. 19) not meant for preservation but for short-term perusal only. It was chiefly by being published in book format that the novels and essays they contained managed to reach a form of stability across time, to the extent that the serial origin of numerous Victorian works is often forgotten. Webcomics have only recently been included in their native digital format within long-term preservation initiatives, such as those undertaken by the British Library (Reference AggletonAggleton 2019), the Library of Congress (Library of Congress 2014) and the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation n.d.), but it is likely that the majority of webcomics are not yet covered by their remit.

When evaluated in its entirety, the webcomics communications circuit grants authors of self-published webcomics almost complete creative autonomy, the chance to establish direct contact with their audiences, freedom from the punishing deadlines of print comics, and an absence of gatekeepers that can bar entry into the field. The price to pay for such freedoms is, however, quite high. The absence of a publisher means no structure for regular remuneration, which can be offset only through a reliance on indirect and uncertain payments such as advertisements and crowdfunding. Additionally, self-hosted webcomics creators must undertake the potentially onerous activities of website maintenance and reader comment moderation, which have costs both in money and time. If they decide to print some of their creations, they must manage their printing and distribution workloads. Creators who rely on social media platforms for the hosting and distribution of their comics need to comply with their restrictions, which may constrain or ban certain types of content and reintroduce limits on their expression. The final and perhaps most significant challenge for independent webcomics creators is visibility, as authors cannot rely on established promotion mechanisms or on the prestige of specific publishers and have no clear avenues for emerging from within busy social media platforms.

1.5 Webtoons in Korea: Historical Context

The webtoon format of webcomics (see Section 1.2.3) originated in South Korea in the early 2000s as a result of a convergence of technological, social and economic factors. In the late twentieth century, the Korean comics market was dominated by natively produced manhwa, usually distributed to readers through manhwabangs stores specialising in lending rather than selling comics (Reference Yecies and ShimYecies and Shim 2021 p. 27). The existence of restrictions on manhwa content, such as the Juvenile Protection Act of 1997, and the elimination of import barriers in 1998 opened up the Korean market to the influx of Japanese manga, which proved extremely successful with readers (Reference Kim and KimKim 2022 p. 73). Coupled with the practice of scanlation (the illegal digitisation, online distribution and translation of manga), the South Korean comics industry suffered a series of severe blows. A number of technology start-ups in the 2000s began to develop systems and formats that would allow born-digital webcomics to be read and sold online. While the term ‘webtoon’ was coined by the search engine Chollian in 2000 (Reference Yecies and ShimYecies and Shim 2021 p. 5), it was the creation of the Daum Comics World platform in 2003 that marked ‘a game changing moment’ for the world of webtoons (Reference Lee and In-SooLee and In-Soo 2022), transforming it from amateur pastime into a commercially viable enterprise. The first longform webtoon, Kang Full’s Love Story, was published on Daum to achieve over 60 million page views. A rival platform, Naver WEBTOON, was launched in 2005 by search engine Naver, quickly establishing itself as Daum’s main competitor.

After initially viewing webtoons as loss leaders, Naver WEBTOON and Daum gradually ‘aggregated audiences’ to their webtoon portals (Reference Kim and YuKim and Yu 2019 p. 4). Monetisation strategies followed, with Daum introducing a ‘pay-to-read’ (Reference Yecies and ShimYecies and Shim 2021 p. 82) scheme for its most popular webtoons, including those created by Kang Full. Naver WEBTOON opted instead for a free-to-read approach funded through online advertisements, beginning in 2013 to share a percentage of advertisement revenue with webtoon creators (Reference Kim and YuKim and Yu 2019 p. 7).

The regulatory regime on comics was relaxed with the passing of the 2011 Promotion of Cartoons Act (Reference Yecies and ShimYecies and Shim 2021 p. 47), just as the advent of smartphones and their widespread diffusion, especially among teenagers and young adults, forced the reorientation of the Korean IT industry towards mobile services (Reference KimKim 2023 p. 422). Naver and Daum’s webtoon portals too shifted towards mobile delivery. Daum’s merger with mobile services company Kakao in 2014 allowed the newly formed Daum/Kakao company to expand this strategy founded on miribogi microtransactions (Reference ChoCho 2021 p. 80) to include webnovels as well as webtoons. In parallel with these developments, the major webtoon portals all established their dedicated mobile apps as the main locus for the fruition and monetisation of their webtoon content in the early to mid 2010s. Daum/Kakao refined its monetisation strategy to a ‘free-if-you-wait’ approach, where older episodes of webtoons are released for free while newer ones can be unlocked through payment, while Naver WEBTOON introduced a similar ‘Fast Pass’ paid access for the most recent episodes of their comics, which then become free to read within 3–6 weeks of release.

The popularity of webtoons was also increased by several high-profile adaptations into K-drama television series and films on Korean channels such as tvN and JTBC and on streaming platforms such as Netflix for international audiences. Examples include Cho Gwang-jin’s Itaewon Class (2016–18), serialised on Daum/Kakao, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed series distributed globally by Netflix, or Yumi’s Cells, serialised by Lee Dong-gun on Naver WEBTOON in 2015–2020 and adapted by TVING in 2020. Other recent TV series adapted from WEBTOON and Daum/Kakao include horror titles such as All of Us Are Dead, Sweet Home and Hellbound, Dr. Brain for Apple TV+ and True Beauty for Rakuten Viki. The acquisition by WEBTOON of the online writing platform Wattpad in 2021 and by Daum/Kakao of the Tapas and Radish serialised content platforms has the explicit aim of creating content-production conglomerates that can facilitate this type of transmedia creative journey. A recent advertising campaign by WEBTOON (June 2022) focused explicitly on the multimedia nexus of webcomics, print and streaming, featuring slogans such as ‘we’re the story before it streams’ (Reference MacDonaldMacDonald 2022a). Adaptation of successful intellectual properties also flows in the opposite direction, with prominent webnovels such as Solo Levelling, released first on Daum/Kakao, being adapted into a webtoon series that has accrued over 14 billion page views and earned ‘over £25 million in revenue’ (Reference Lee and In-SooLee and In-Soo 2022), or the recently launched adaptation of TV series Extraordinary Attorney Woo into a webtoon hosted by WEBTOON (Reference YimYim 2022).

2.1 Female Authors and Readers in US Comics and Manga

Comics are still perceived as associated with a ‘predominantly heterosexual male authorship and readership’ (Reference CoccaCocca 2016 p. 11). However, these views do not reflect in full either the history of English-language comics or its most recent developments. Work by comics scholars such as Trina Robbins and by projects such as ‘She Changed Comics’ by the Comic Book League Defense Fund have revealed the fundamental contributions of female comics creators across multiple periods and formats (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund 2015). These include female authors in genres that comprise action comics, such as Dale Messick and Tarpe Mills (Reference RobbinsRobbins 2013 pp. 63–4); romance comics, such as Ruth Atkinson and Lily Renée (Reference RobbinsRobbins 2013 p. 108); and superhero comics, including pioneers such as Marie Severin and Ramona Fradon (Reference RobbinsRobbins 2013 p. 120). Female creators have experimented with content and form outside mainstream comics publishing, for example, in feminist anthologies edited by Trina Robbins and Aline Kominsky amongst others; in influential independent comics, such as Wendy Pini’s Elfquest (Reference RobbinsRobbins 2013 pp. 135–6); in expanding the genre of the graphic narrative autobiography, such as in works by Marjane Satrapi and Alison Bechdel (Reference ChuteChute 2010 p. 18); in gaining visibility and status within Japanese and global manga, for example, in the careers of Ryoko Ikeda, Moto Hagio and Rumiko Takahashi (Reference LunningLunning 2015); and in employing webcomics to transform comics industries. Notable nonbinary and trans creators are also at the forefront of these movements, including authors such as Rachel Pollack, Jocelyn Samara (Reference HatfieldHatfield 2015 p. 60), Maia Kobabe, Crystal Frasier and webcomic creators such as The Kao and Pseudonym Jones (Beat Staff 2022).

While it is difficult to quantify female and nonbinary authorship of webcomics, some attempts have been made for US print comics, which suggest that female and nonbinary participation in authorship is still far from equal. Published statistics for both authors and readers are even more difficult to find for traits that extend beyond gender identity, such as sexual orientation and ethnic background. This situation leads to an unfortunate flattening of diversity, with ‘female’ too often becoming synonymous with all non-male, non-white, non-cis and non-heterosexual workers in the comics industry. It is not the author’s intention to elide these categories, which, moreover, are not mutually exclusive, but to acknowledge the limitations of existing scholarship and to define a field for the current study.

One report that does recognise LGBT+ creators is Benjamin Woo’s survey of 570 comics professionals in the US, which he conducted in 2013–4. It reveals that at that point in the mid-2010s male creators still constituted 74.5 percent of the surveyed comics workforce. As well as being fewer in number (25.5 percent), female and nonbinary creators were more likely to be employed in more precarious, less remunerative roles. Woo also asked his respondents about their sexual orientation, revealing that 10 percent of male creators and 37.2 percent of female and nonbinary creators identified as homosexual, bisexual or other (Reference Woo, Woo and StollWoo 2021 p. 13).

Besides this survey, quantifications of the gender composition of the comics workforce are limited at the moment to superhero publishers Marvel and DC. Tim Hanley’s quarterly survey, the most recent of which is dated autumn 2020, evaluates that in October 2020, 35 percent of DC Comics (Reference HanleyHanley 2020a) and 30 percent of Marvel Comics (Reference HanleyHanley 2020b) published in those months included at least one female or nonbinary creator. To be noted, Hanley’s definition of authorship is quite capacious and ranges to both writers and artists, including artists working on covers only, and to editors and assistant editors. In previous assessments, which employed a different methodology, Hanley measured that, on average, only 16.5 percent of DC and 16.3 percent of Marvel creators were female or nonbinary in the period January 2016 to March 2019. During this same period, these percentages never rose above 19.7 percent for DC and 18.8 percent for Marvel. Even if these far from equal distributions represent an improvement on the almost exclusively male (and white) comics world of the early 1990s (Reference MacDonaldMacDonald 2020c), they nonetheless suggest that female and nonbinary creators are still a minority within the two largest US publishers of periodical comics.

This dispiriting picture must be balanced with evidence from comics publishers beyond DC and Marvel, who are making efforts to include a more diverse range of creators. For example, Image Comics from the 2010s have provided a platform for female creators working in genres beyond superheroes. Chief among them are creators such as artist Fiona Staples, the first woman to win the Eisner Award for Best Artist for Saga in 2015 and writer Marjorie Liu, the first woman to win the Eisner Award for Best Writer for Monstress in 2018. Image’s creator-owned publication model, where authors retain the copyright of their comics, makes it more receptive to submissions from aspiring authors than its competitors, Marvel and DC. New publishers or publishing lines have also emerged that showcase female and nonbinary creators. Boom! Studios established its mark through comics aimed at an audience outside of the main male fan base, such as the Eisner-winning Lumberjanes (2014–20), the work of female, trans and nonbinary authors such as ND Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh. The Berger Books imprint of Dark Horse Comics, led by former DC editor Karen Berger, has published comics by established female creators coming from other comics publishers, such as G. Willow Wilson’s Invisible Kingdom, Eisner Award winner for Best New Series in 2020, or from other media, such as Africanfuturism author Nnedi Okorafor’s LaGuardia, winner of a Hugo Award and an Eisner Award in 2021. Other publishers such as IDW have also given prominence to female creators on their most prominent comics, such as the all-female teams led by Mairghread Scott on Transformers and Heather Nuhfer and Amy Mebberson on My Little Pony (2012–16). Even publishers specialising in superheroes such as DC and Marvel have begun to include more female creators, such as Gail Simone, Kelly Sue DeConnick, G. Willow Wilson, Kelly Thompson, Mariko Tamaki and Tini Howard. Editors such as Sana Amanat, co-creator with G. Willow Wilson of the Hugo Award-winning Ms Marvel and now Head of Content and Character Development at Marvel, are a further driver of change within superhero comics. Amanat and Marvel editors and authors, Ellie Pyle, Angélique Roché and Judy Stephens, for example, launched, in 2014, the Women of Marvel podcast series, which is also represented through well-attended panels at the most prominent comics conventions, including the San Diego and New York Comic Cons, and has a dedicated page on the official Marvel website (Marvel Comics n.d.).

It must be noted that despite these tentative signs of inclusion, female and nonbinary creators in superhero comics have contended with backlashes from sections of the entrenched male fan base, who have protested vehemently against these perceived encroachments upon their territory and against the inclusion of more diverse characters in their favourite comics (Reference DonnellyDonnelly 2019). Certain male comics executives, such as Marvel’s vice president of sales, David Gabriel, moreover, have in the past blamed declining sales numbers on publishers’ attempts to increase the diversity of characters and readers (Reference CainCain 2017). The statistics mentioned above also obscure to an extent the vibrancy of comics created by nonbinary, genderqueer and trans creators, who are using comics and webcomics in particular to construct new spaces and communities (Reference GalvanGalvan 2018 p. 433).

Looking beyond periodical comics, the advent in the English-speaking world of translations from Japanese manga comics also marked a decided shift in the number and visibility of more diverse creators. The US was a relative latecomer to the manga boom, which had already touched European comics markets such as Italy and France, as highlighted, for example, by Reference Pellitteri, Bouissou, Fratta, Martorella and SuvilayMarco Pellitteri (2008 pp. 359–74). What differentiated English translations of manga quite markedly from superhero comics was their skipping of the periodical phase in the communications circuit to reach the public directly in graphic novel format. To be more precise, the periodical phase of manga comics takes place in the original Japanese context, where manga are serialised in short episodes through weekly or monthly periodicals. The most successful series are then collated into volumes known as tankōbon and go through a second circulation in book format. Mangaka authors generally work in small studios with teams of assistants, whom they pay through the fixed per-page remuneration received from manga periodicals during the serialisation of their titles. Such compensation is generally insufficient to cover all expenses, often exposing mangaka to serious financial strain (Reference Sato and LuffeySato 2013). Only if their comic is successful enough to warrant publication as a tankōbon do mangaka see their earnings increase, allowing them to secure a firmer financial status (Reference Okeda, Rousmaniere and MatsubaOkeda 2019 p. 274). US manga publishers such as Tokyopop and Viz Media opted to translate tankōbon instead of periodicals and to distribute them through book trade channels rather than comics stores, especially ‘bookstore chains’ (Reference BrienzaBrienza 2016 pp. 52–8) such as Waldenbooks, Barnes and Nobles and Borders, the latter of which, until its demise in 2008, represented the main outlet for manga sales in the US market.

The very healthy comics sales of 2020 and 2021, especially in manga and graphic novels (Reference GrieppGriepp 2022), suggest there is a public for comics written by more diverse creators, or that at least publishers are increasingly aware of the potential of what Henry Jenkins has labelled ‘affective economics’. By providing products that ‘commodify’ the tastes of groups previously seen as marginal, cultural content industries can expand their market reach. In turn, the groups whose tastes are commodified, such a female comics readers, are exposed to a form of exploitation but also gain greater visibility within the industry (Reference JenkinsJenkins 2006a pp. 61–2). For comics, publishers are attempting to respond to the expansion of a previously niche market by diversifying their offerings and addressing these new audiences (Reference ReshaResha 2020 p. 68). The diversification in terms of sales outlets is also benefiting female, nonbinary and marginalised readers, who are able to feel welcomed in comics communications circuits and to take active roles within them, especially in the case of webcomics (see below).

2.2 Female Readers and Authors in Webcomics

The audience of comics is, according to some studies, almost equally divided between male and female readers (Reference SchenkerSchenker 2021). However, female readers in mainstream US comics culture still report feeling ‘stigmatised’ (Reference OrmeOrme 2016 p. 411) and excluded, or perceiving themselves as ‘squatters’ within the comics world (Reference Cedeira SerantesCedeira Serantes 2019 p. 37). If the object of scrutiny shifts from liking comics to actually purchasing them, the percentage of female readers drops to 37 percent of the comics and graphic novels market (Reference AlversonAlverson 2017). In some sections of the comics market, such as translated manga, female readers have, however, found content produced for an audience that is expected to be ‘mostly female’ or ‘taking a female perspective’, as testified by their composing 44 percent of manga buyers in 2017 (Reference AlversonAlverson 2017). The perception of manga as valuing feminine perspectives is credited with positive psychological impacts (Reference Erik-Soussi and BrienzaErik-Soussi 2015 p. 25) on female participation in the whole US comics market. This involvement often begins within forums, social media and other locales for digital social reading (Reference PianzolaPianzola 2021), which allow female and marginalised comics readers to configure themselves into a counterpublic that interrogates dominant discourses and media (Reference Galvan and MisemerGalvan and Misemer 2019 p. 2). Within webcomics, these counterpublics become part of ‘correspondence zones’ (Reference MisemerMisemer 2019b p. 10) that involve readers in various roles in the communications circuit (see Section 1.4).

Because of the participatory circuits of webcomics (see Section1.2.2), a number of marginalised female and nonbinary readers are employing them to shift from consumer to producer, from ‘object of looking’ to ‘creator of looking and sight’ (Reference ChuteChute 2010 p. 2). The US and Japan differ in how this ‘collective creativity’ (Reference Erik-Soussi and BrienzaErik-Soussi 2015 p. 31) enters the communications circuit. In Japan, this happens primarily through dōjinshi fan comics, while in the US fanfiction, fan art and webcomics play a similar role. Self-published dōjinshi comics are a participatory medium that is particularly embraced by non-professional female creators, who can produce and distribute unconventional or innovative content outside the control of commercial publishers through specialised bookstores (Reference DahlanDahlan 2022 p. 7) and face-to-face conventions such as Komiket (Reference Yasuda, Satomi, Rousmaniere and MatsubaYasuda and Satomi 2019 pp. 268–71). Prominent female mangaka such as Rumiko Takahashi and the CLAMP collective launched thriving creative careers by debuting within dōjinshi that attracted mainstream publishers’ attention, a route that enabled ‘many female artists in the 1970s’ to achieve publication (Reference OrbaughOrbaugh 2003 p. 116). Dōjinshi allow aspiring manga authors to inhabit a ‘prosumer’ space that is intermediate between amateurism and professionalism (Reference SkainsSkains 2019 p. 5).

In the US, several noteworthy female and nonbinary creators have used webcomics as a pipeline for their emergence into the US comics publishing industries (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 218) by demonstrating the existence of a public that did not fit with mainstream superhero publishing (Reference ScottScott 2013 para. 2.4). The career of Faith Erin Hicks, for example, was significantly enhanced by her webcomic Demonology 101 (Reference Erik-Soussi and BrienzaErik-Soussi 2015 p. 38). C. Spike Trotman was able to build upon her webcomic Templar, Arizona, to edit and crowdfund several comics anthologies, eventually establishing her own publishing company, Iron Circus Comics (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 221). Webcomics have proved particularly empowering for marginalised creators, who have been able to use them to share content that addresses the concerns and reflects the perspectives of minoritized communities, such as members of the trans community (Reference jackson and Stewart-Taylorjackson and Stewart-Taylor 2020).

2.3 The Platformisation of the WEBTOON Communications Circuit

Such narratives of success must always be balanced by the uncertainties of webcomics communications circuits. The lack of gatekeepers does enable fluidity of content, styles and genres (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 221), but the absence of a publishing infrastructure is reflected in the struggle of authors through multiple uncertain paths to financial sustainability (see Section 1.4). Korean webtoons have developed instead within a more structured trajectory from reader to amateur to professional creator through the expansion of webtoon platforms that exert control of every phase of the communications circuit.

Scholars indicate that ‘platformisation’ is the transformation of a limited number of content platforms ‘from social network sites into social media platforms’. This process has caused social media to become ‘the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web’ (Reference HelmondHelmond 2015 p. 1). Globally, the most influential content platforms are those owned by the so-called ‘GAFAM’ (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) in the US and Europe, or by the ‘three kingdoms’ or ‘BAT’ (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) of the Chinese internet. Through their pervasiveness, these platforms shape content production into formats that are congenial to their drive for the collection and connection of web data, which has to be adapted for the platforms’ format requirements in order to gain visibility and distribution through them (Reference HelmondHelmond 2015). The cultural industries have also been affected by the same phenomena, as ‘platform practices … shape cultural production’ (Reference Duffy, Poell and NieborgDuffy et al. 2019 p. 2). Platforms such as YouTube, Twitch and TikTok are providing a stage for new and potentially more diverse creators and content to emerge, while at the same time monetising the free labour of the unpaid authors and viewers who upload, share and comment through the infrastructures they provide. As mentioned in Section 1.5, the most significant webtoon platforms in South Korea are Naver WEBTOON and Daum/Kakao. Together these portals and their monetisation, strategies have drastically changed how comics ‘are perceived, consumed and understood’ in South Korea (Reference ChoCho 2021 p. 89). Parent companies Daum and Naver initially hosted webcomics as an addendum to their portals, which are part of their largely successful drive to achieve dominance in several market fields. Korean users of Daum and Naver, for example, can perform numerous daily tasks, such as web search, messaging, deliveries, as well as reading webtoons and web novels, through a single portal that offers multiple services. Most of them rely on insecurely employed gig workers (Reference KimKim 2023 p. 420) who receive limited remuneration while driving large profits for the parent companies.

This model has been extended to cultural fields such as webcomics production. The remarkable successes of webtoon platforms within the domestic Korean market have increased their visibility within public discourse. It has led to establishment of webcomics as ‘one of the major cultural forms representing Korean youth culture’ (Reference JinJin 2015). The recentring of the whole webtoon industry on a small number of platforms has enabled quasi-governmental institutions such as the Korea Creative Agency (KOCCA), the Korea Cartoonists Association and the Korean Manwha Contents Agency (KOMACON) (Reference ChoCho 2021 pp. 85–7) to become actively involved in the shaping of webtoon production, for example, using them to channel funding provided through the 2012 Promotion of Cartoons Act (Reference Yecies and ShimYecies and Shim 2021 p. 72). The South Korean state has embraced webtoons as a valuable cultural output and as a fundamental component of the so-called ‘hallyu’ or ‘Korean Wave’, which employs ‘soft power’ to promote Korean cultural and industrial outputs. At the time of writing, the Main Business section of KOCCA ranks comics third in its priority after Music and Games and ahead of Animation and Broadcasting (KOCCA Korea Creative Content Agency n.d.). Webtoons now form part of a multifaceted system with K-pop music, K-drama film and television, and a growing computer game and esports sector. It could be argued that webtoons have become, through platformisation, commodities that are appreciated by these Korean state agencies more for their economic than their cultural value (Reference ChoCho 2021 p. 88).

Within this context, Naver WEBTOON decided to launch a US subsidiary, Line WEBTOON, in 2014. With the hope of increasing its reach in the American and European markets, Naver made the Los Angeles-based WEBTOON Entertainment ‘the main unit for its webtoon business’ (Reference ParkPark 2020), subordinating its flourishing Korean and Japanese subsidiaries to it in 2020. Now simply called WEBTOON, Naver’s English-language arm has become one of the world’s largest comics publishers (Reference StefanelliStefanelli 2021). With these international subsidiaries for Naver WEBTOON and similarly for Daum/Kakao, webtoons ceased to be a primarily Korean phenomenon and began to acquire visibility in United States and European news outlets (Reference Davies and SongDavies and Song 2022; Reference Gustines and StevensGustines and Stevens 2022). Both companies have invested heavily in English-language webtoons, both translated from Korean and original, and have established an English-language webtoon communications circuit that is located in its entirety within the platform, like its Korean antecedents. WEBTOON’s strategy comprises all the key elements that the webcomics communications circuit shares with the fields of self-publishing and fanfiction (Reference Ramdarshan BoldRamdarshan Bold 2018; Reference SkainsSkains 2019), such as micropayments, participatory audience engagement mechanisms and the opportunity for readers to become creators, but deploys them within a platformisation model (Reference Kim and YuKim and Yu 2019).

As currently configured (2022), the English-language WEBTOON platform comprises two sections: a hosting platform named WEBTOON Canvas and a selection of curated comics, known as WEBTOON Originals, that are produced by creators who are in receipt of regular payments from WEBTOON. The subsections below will analyse in greater depth the operations of WEBTOON Canvas and WEBTOON Originals.

2.4 Evaluation

Webcomics have served as a springboard for the professional careers of numerous female, nonbinary and LGBT+ creators, thanks to the counterpublics and correspondence zones that are enabled by the expressive freedoms of the medium. WEBTOON authors, especially beginners, inhabit a space that is suspended between amateurism and professionalism. They are likely to have emerged from the ranks of an increasingly diverse comics-reading public and have taken their first steps to authorship through webcomics and free hosting platforms such as WEBTOON Canvas. They have sacrificed some of the affordances of a fully independent webcomics circuit, such as complete expressive freedom and a direct relationship with their public. In exchange, they may have obtained a more regular remuneration and the potential to be seen by an audience that numbers in the millions and extends to the whole globe. Can this relentless process of platformisation help more diverse creators and comics to emerge?

Section 3 identifies the most successful comics on WEBTOON Originals and examines their genre, comparing them to US print comics. It discusses and quantifies the gender breakdown of the most popular WEBTOON Originals authors and asks whether the WEBTOON platform, despite its control on the webtoon communications circuit, still promotes creativity and offers opportunities for more diverse creators. Do webtoons still open up ‘new spaces for expressions’ (Reference Duffy, Poell and NieborgDuffy et al. 2019 p. 3), even when the fluidity and openness of webcomics is channelled through a corporate platform?

3.1 Introduction: The WEBTOON Disruption

This study argues that one of the most significant innovations brought by webtoon publishers, such as WEBTOON and Tapas/Kakao, lies in their enabling a select number of female and nonbinary creators to achieve commercial success, or at least in providing a potential path to do so. While platforms such as WEBTOON and Tapas/Kakao do impose certain of the controls that are typical of publishers, such as content restrictions in the comics they publish, their heuristics are not identical to those of US superhero comics. There are no established celebrity authors (yet) in webtoons, no characters or titles that are guaranteed to attract millions of readers. Decisions on whether to contract or promote a title depend, ostensibly, on an author’s success in engaging an audience, as measured through a combination of audience metrics (see Section 2.3.1). In order to understand the ‘author incubation’ system that is integral to platformisation, a range of these measurements, such as page views, likes, subscriptions and ratings, will be used by this study to attempt a quantification of diversity of gender and genre in WEBTOON Originals.

This section focuses on WEBTOON in its position as the largest English-language platform for webtoons. The digital availability of webtoons allows the use of a combination of qualitative methods based on close reading and quantitative ones based on larger-scale data collection to address certain research questions. Data on readership and engagement is shared publicly by WEBTOON on its own platform, providing apparently greater immediacy than the sales figures released for print comics, which are filtered through intermediaries such as Diamond Comic Distributors or Circana Bookscan (formerly Nielsen Bookscan). A recent change in Terms and Conditions for WEBTOON (WEBTOON 2023b), however, prohibits data acquisition from their site through automated means such as webscraping, which casts a question mark over future availability of this type of data for research (see Section 3.2.1 and Section 4 for further discussion).

Section 3 analyses and interprets the data gathered from WEBTOON Originals on over 800 comics. It adopts this ‘meso’ scale (Reference MurrayMurray 2022) as arguably the most appropriate lens for balancing concerns of representativeness and reproducibility with a Humanities and Book History focus on in-depth studies. It does so by discussing the entire research process, from research modelling to data collection, data cleaning, structuring and analysis to interpretation and evaluation.

The figures reported in market analyses of US print comics such as Batman or Spider-Man, which reach monthly sales in the hundreds of thousands, are for individual instalments of ongoing comics. Multiplying monthly figures by 12 months suggests that the most successful superhero comics achieve yearly ‘page views’ of over one billion. Mid-range comics such as Marvel’s Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse (2022), with estimated monthly sales of around 48,000 in April 2022 (Comichron 2022), still accrue yearly sales of millions of copies. The equivalent page views achieved by 825 WEBTOON Originals comics are cumulative over the 8 years the platform has been in operation. Their total numbers, as will be shown below, must be examined within this context. When it is remembered that the majority of the WEBTOON titles are by newcomers to the English-language market, the noteworthiness of their achievement is, however, increased. It is extremely unlikely, for example, that new and untested creators, especially if female or nonbinary, would be entrusted with authoring the most popular superhero comics such as Batman or Spider-Man. It is more probable that they would begin with titles from a smaller publisher that is open to diverse authors, such as Boom! Studios or IDW. These would have lower monthly sales, and therefore monthly page views in the low tens of thousands or low hundreds of thousands on a yearly basis. Such series would operate in a somewhat more precarious space, with lower remuneration and a more uncertain future.

The WEBTOON Originals homepage (https://www.webtoons.com/en/dailySchedule) lists all the comics that WEBTOON has published under this imprint. They are divided between ‘Ongoing’ and ‘Completed’ Series. Ongoing Series are presented in further subdivisions by day of weekly publication. At the date of scraping in the third quarter of 2022, WEBTOON Originals was hosting a total of 825 series, of which 360 were ‘Completed’ and the remaining 465 were ongoing. The extremely rapid addition of new series makes the task of monitoring and quantifying WEBTOON and its practices quite complex, potentially requiring frequent resampling. For example, in a previous sampling conducted in 2021, WEBTOON Originals was hosting a total of 598 series, with therefore a year-on-year increase of over 200 series. The totals used in this Element are based on a survey conducted in autumn 2022, subject to the Disclaimer at the start of this Element.

The focus on quantitative metrics provides for only indirect analyses of readers’ experiences. Within Darnton’s theorisation of the print communications circuit, readers were identified as the most ‘mysterious’ agent to assess (Reference DarntonDarnton 1982 p. 80). The same digitisation and platformisation processes that centralise the webtoon communications circuit now make it increasingly possible to capture readers’ experiences and voices. Comments within WEBTOON and in forums or social media could provide rich sources of evidence to be analysed with digital humanities methodologies (Reference Rebora and PianzolaRebora and Pianzola 2018; Reference Pianzola, Rebora and LauerPianzola et al. 2020) within the framework of a theorisation of the comments section of webtoons (Reference Misemer, Fawaz, Streeby and WhaleyMisemer 2021 p. 220). However, in addition to the restrictions imposed by the WEBTOON Terms of Use (see Section 3.2.1), ethical issues must be addressed when capturing comments through bulk methods such as webscraping. The collection of comments could accidentally expose personal and sensitive data, as defined by the legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulations (European Parliament 2016), which include characteristics such as the religious beliefs, sexual orientation and location of the commenter. Moreover, it is not possible to judge prior to data collection whether any comment has been posted by users falling into protected categories, such as minors or readers with disabilities. Comments on WEBTOON, as on many online platforms, are pseudonymous, but it is arguable that, with concerted efforts, users could be de-anonymised from the content and timing of their comments. One way to avoid these issues would be to hand-pick comments that refer to the reading experience, but to do so would inevitably introduce issues of sample bias. Bulk webscraping queries would need to be carefully constructed and filtered for personal information before analysing the obtained data. Additionally, while quantitative methods such as sentiment analysis could bring rich fruit, qualitative approaches are also needed, such as interviews and focus groups (Reference Cedeira SerantesCedeira Serantes 2019 p. 23), especially when examining the significance of webtoons for LGBT+ readers. This approach requires more time for design, execution and evaluation than is available for the present study. Such research on the readers of webtoons constitutes an ideal follow-up to this study and can address in greater depth the complex issues of gender and identity that the present digitally focused methods cannot do full justice to.

3.2 Research Design

The first step in every research process is always to clearly define its scope. As mentioned in Section 1, WEBTOON is divided into two sections, Originals and Canvas. The latter is even more volatile than the former. The self-published series it hosts show extreme variance in length, frequency of publication and readership, ranging from worldwide successes such as Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, with a readership in the millions, to more niche series with a few thousand or even a few hundred readers. The Originals section was therefore preferred as both more stable and more representative of WEBTOON’s practices as a cultural content platform. Originals further offer the advantage of a single index page (www.webtoons.com/en/dailySchedule) where all series are presented simultaneously, making the task of acquiring data more streamlined.

3.3 Genre Classification

The first area where WEBTOON Originals, in its role as a publisher, ushers in new possibilities for authors is in the embracing of a wider range of genres compared to mainstream US print comics such as those published by DC and Marvel. Within WEBTOON Originals, series are labelled with a single Genre chosen from a controlled vocabulary that includes sixteen options. By contrast, Canvas authors can choose two Genre descriptors. It is not specified whether for Originals this choice is imposed by WEBTOON or whether authors have an input or can request changes. The sixteen Originals genres are represented in Table 2, which includes the number of series that are thus classified. Genres are used on WEBTOON Originals to help readers navigate through the site. A ‘Genres’ tab is present in the main page navigation menu, grouping series that share a common classification. Certain genres (Mystery, Sports, Historical, Heartwarming, Horror and Informative) are hidden behind a further ‘Others’ tab, thus becoming less visible to readers.

Unlike US periodical print comics, where ‘Superhero’ is predominant, among WEBTOON Originals ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Romance’ are the leading genres. They are followed by ‘Drama’ and ‘Action’, and subsequently by more comedy-oriented genres such as ‘Comedy’ and ‘Slice of Life’. ‘Superhero’ comics comprise only 30 titles or 3.7 percent of the total 825 series. This contrasts sharply with the continued ascendancy of the genre in the main US publishers such as DC and Marvel. To find other genres in US print comics, such as Sci-fi, Fantasy or Slice of Life, readers must explore the catalogues of smaller publishers, such as Image, Dark Horse and Boom! Studios, or choose among the range of manga genres that WEBTOON Originals most closely resembles. It must be remarked that, while a range of series are available in the offerings of the abovementioned US publishers, from within their websites comics are not searchable by genre, but only by author or title, in sharp contrast with manga publishers such as Viz or Kodansha (see Section 4 for evaluation). Webcomics from the Korean platform are also distinctive when compared to the early webcomics described in Section 1.3, which tended to feature short, humorous episodes. WEBTOON Originals series privilege instead longer episodes comprising dozens of panels and tend to gravitate around genres delivered through long-form narration such as Fantasy, Romance and Drama.

3.4 Measures of Engagement

The following sections assess reader engagement with the 825 WEBTOON Originals titles through a combination of publicly available measures of readership, appreciation and fidelity, in the awareness that such quantitative data can provide at best a proxy for reader engagement. The figures examined below cannot be taken to reflect in full what a complex and multifaceted reading experience is, which requires more qualitative approaches such as those pioneered by the Reading Experience Database (UK RED) and the READ-IT projects (Reference Benatti, Vignale, Antonini and KingBenatti et al. 2023; Reference Crone, Halsey and WellerCrone and Halsey 2012). They can, however, provide indications for further analysis.

3.5 Genres in WEBTOON Originals

Irrespective of the proxy measure employed, Romance and Fantasy emerge as the dominant genres in terms of metrics of reader engagement, followed by a combination of Action, Drama, Comedy and Slice of Life. Superhero, the foremost genre of US print periodical comics, appears usually around the middle of the rankings. In addition, any analysis of the performance of the Superhero genre in WEBTOON must be qualified with the consideration that most of its engagement comes from one single series, unOrdinary, which is responsible for the almost totality of this genre’s Views, Likes and Subscribers. In this context, the genre labelling of the four comics published in WEBTOON by DC Comics since 2021 is illuminating. Only one of them, Vixen: NYC (2022–23), is classified as Superhero, while the other three, Zatanna and the Ripper, Red Hood: Outlaws (both 2022–23) and Eisner-nominated Batman: Wayne Family Adventures (2021–present), are billed as Fantasy, Action and Slice of Life, respectively. Even if they feature characters from one of the main superhero universes, such as Batman and Superman, the genre labels seem to direct readers’ attention towards other elements of the comics, such as the interactions between Batman and the young superheroes who form his extended family. While this could be due to DC’s attempt to differentiate its offerings, it nonetheless suggests an awareness that genres other than the Superhero seem to enjoy greater success on WEBTOON Originals.

The dominance of Romance and Fantasy within WEBTOON Originals is evident both in terms of numbers of series and in the size and attitude of their readerships. Together the two genres represent over 40 percent of the total page views, likes and subscriptions for the entire WEBTOON Originals platform. This preponderance will come as no surprise to readers familiar with the book market, where these forms of genre fiction dominate sales charts and are the main beneficiaries of the ‘indie publishing’ boom (Reference SkainsSkains 2019 p. 31), especially for authors that begin their career on digital platforms such as Wattpad. WEBTOON’s impact on the webcomics world lies similarly in providing a tangible demonstration to the English-language market that economic viability is possible when making these genres central to its offerings. Indeed, the rate by which Romance and Fantasy outstrip all other genres suggests that this differentiation from the practices of English-language comics publishers plays a central role in its success.

One explanation for this achievement could be located in WEBTOON’s appeal to a different reader demographics than mainstream US publishers. In the book market, Romance and Fantasy tend to attract mostly female audience, who have been shown to constitute the majority of fiction readers (Reference TaylorTaylor 2019 pp. 3–4). By offering an ample selection of titles in these genres, WEBTOON Originals are reaching out to an audience that, from the 1970s, was deemed of secondary importance by English-language publishers. Before the advent of the direct market distribution system, female readers were, by contrast, the bedrock of the more diverse genre offerings within US comics publishing (Reference RobbinsRobbins 2013 p. 118). As discussed in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, a young female audience found content that addressed their interests and priorities in the first place through the translation of manga (Reference Erik-Soussi and BrienzaErik-Soussi 2015 p. 36). Manga, until recently, remained chiefly a print medium, relying on physical distribution networks to reach its audience, albeit through widespread bookshops instead of more esoteric comics stores. Because of their book format, English-language manga have both a relatively high purchase cost (between $6.99 and $19.99 per volume) and a relatively infrequent publication schedule, usually monthly. In recent years, print manga have also been subjected to the limitations imposed by the Covid pandemic, which limited access to bookstores, and by shortages in the availability of paper, which have impacted the whole publishing industry. The rise in platforms that sell digital copies of manga and of subscription services can be located within these external circumstances, with ‘digital first, digital only, subscription, and mobile apps’ catering for a growing number of customers (Reference AokiAoki 2022 p. 21). Digital manga have a lower purchase price (usually between $5.99–7.99) but still require a significant monetary outlay to read an entire series to conclusion, especially for a young public. Subscription models for digitised comics, such as ComiXology Unlimited or Crunchyroll Megafan, the latter of which also includes access to streaming anime series, represent a growing alternative to purchasing for perpetual ownership. Platforms for webtoons such as WEBTOON and Tapas/Kakao must therefore be contextualised within these shifts in the popularity of digitised comics, as well as being differentiated by their sales and monetisation models.

3.6 Author Gender in the 80 ‘Most Liked’ WEBTOON Originals

As well as publishing comics that address the tastes of a predominantly female audience, WEBTOON Originals is also opening paths that can lead to professional comics careers for new authors (see Section 2.3.2). To assess whether these creators comprise more female and nonbinary authors that is still common in US print comics, the remainder of this section analyses in greater depth the 80 most read series as measured by the number of Likes. While aggregate values are discussed below, the full spreadsheet is available in the Supplementary Material and from the author upon request.

The number of comics was chosen to maintain comparability between the figures obtained from WEBTOON Originals and Tim Hanley’s ‘Women in Comics’ statistics, which are based on the published output of DC and Marvel, as mentioned in Section 2.1 (Reference Hanley2019a, Reference Hanley2019b, Reference Hanley2020b, Reference Hanley2020b). The two US publishers released a variable number of monthly comics in the period surveyed by Hanley (2016–20), with an average of 75-80 titles a month for each publisher. Perfect comparability is made impossible by the different publication models of print and webcomics. As discussed previously, print comics are released monthly, and webcomics are releasd weekly, or even more often. The DC and Marvel data covers a span of almost 5 years, while WEBTOON’s is a snapshot of a particular moment in 2022. The inclusion of completed series can still help to provide a comparable perspective that extends beyond the current moment and shows longer-range trends for the period 2014–2022, when the WEBTOON English-language portal has been in operation. Hanley’s figures are a very partial proxy for the US comics industries, but they nonetheless provide a benchmark, together with Woo’s survey (Reference Woo, Woo and StollWoo 2021).

3.7 Evaluation

These data suggest that authors who publish on WEBTOON Originals and encounter above-average success there tend to be predominantly female. Even in cases where the first author of a webtoon identifies as male, authors or editors that identify as female or nonbinary are present in over three quarters of creative teams. In terms of genre, female-declaring authors tend to concentrate on the Romance and Fantasy genres, which are also those that attract the highest number of titles and over 40 percent of all Page views, Likes and Subscriptions. Female-identifying authors do not disdain humour-oriented genres such as Slice of Life and Comedy, which instead appear to be the main focus for authors declaring a male gender identity. As these last two genres tend to privilege short, episodic comics, female authors seem to prefer long-form serial comics, though exceptions do exist, such as the WEBTOON Originals with the highest number of Likes (over 60 million), My Giant Nerd Boyfriend by female creator fishball. The nonbinary authors included in the dataset embrace multiple genres.

The gender distribution of the top WEBTOON authors reflects the tastes and probably the composition of its audience, which is unsurprising given the reliance of the publisher on participatory culture mechanisms, as embedded within the Canvas platform (see Section 2.4). The user-generated content surfaced through competition crowdsourcing is used by WEBTOON to promote those comics that are most appreciated by its audience. The findings of this study that about 70 percent of the most successful WEBTOON Originals authors identify as female or nonbinary seem to correlate with WEBTOON’s own assessment of its audience, which it describes as comprised of ‘around 60 percent’ female users (WEBTOON 2023a). Such crowdsourced pipeline was, for example, at the origin of two of the most successful WEBTOON Originals series. Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus was originally self-published on Canvas, while uru-chan’s unOrdinary was discovered through a ‘a superhero contest’ (Reference GrieppGriepp 2019). Both of these successful creators are female and both are first-time comics authors, without a prior history of publication. It is doubtful whether conventional comics publishers would have included them given their lack of a track record, though WEBTOON’s trust in their works has been more than repaid by the billions of page views, printed book sales and publicity they have since generated.

The data collected through webscraping shows that WEBTOON is succeeding in exploiting the new space first created in the English-language comics market by innovative webcomics, periodicals and manga authors. It is accomplishing this task by publishing comics in genres, such as Romance and Fantasy that provide publication and visibility for author demographics still perceived as secondary within English-language print comics. Whether these opportunities translate into full-time creative careers for these authors remains an open question, which the next and conclusive section will address.

4.1 The WEBTOON Innovations

4.2 The WEBTOON Challenges

This last nexus of platformisation and authorship/readership needs to be scrutinised and evaluated carefully. Webtoon platforms exact an indirect but high price from authors and readers for the use of their infrastructures, in terms of both labour, attention and money, as is the case with other contemporary models of ‘social’ or ‘demotic’ authorship (Reference Ramdarshan BoldRamdarshan Bold 2018; Reference SkainsSkains 2010).

In the specific instance of WEBTOON Originals, a number of authors have argued that the practices of the platform do not sufficiently recognise the labour of creators. In September 2022, WEBTOON authors, Chase Keels and Miranda Mundt (LoveBot, Muted), published an open letter, alleging a lack of transparency in the calculation and distribution of revenue arising from advertisements and Fast Pass (Reference Mundt and KeelsMundt and Keels 2022). Particularly concerning, according to the authors, was WEBTOON’s alleged tardiness in sharing reader engagement metrics with their creators. Since Fast Pass remuneration depends upon reader numbers, as measured through more granular versions of metrics such as those employed in Section 3, Mundt and Keels’ accusation is particularly worrying for creators. Their complaints were echoed in a lively Twitter debate with other WEBTOON creators (Reference MundtMundt 2022), which hinted at a deterioration of conditions and an unsustainable increase in workload for authors. Creator Emmet Hobbes further claimed a lack of marketing support from WEBTOON and poor communications, blaming these difficulties for the suspension of his series Royale after less than twenty episodes (Reference HobbesHobbes 2022). Mundt and Keels’ open letter claimed that certain creators earn ‘less than 300$ USD for each 40 panel episode’, due to the need to pay for the assistants they require to meet their deadlines out of their weekly earnings (Reference Mundt and KeelsMundt and Keels 2022). Furthermore, a short-lived Twitter account, called WebtoonExposed alleged a significant ‘difference in pay for the Latin America creators vs. US creators’ (Reference TanskiTanski 2022b). According to this Twitter account, which has since been removed, authors signing contracts through the WEBTOON Latin America branch are subject to far lower remunerations than creators signing through the US branch. It is as yet unclear how WEBTOON is responding to these complaints.

The situation in webtoons is mirrored by the struggles of comic creators and authors more generally. The remuneration of print comics professionals has seen little or no increase over the past decades, with page rates for writers, pencillers and inkers stagnating or even decreasing when adjusted for inflation, including ‘$75–100 per page’ for writers and ‘$100–175 per page’ for pencillers (Reference TanskiTanski 2022a). Incomes for writers in all genres have entered a downward spiral accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen median earnings for UK authors fall from ‘38.2% (in real terms) since the last survey in 2018 (i.e., from £11,329 to £7,000)’ in 2021 (Reference Thomas, Battisti and KretschmerThomas et al. 2022 p. 7). The remuneration rates offered by WEBTOON must be placed within this context to be fully appraised. If the rate reported by Mundt and Keels of $300 per weekly episode after paying assistants is correct, it would translate to $12,000 or £9,900 per year, assuming 40 weeks of comic production. This level of remuneration could be compared favourably with that of professional authors, but it must be counterbalanced by the unique demands of comics. In addition to their still limited recognition within literature or art, the position of WEBTOON Original creators is complicated by their placement in a liminal space between self-publishing amateurism in the platform economy and full-blown professionalisation. Working for WEBTOON can offer a more regular income than relying on crowdfunded donations from fans or on advertisement revenue. However, the demands placed on authors can be high, such as the intense workloads needed in order to comply with the weekly pace of serialisation.

The achievements of numerous WEBTOON Originals authors in sustaining weekly serials over several years should dispel any doubts about their abilities and commitment. A comparison with previous forms of serial media, such as Victorian novels, can help to place them in context. Victorian serial authors such as G.W.M. Reynolds published serial novels such as The Mysteries of London and its follow-up The Mysteries of the Court of London with consistently high sales during the period 1844–55, producing ‘nearly half a million words’ (Reference JamesJames 2010 pp. 100–1). Even the most influential serial novelist, Charles Dickens, usually published his works in shorter bursts of 18 monthly numbers, with breaks between the end of one novel and the commencement of the next. WEBTOON Originals series such as Lore Olympus have been ongoing for more than 5 years, publishing thousands of panels in hundreds of weekly issues. In terms of serial publication, this is an achievement that is worthy of notice, especially as it comes from mostly novice authors striking out a career with little or no initial support. In US periodical comics, the longest run by a single author is considered to be Chris Claremont’s 16-year authorship of Uncanny X-Men between 1975 and 1991. It remains a milestone in comics for the richness of its plots and characterisation, which the author was able to develop through hundreds of monthly issues and thousands of pages. Yet Claremont was not alone in his work but part of a team with artists such as John Byrne and Walter Simonson, who shared the burden of producing regular content. They were supported by a further team of editors, such as Louise Simonson, and by assistants who provided advice on content, as well as support for promotion and marketing. It is still the norm for US periodical comics to be attributed to at least two authors, writer and penciller, if not more, in an explicit acknowledgement of the collective effort needed to create regular serialised comics (see Section 1.3).

By contrast, the WEBTOON Originals authors often work with little support, especially at the beginning of their careers, when they are making an awkward transition from gifted amateurs to full-time professionals. That the process is not yet a smooth one is borne out by their continued recourse to crowdfunding platforms such as Patreon even while contracted to WEBTOON Originals. An analysis of the stated crowdfunding goals of several prominent WEBTOON authors reveals that, even successful creators such as Quimchee, whose webcomic I Love Yoo has accumulated over 500 million page views, require additional funds to create a support team (www.patreon.com/quimchee). Further examples include Color_LES, author of Mage and Demon Queen (over 320 million page views) and Junepurr, author of Sub Zero (over 330 million page views), all comics that are in the top 5 percent on WEBTOON Originals for page views and likes. Helpers such as colourists and line assistants are often mentioned among Patreon campaign goals, with frequently cited motivations including greater continuity of outputs and preserving the authors’ mental and physical health. Health complications caused by overworking are indeed frequently stated as causes for hiatuses in scheduled WEBTOON Originals comics. WEBTOON seems to be aware of the strain its publishing models are imposing on creators, especially those who are invited to make the transition from self-published Canvas series to contracted WEBTOON Originals. Its public response, however, appears for the moment to be limited to the provision of wellbeing awareness resources rather than an open discussion of the implications of publishing within WEBTOON Originals.

Webtoon platforms such as WEBTOON and Tapas/Kakao are falling under increasing scrutiny in this regard in their native Korea, as demonstrated by their CEOs, Junkoo Kim and Jinsoo Lee, being questioned in the Korean National Assembly over employment practices (Reference YoonYoon 2021). The increasing scrutiny accorded to creative industries and to webcomics in particular has resulted in the creation of standard employment contracts, though they are at present ‘a recommendation, not a requirement’ (Reference Kim and LeeKim and Lee 2022 p. 8). Kakao’s recent creation of a 10 billion won ($7.7 million) fund to help creators struggling with mental health and income difficulties (Reference YoonYoon 2022b) can be read as a sign of its growing awareness of the need to cultivate its creators. Institutions in the English-language market have so far not monitored the operations of webcomics publishers at such high levels, but their success is likely to bring their business practices under greater scrutiny.

4.3 Potential Futures

What approaches can be envisaged to address these tensions? The power disproportion between giant platforms and individual creators paints at first sight a bleak picture. At the same time, approaches that include the platforms in the collaborative circuits between readers and authors may offer hope for the future.

Forms of organisation and collective bargaining are slowly emerging on other platforms, such as the formation of the YouTubers Union and its FairTube campaign (Reference NieblerNiebler 2020 pp. 223–7). These same platforms are providing increasing acknowledgement of creators as partners (Reference Cunningham and CraigCunningham and Craig 2019 pp. 6–7). As a platform for cultural content, certain of WEBTOON’s behaviours seem to indicate that it too regards creators as more than mere subordinates, implicitly recognising its dependence upon them for ‘the continuous production of cultural commodities’ (Reference Kim and YuKim and Yu 2019 p. 7). One possibility for the improvement of creator conditions within WEBTOON could be for more authors to be given the resources to develop into small business entrepreneurs. They could, over time, form and lead a studio composed of trained support professionals, such as colourists, inkers and letterers. Such a model is the norm in Japanese manga, and though fraught with opportunities for exploitation, it could be the most viable compromise between authorial freedom and reader (and publisher) demand for regular, consistent content. These creator-led small studios could strike a middle ground between the models of the sole genius and the top-down corporate structure typical of US superhero publishers. One example of this approach is Rachel Smythe, who has developed such a team to assist with the creation of Lore Olympus, as recognised in recent interviews (Reference GravesGraves 2022). Smythe recruited her assistants from the ranks of her readers and was enabled to support them through her income from WEBTOON, in turn facilitating the delivery of her series through over 200 weekly episodes. The success and viability of her approach seem to be confirmed by her achievement of three of the most prestigious prizes for webcomics in 2022, the Eisner, Harvey and Ringo Awards, and by the successful print publication of her work through Penguin Random House. As Lore Olympus ranks among the most successful WEBTOON Originals series, Smythe’s trajectory presents a best-case scenario for creators.

If the comparison with Dickens is extended, the English author himself at first published his serial novels within established periodicals, such as Bentley’s Miscellany, where he serialised Oliver Twist. Once he had become a household name, he was able to develop a format more suited to his talents, that of monthly parts released with his chosen publishers. Such a model enabled him to publish titles that succeeded in becoming milestones in British literature, such as David Copperfield and Bleak House, and to achieve remarkable incomes. Finally, Dickens established his own weekly periodicals, Household Words (1850–9) and All the Year Round (1859–70), where he published not only his own novels but also offered opportunities to other Victorian authors such as Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell. Both eventually left Dickens’s periodicals to strike out their own paths, but this apprenticeship within another writer’s team provided them with essential expertise that they were able to employ in their later careers. Dickens was not faultless as a manager and editor, often being unwilling to relinquish control over the content of his periodicals. Nonetheless, he created publication formats that found success with readers and critics alike, transforming the world of Victorian publishing and providing readers with affordable venues for high-quality content. A WEBTOON Originals platform that enabled authors to similarly build and sustain their own studios could increase its transformative effect on English-language comics publishing and on authors’ lives, especially if female or nonbinary, while ensuring the sustainability of series in the long run. It could be argued that the abrupt termination or suspension of successful comics through overworking and burnout is more costly to WEBTOON than increasing authors’ starting remuneration. If their crowdfunding goals are to be believed, relatively modest increases to monthly incomes would suffice to grant authors a better quality of life and to ensure greater continuity and quality of content for publishers. An increased level of openness about the obligations and pressures of a professional webcomics career could also benefit both publishers and authors. Instead of the myth of the lone creator earning millions through a labour of love and creativity, the realities of deadlines, the constant need for self-promotion and the relationship with a demanding audience should be emphasised and openly discussed between established and aspiring authors, publishers, as well as the reading public. Initial goodwill towards the platform that gives new authors a voice runs the risk of dwindling away through exhaustion and disillusionment.

It is to be hoped that greater transparency in matters of contracts, remuneration and workload expectations will arise out of these debates, in turn leading to improved conditions for creators and more regular content for the platforms. This shift by authors and publishers towards greater dialogue can bring rich rewards for both, as shown through the earnings made public in regard to the Korean parent platform, Naver WEBTOON. For the English-language market, it is likely that the increasing consolidation and maturity of the webtoon platforms, their growing successes with audience and critics and the burgeoning transmedia connections between webtoons and other media can help more creators earn a sustainable living as webtoon authors. Such an outcome would in turn maximise the already positive effects of WEBTOON Originals on content and author diversity, as is manifested tangibly through its audience engagement metrics.

A final consideration regards the availability of these metrics for the future. As most engagement data are displayed publicly on the WEBTOON site, audience metrics can be openly scrutinised by readers and researchers alike. However, this openness exposes WEBTOON’s content to potential exploitation, for example, through unregulated scraping and ingestion for the training of AI tools such as large language models and image generation models. The recent change in Terms of Use that prohibits webscraping can be interpreted as part of an attempt to protect the viability of the platform and therefore also of authors’ careers. At the same time, the increased prominence of WEBTOON series makes them an essential part of any study of contemporary webcomics and their audiences, for which large-scale data collection plays an essential role. The centrality of readers in the webcomics communication circuit, for example, deserves to be the focus of the next phase of research on webcomics. After quantifying the recent innovations in comics genre and author gender, the motivations and outcomes of reading experiences should be investigated to better understand why readers choose to read webcomics, to become involved in this participatory and platformised communications circuit, or to make the step from reader to creator. Access to data from webtoon platforms, acquired in collaboration with publishers, is going to be crucial for such an endeavour. It is to be hoped that through mutual engagement, platforms, creators and researchers will be able to find approaches that can enable the study of webtoons in detail and at scale, while protecting livelihoods and creativity.