Webtoons, Turbomedia, and me

Webtoons

"Webtoon" is a movement of webcomics started in 2003 by people like JunKoo Kim, Kyusam Kim, and Kang Full. The movement is characterized by an infinite canvas layout with a large amount of negative space. Reading a webtoon, you will find yourself scrolling passively down a wall of images, each with a large amount of white space or black space in between. The amount of "empty" space in between each "panel" physically induces the amount of "time" one will experience passing. This is a very direct effect. In something like Kyusam Kim's Hive or Son Jeho and Lee Kwangsu's Noblesse, you'll see the whitespace compress and expand depending on the pacing of the story. The panels themselves are huge, big enough to fill an entire page of a book if given the chance. This style of webcomics was not a result of Scott McCloud's marketing of the "infinite canvas" as he described it in 2000, but it can be attributed almost entirely to JunKoo Kim. When Kim started Naver Webtoon (now internationally known as Line Webtoon), he was inspired by how Korean people use the Web pages already: scrolling down to read the text.

Korea's webtoon services have many other aspects to them that experimental webcartoonists love to make use of, like sound and animation. Companies like Naver and Daum established the kind of features that make webcomics like these possible. Webtoons weren't going to stay in Korea, however, and with the worldwide launch of Line Webtoon, works like SIU's Tower of God reached global popularity

Now in English speaking territories, short comic strips have dominated the webcomic market, so "webtoon" became a shorthand for "Korean webcomic". When Line Webtoon became available worlwide, "webtoon" beat "manhwa" in Google results. But I argue that unlike "manhwa", which refers to Korean comics in general, "webtoon" is an internation movement. This becomes clear when you find out about French webtoons, as you may find them on Didier Borg's Delitoon. Reading these webtoons is impossible for me as someone who can't read French, but just looking at them feels bizarre. One thing is unmistakable, however: these webcomics fall in the same family as those made in Korea.

Turbomedia

French webcartoonists don't just steal formats, though. On the contrary, a major movement in France has been Turbomedia. This format, first described by Balak in February 2010, stands in stark contrast with Korea's trademark webtoon format. Rather than taking place on an infinitely tall canvas, Turbomedia is only a single panel in size. Like a slideshow, a reader can click to see the next panel. For this, French webcartoonists use Adobe Flash and various Flash-based tools. This movement has resulted in a lot of gorgeous webcomics, like Paris Pixel by Forky, but like the French webtoons, I sadly can't read many of them.

This format wasn't new when Balak first described it. Artists like Dan Miller (Kid Radd) and even Scott McCloud (The Right Number) have done similar things in the mid 2000s. Whether they fall in the same movement is a different question, however. More modern examples of "American Turbomedia" like Ava's Demon and Neokosmos may take on the storyboard-esque style of Turbomedia (often even to a far larger extent than those inspired by Balak ever did), but they are all created through hyperlinks rather than Flash animations. These American Turbomedia feel more akin to the "adventure webcomics" created by Weaver and Andrew Hussie than their French contemporaries.

Me

So where does this whole thing leave me? See, I have never been able to get into webtoons. I initially blamed this on a thusfar unexplained anti-Asian comics bias. As someone who couldn't get into manga either, I figured there was just something about storywriting in Korea and Japan that I didn't enjoy. After doing research on French webcomics, however, my perspective has changed.

I love Turbomedia. Be it the works of Balak and those inspired by him or the corresponding American genre, I just can't get enough of webcomics with a single-panel format. The storyboard aesthetic and interactive aspects work very well on my imagination. Meanwhile, infinite canvas webcomics, be they the wacky mazes of Scott McCloud or the tall slow burns of webtoons, have never been able to catch my interest to a significant amount. The jungles created with Daniel Goodbrey's Tanquin Engine fascinates me more than Hun and Zhena's melancholically drawn-out Girls of the Wild's, but neither would be able to convince me to keep up with the updates.

Where do you lie on this spectrum, dear reader, and where do you think other webcomics may lie on this continuum? Are webtoons and Turbomedia movements, and how does their format relate to works that aren't inspired by these movements? I hope I've introduced you all to a few interesting webcomics in the process ^_^