We can do much more with Webtoon

By webtoon standard, these nicely laid panels are ineligible.

Are we... Regressing?

Have you ever thought that despite having so many chapters, you barely progress the story in a webtoon?

That feeling hits me all the time. Have you ever thought that so much space in webtoons is just... WHITE SPACE with nothing in it?

Not long ago, I watched this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yya-hgvhCLg

By the way, you should watch it too.

It seems that many people have the same gripe with the webtoon format—more precisely, the scrolling format. Or even more precisely, the problem with many authors who just don’t take advantage of the format itself.

If you have ever read a manga, you must have seen some amazingly laid-out panels that just blow your mind. There are so many examples it's hard to pick.

On the other hand, you’d be hard-pressed to see something similar in the scrolling format. The last time an artist truly flexed their artistic muscle was in Solo Leveling years ago.

One comment in the video really fits the munya-munya feeling I’ve had all this time:

This comment from...

The reason why most webtoon layouts and paneling are uninspired is because most popular webtoons are mass produced and don’t take advantage of the uniqueness of scrolling format. It has nothing to do with the format itself.

There are actually interesting things you can do with scrolling formats that you can’t with page format. For example, when you read manga, the entire page is visually revealed to you at once.

Though your eye typically starts at a certain point on the page, everything is visible in your peripheral vision. This makes things like beautiful panel layouts and page compositions more noticeable, but also makes it so that if an author truly wants to hide visual information from the reader they have to rely on things like page turns.

Scrolling format is different in that you can only see a set amount of panels at a time, and the pace at which each panel is revealed depends on how fast the reader scrolls.

So the negative space that’s presented in the gutters is more pronounced because it’s a tool that authors use to manipulate the rate at which readers view panels, and can be used to metaphorically illustrate things like the passing of time.

So for horror authors, instead of relying on a page turn to pull off a pseudo jumpscare, you can add large amounts of blank space that the reader is forced to scroll through at their own pace before an image is revealed.

I saw this done in the webtoon Distant Sky and it was the scariest reading experience of my life. Because the reader controls the exact speed of scrolling, rather than the fixed 1-2 pages being revealed all at once constantly, it can give off a feeling of immersion and control which really works for horror especially.

You can also more effectively draw sequences that feel like animation, because movement and pacing are the key strengths of this format. Obviously scrolling format has limitations but it also can do things that page format can’t do.

I really don’t think it’s the format itself that sucks, it’s just that the majority of webtoons are by authors working under exploitative systems who have to put out chapters quickly and don’t innovate on the format. I think it’s also true that at a lower level, it is easier to draw webtoons than page comics because it’s compositionally more forgiving— things like speech bubbles can just get placed in the vast blank space ether when you’d normally have to place it intentionally in page format.

That being said there are plenty of shitty uninspired page comics out there, they’re just not the flagship titles for the entire medium like in webtoons (edit sorry for the obnoxiously long comment jesus christ)

He already said it all. This blogpost is pretty much just extension of his mini essay.

By the way, two years ago i found this absolute gem.

 

Absolutely gorgeous. Comparing this colored manga to most mahwa/manhua in the internet. It's like heaven and earth. Just look them.

The use of colors. The use of space. And look at that lighting, and most importantly. No bare bone unfiltered 3d assets lazily put inside any of its page.

 

 

So much of current manhwa/manua are just using basic colors. Most of the page are....WHITE (or black). And when come to light, They are either flare, god's ray, or bloom/glow. And what i hated the most. . . those godamn 3d assets. Bare bone CSP 3d assets.

Ofc not all of them are like that. But i can probably grab some random title and the found exactly those. 

And so i did. . . 

Here

 

Though consdering their working condition that i keep hearing from some news, i guess it's inevitable they would take shortcut.