‘Web-toon’ is a mixed word of Web (Internet) and Cartoon. In many portals like NAVER and DAUM, there are numerous web-toons that draw many readers’ attention. These days, many web-toons are being used to make scenarios of drama and movie. Movies from web-toons have become especially popular. In 2006, webtoonist Kang Pool’s ‘Apartment’ was made to movie version for the first time and many web-toons were used to make movie. However, many movies from web-toons failed at the box office for several years. Nevertheless since 2010, converting web-toons into movies has become popular. The popularity was sparked by Moss, the box office hit of the DAUM web-toon of webtoonist Yoon Tae Ho. So, what are the strengths and weaknesses for conversion of web-toon to movie?
Web-toon is a very unique form of media. All web-toons are posted on the Internet and many readers can actively participate in evaluating them. They can write comments and give grades about each script of web-toons and tend to change their taste about web-toon’s genre. So, webtoonists are very sensitive to their evaluations and sometimes change their genres adjusting to new trends. Therefore, web-toons’ genres became various and stories that can be converted to movies did also. Usually, movies from web-toons can have many attentions at first because scenarios are chosen from the web-toons with popularity. Also, these movies offer perfect stories because the amount of stories is settled and well-organized. People who watch the movie from web-toon can be interested in the story because they can remember their emotions the original web-toon stirred within them.
However, some limits occur because of the characteristics of web-toons. These mostly become limits in other media converted to movies such as novels. Due to difference in media, dramatization is essential in the film production. People can be disappointed at the story because that process can make the story worse than web-toon’s. Although there is dramatization, broad context is not changed, so many people can expect the story. However, the same story can make people bored and people avoid watching that movie because they can expect everything and there are no interesting twists in the movies. People can watch most web-toons for free but they have to pay to see the movie version. Also, it is sometimes hard to reproduce the emotion felt in web-toons because web-toon follows scrolling way when readers read the story but movie’s story disappears in one second.
Movies have various genres and stories with this converting process. However, web-toons and movies are different media and just converting web-toon for same stories and composition can lead to failure at the box office. Therefore, it is necessary to apply proper dramatization in accordance with their characteristics.
*This article referred to the paper "The Research of Storytelling for Converting Webtoon Into Movie" by Chang-Wan Han and Nan-Ji Hong (Sejong University Cartoon Animation).