You will know:
Standard webtoon clichés that old fans know about
Are you reading webtoons, and how often? I see counters on websites with millions and hundreds of thousands of views, and sometimes the themes and titles surprise me.
As an avid reader from 10 years ago, I increasingly notice very low-quality artwork, explicit content, and intriguing themes of Korean beauties and European or Chinese princesses who find themselves in another world. The torment of knights in RPG game motifs...
The male hero must be beautiful, toxic, and devoid of any reasons (other than his torso) to be in love with. The total LGBTQ+ theme in the Canvas section, but what about the adventure themes?
So, has webtoon lost touch with reality? Authors are chasing profits and trying to copy from each other what they believe will sell immediately, forgetting about the artwork and plot. And that will do, probably...
I have become so distant from these themes that it makes me sad. If 8 years ago, I could read dozens of stories at once, now, opening something... I want to close it immediately. Authors don't want to make an effort, or they don't have time to create 50 full frames per week as demanded by the publisher's site, which is racing for speed to retain the viewer's attention.
It has come to the point where I was offered to draw 50 frames for $100. I would sooner ruin my eyesight, hands, and neck than earn enough to pay my bills with such a method. The comic industry is experiencing a stagnation in quality. Although statistics show a growth of 850 million sales of Korean webtoons and 1 billion comic sales in the USA, if you have nothing to compare, you will buy what is available now, and you get used to it. Logical, isn't it?
In reality, the quality of comics has declined over the past 5 years (not to mention the last 40 years! Let's remember realistic watercolor drawings). The artwork in manga is no better. What the publisher didn't take for sale 10 years ago is now printed and sold. As an artist, seeing incorrect anatomy is strange...
But let me not be a grumbling old woman and list the most popular titles of 2021 according to the Korean Creative Content Agency (KOCCA):
- "The Beginning After the End"
- "Solo Leveling"
- "Sweet Home"
- "The God of High School"
- "Noblesse"
Who will raise the quality of webtoons? Not 3D gray boring backgrounds, not huge distances between frames, not stories about entering the game world. Where is the real drama, the pain of the characters, and the aesthetics?