'K-cartoon can penerate global audience'

Korea Manhwa Museum features a collection of over 250,000 comic books from domestic and overseas artists. / Korea Times file

Oh Jae-rok, president of the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency

By Baek Byung-yeul

"Manhwa" (Korean word for comics) is a popular medium that has been growing amid many changes during the past century here.

Though there was a time when parents and school teachers discouraged students from reading manhwa due to concerns that it might interfere with school, cartoonists had enjoyed an explosive popularity in 80s and 90s.

Changing its platform from conventional paper book to digital comic book thanks to the high-speed networks and mobile Internet devices, online manhwa, called "webtoon" has proliferated since the beginning of this century.

Korea's webtoon business is expected to triple to 295 billion won ($272 million) next year, compared to 100 billion won in 2012, according to a report from the KT Economic Research Institute. Now, it is common to see people watching their diminutive smartphone screen to read manhwa in a bus or a subway.

Amidst rapidly changing manhwa business circumstances, The Korea Times recently had a chance to talk with Oh Jae-rok, president of the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency (KOMACON), an affiliated agency of culture ministry.

The KOMACON chief assured that Korea's manhwa business "can make a new leap forward with the development of smart device."

Visitors view works of Korean cartoonists featuring Japan's wartime crime at the Korea Manhwa Museum in Bucheon, west of Seoul. / Yonhap

"Though cartoon was not started here, Korea has become a frontrunner in servicing online comics. I expect that Korean cartoons will be able to resonate across the world with diverse contents," Oh said.

To do that, Oh added "creating an ecosystem where every artist can compete in a fair condition" should come before anything else, and preparing "standard form of contract" that can benefit every cartoonist in a fair condition will be the first step.
"Koreans love cartoon as long as they don't have to pay for them. Look at the filmmakers and song makers. They also had tough times because of lots of people used their contents without paying, but after going through slew of campaigns calling for normalization of price policy, they are now selling their contents at a reasonable price. Without such efforts, there will be no development in this business," Oh said.

The KOMACON chief stressed that the agency will put more effort to give better treatment to cartoonists. "We have learned that some creators have provided their contents in adverse condition. We will prepare a standard form of contract for cartoonists," the chief added.

Nestled in Bucheon, west of Seoul, the KOMACON was established in 1998 to promote manhwa industry and has been supporting cartoonists in many ways.
For instance, the agency has been running the annual "Bucheon International Comics Festival" (BICOF) for 17 years.

Under the slogan "Comics, the echo of its time," this year's BICOF, which was held in last August, garnered more than 170,000 audiences during its five-day run.
"With the help from government and Bucheon city, the BICOF is evolving quickly, and above all, local cartoonists were the biggest key to its success," Oh said.
Oh added that this year's festival landed 8.9 billion won export contract, marking the biggest of all-time.

The KOMACON is also running the Korea Manhwa Museum, which features a collection of over 250,000 comic books from domestic and overseas artists
Established in 2001, the museum is located right next to the agency's headquarter office in Bucheon and displays works of prominent cartoonists as well.

Moving hearts of Europeans

Not only is it read by many people, but Korean cartoon also has been playing a pivotal role to in introducing Korea to the outside world.

Last January, 20 selections of Korean cartoonists, featuring Japan's wartime crime were exhibited at the 41st Angouleme International Comics Festival held in France and they aroused stirrings among Europeans who didn't know the stark truth of Japan's atrocities in World War II, during which many Korean women were forced to be sex slavery by Japan.

Oh took the lead in organizing the exhibition befitting the world's largest cartoon festival, and described it as "a wow moment."

"I could witness the power of manhwa there. The European audiences literally couldn't leave the exhibition space. They said they didn't know that Japan committed such a brutality," Oh said.

"Compared to other cultural contents such as novel or documentary film, manhwa can contain lots of meaning in a single cut. We thought sex slavery issue can be a universal subject that everyone can sympathize with. So, we planned to exhibit manhwa works that have more connection with women's human right issues rather than focusing on the war, and it worked really well," he said.

"Many international media covered our exhibition. We also received a lot of letters of complaint from Japan as they know the power of comics better than anyone. All things considered, I can say the exhibition was very meaningful," he added.
Thanks to the good response in France, the exhibition also took place in several Korean cities, Los Angeles and Guangzhou.