Korean online comics
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| Media and cultural counselor Park Jae Yang and Professor Nam Jeong Hoon pose for a photo with Egyptian artists. |
By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Esraa Elzeny
Illustrated stories and comics is a great way to express ideas by images that often consist of a series of images that tell consecutive events, accompanied by a dialogue text for characters in the cartoons within circles. The stories are drawings with text that refer to the characters' words, and the stories are read dramatically, some of them quoted as films, TV shows and video games. These stories are really popular all around the world. Online comics are known by different names, such as manga in Japan and webtoon in Korea.
The definition of webtoon appeared recently and became the talk of the world. The word webtoon, Korean online comic strips, or manhwa (만화) in Korean, is a combination between of the word "web" from website and "-toon" from "cartoon," hence "webtoon," which is another word for online comic strips.
Comics started in the 17th century, but nowadays Korea has the fastest internet speed in the world. With this, demand for the conversion of all comics into online content appeared. Some artists were able to transfer their comics online, while the rest just stopped drawing. The number of followers of online comic strips increases day by day, and the world has come to love it just like it loves Japanese manga. One of the most famous online comic strips in Korea is artist Kang Full's online comic strip "Love Story" (강풀의 "순정" 만화). For those who want to read this story, you can find it at the Korean Cultural Center in Egypt. Also the artist Snow Cat is quite famous and in this story the writer chooses a cat to express himself. The cat is alone and travels alone, like the writer. Also, Marine Blues shows the life of a group of friends. The very successful online comic strip Misaeng (미생) has been turned into a live-action TV soap opera and is a description of office workers' life in Korea. For this reason, the show is really popular.
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| The Korean soap opera 'W' introduces the concept of online comic strips to the audience. |
Korean TV shows aren't the only way to spread the stories of online comic strips. In the comic strip "W," Oh Yeon-joo's (Han Hyo-joo) father mysteriously goes missing while writing the last chapter of the comic strip "W." Yeon-joo goes to his office and is shocked to see the dying Kang Cheol (Lee Jong-suk), the main character of the comic strip, on her father's computer. While reading a note left behind by her father, a hand from the computer monitor pulls her in and she finds herself on the rooftop of a building next to a bleeding man. She manages to save him and realizes that the person she saved was Kang Cheol. Yeon-joo later discovers that she can only leave the comic world if Kang Cheol changes his feelings. When that happens, the words, "To be continued," will appear and she will teleport back to the real world.
For the sake of meeting all the demands of the lovers of Korean comics, the Korean Cultural Center in Egypt has prepared workshops for people to learn how to draw comic strips. They are quite popular, especially among youth. Professor Nam Jeong hoon (남정훈) came to Egypt to give the workshop to 13 talented Egyptian comic artists and to explain to them the meaning of online comic strips. The workshop started with a lecture on the history of Korean online comic strips and how they were first introduced. Professor Nam has many comic strips published online, but he prefers hand-drawing.
Nam is a professor at Busan University and is an artist with many famous comic strips. He's a resident of Busan and he's very proud of that, and considers Busan to be the most beautiful city in the world. Professor Nam talked about the qualifications that must be available in any comic artist. He also talked about speed and its importance, because editing any comic may take a lot of time. It may be a full week to modify just three panels.
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| Professor Nam speaks through his translator, Esraa Hmam. |
Here you can read some of Nam's comic strips.
Many artists publish their works at the website Toptoon. Sometimes 100 or 200 editions are shown there, and there are more than 10,000 followers of many comics. The most recent comics from Professor Nam are from "I,” which revolves around an exchange between the future and the past. Through an app, he speaks through the comic strip.
Last January, Professor Nam visited Paris and went to the offices of the website Delitoon, which also published "I." Delitoon is a French online comic strip service established by Didier Borg in 2011. Delitoon offers a large variety of both Korean and French comics, and makes use of a micro payment system. As of 2017, Delitoon hosts approximately 50 Korean comics, all translated into French.
Professor Nam also talked about selecting writers to write horror stories in the summer, because feeling fear removes the hotness. This is a global thing, not just in Korea.
He also told us that the translated comics have begun to increase because of increasing there being more and more online comic readers around the world.
Some writers write a story and then draw it. Some of them write a story and then cooperate with another illustrator to draw the story.
Before beginning the digital "painting," there must be a draft so that the author can visualize the characters.
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| Students came up with some new animation works during the workshop. |
In the second lecture, Professor Nam began to talk about some of his comic strips and asked the Egyptian artists to draw what they thought the main characters would look like.
He added that the main character must always express the artist, and also express their life. Like the story of "Will You Marry Me" (윌 유 메리 미). This is a true story about the writer. He was from Seoul. The main character was from Busan. He loves the dialect of the people from Busan and also loves this woman.
The Egyptian artists began to choose their characters, but the professor commented that all their drawings were either animals or non-Egyptian characters. He asked them to draw from their real life. He was surprised because all the female artists drew their characters with a veil, so that the artists were changing the characters into themselves.
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| Participants in the workshop have fun creating their own comic characters. |
Although I was an organizer of the workshop, I was very much influenced by the creativity of the artists and how the professor admired their professionalism.
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| Professor Nam poses with the artists who attended the comics workshop at the Korean Cultural Center in Egypt. |
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| During a lecture at the Faculty of Arts, a few of the students try their hand at drawing Professor Nam. |
We were very pleased to have Park Jae Yang, the media and cultural counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Egypt and director at the Korean Cultural Center in Egypt, attend the final lecture. He was accompanied by Professor Nam at all the Egyptian arts universities. In the last lecture, he was the first one who wanted to see the creativity of the Egyptian artists. He was amazed by the accuracy of the drawings and their beauty.
Finally Professor Nam asked each artist to talk about their idea and why they chose their character. After that, Professor Nam asked them to continue after he left Egypt. He told them that everything they create can be the nucleus of a new comic in Egypt and across the Arab world. This would make him very proud, because they are all his students and he loves them all so much. He will always remember them, he said. When he thinks of Egypt, he will remember them, he said, and when he comes to Cairo again he wants to see them all.
After Professor Nam returned to Korea, some Egyptian artists began drawing some comics. Please click here to read Ahmed Green, who just started his first comic.
Here you can read more about the event.
wisdom117@Korea.kr
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