The housewife A is now enjoying watching a drama called “Taxi Driver,” recommended by her son. Her son also told her that the drama is adapted from a beloved webtoon. Therefore, she researched about the webtoon, and now she has another new hobby, watching webtoons. Amongst various dramas and movies, it is easy to find those that come from webtoons. The Netflix original series “Sweet Home” from December of last year is also a webtoon-based drama. “Sweet Home” ranked in first place in 13 different countries on Netflix. Furthermore, it was nominated for the Art Prize of the 57th Baeksang Arts Awards. Following this situation, what are the reasons for the increase of webtoon-based visual media?

The first reason is that the content is tested. Usually, popular webtoons are transferred to visual media. So, those webtoons already passed the high competition rate, and it is easier for filmmakers to imagine how the webtoons will become if it is visualized already. As the webtoons are already guaranteed in their popularity, the film producers can bring webtoon fans as drama or movie viewers. Therefore, they get advantages of spreading their webtoon-based visual media. Daum’s Tuesday webtoon “Itaewon Class” reached 300 million views, almost 20 million subscribers, and webtoon rating of 9.9 out of 10. When “Itaewon Class” became cable TV channel JTBC’s drama, it had a successful view rating of 16.5% by webtoon’s original fans and extra drama viewers.  Yoon Ki-Heon (Prof. of Department of Design, Animation, PNU) said, “Webtoons became friendly culture now, and I think that is why webtoon is getting along with many people. The traits of the webtoon, which are cost-effectiveness, and tested contents by webtoon readers, leads to active *IP-marketing.”

Secondly, the unique ideas and novel concepts of webtoons are replacing the cliche of typical dramas and movies. For webtoons, it is simpler to create hypothetical scenes than ordinary dramas or movies because webtoons are based on drawings. For this reason, when a filmmaker makes webtoon-based visual media, they could work less to make a unique and charming media. For instance, the fantasy movie “Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds,” which reached the 10 million audience mark, was previously a webtoon called “Along with the Gods” by writer Joo Ho-Min. Professor Yoon said, ““The reasons filmmakers choose to make webtoon-based media is because in the webtoon, characters' lines, character, background, etc. are all already set, unlike novels or internet novels. Also, webtoon-based media production cost and producing term are more efficient than other genres of film.”

Lastly, as “Imaginary Casting” is gaining popularity, webtoon-based visual media is increasing. Imaginary casting is a virtual casting that popular webtoon’s fans and readers are doing for dramas or movies, which will be visualized. This imaginary casting is in the interest of both webtoon fans and film producers. The webtoon fans decide which actors or actresses will match with the webtoon characters. Sometimes, the imaginary casting becomes the real casting. A way before the webtoon “My ID is Gangnam Beauty” and “True Beauty” became a drama, and the webtoon fans chose Cha Eun-Woo as the main male character of both webtoons. In conclusion, he acted as the main male character of both webtoon-based dramas as the webtoon fans wanted. Lee Ji-Eun (21, Department of Language & Information) said, “When I heard the first time about imaginary casting, I have thought of ‘Cheese in the Trap’ because the actors were not matched with how the webtoon readers wanted. So, I think imaginary casting’s role is as the producer of the film, such as predicting drama’s composition, catching people’s expectation.”

Lim Yeon-Taek (Prof. of School of Comics and Animation, Kyungil University) said, “These days, many webtoon writers are using SNS to contact their readers and to publicize their work. Not only using SNS but also producing webtoon-based visual media makes webtoon writers get more economic interests and more popularity. By getting more popularity, they can keep working on their next webtoons, and they are showing positive effects to other webtoon writers. Also, it is safe for filmmakers to produce webtoon-based visual media because it has a high probability of getting success as a drama or movie. For those reasons I said above, I think well-made webtoon based visual media should be increased more.“