> The term normally used is 'manhwa'.

I don't know about English usage, but in Korean these are different concepts. "Manhwa" (만화, maan-hwaa) means "comics", usually in print. The Korean word for an online comic is "webtoon" (웹툰, ooeb-toon). This is the usage, for example, on Naver: NAVER 웹툰 is the title of https://comic.naver.com. Of course the webtoons borrow a lot from manhwa style, but one buys/rents manhwa at a store and reads webtoons on the subway. So they are different concepts and "webtoon" is the proper Korean term for this phenomenon.

For (at least within scanlation scene) english usage: Manga is comic originated from Japan Manhwa is comic originated from Korea Manhua is comic originated from China

"Tank is an armored vehicle originated in the UK, char d'assaut is an armored vehicle originated in France, Panzer is an armored vehicle originated in Germany." It's fine to call them all "tanks" and it's fine to call all East Asian comics "comics" or even "manga".

I can see the logic of calling east asian comics "comics". But why would an English speaker use a Japanese term, "manga" to refer to all east Asia comics?

This is also what I have seen in other online communities that aggregate such works.

Still people can say "reading manhwa" when they read webtoon. Webtoon is still manhwa. I also say I read 만화 to my friend who read on Naver and Daum, who also often say 만화

It's worth noting that manga, manwha, manhua, are slightly different ways to pronounce what are essentially the same characters which mean "comics" across those respective languages: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%BC%AB%E7%95%AB

I think that's because Korean and Chinese usages are loanword from Japanese manga. Japanese version of Wikipedia traces etymology back to 17th-18th century pseudo-Chinese word, later extended to include Western comics which became the roots of modern day manga.

I must disagree. It's accurate that the word "webtoon" can refer to Chinese webtoons as well – but "webtoon" is what is used to refer to digital publication + the style of panel layout designed to be swiped vertically on a screen. "Manhwa" predate and extend beyond this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goong_(manhwa) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_House_(manhwa) are two that got big and were adapted to hell and back) being the general term for Korean comics – which, in the print era, had the typical print layout. I think it's worthwhile to be precise in these conversations because there are Japanese webtoons as well these days, which would properly constitute "manga" as well, and if we're mixing up all the "comics" words from different languages with the trends in their formats, it's going to be a pain to discuss.

Yes as I've said they are different, but get used interchangeably. You can try your best to be precise in the conversations but there is too much incorrect momentum behind the wrong words sadly! It's like calling things fonts when you actually mean typeface. Or GPS when you actually mean GNSS.

I mean, one thing said was "Manhwa are very mobile friendly, the language is simple, and most notably they are colorful" which is true of "webtoons", not of "manhwa".

I don't agree that there's too much incorrect momentum behind the words; what I see in fan/piracy circles tends to be pretty clear about it.

True. In Korea, we never say Japanese comics, manga, but just say Japanese manhwa. It is only a generic term for comics/cartoons.

Manhwa have definitely had more of a strict formula to them than most other contemporary comics, at least the ones I've viewed. Most of the stories seem to be copy-pastes of a "weak guy becomes tough guy" power fantasy, with characterizations falling along class and gender stereotypes. Illustrations are likewise industrial in nature, using the same posable doll figures to churn out basic talking head + fighting panels. I can't recall one that did good establishing shots or worked the vertical layout for interesting composition.

That said, I still read the stuff on occasion. It's still comics, and not far in the adherence to formula.

Isn't the "weak guy becomes tough guy" power fantasy make the majority of the manga market, at least in the west?

Manga and anime is very diverse, and yet, only the "shounen" style seems to represented, and that's not even the full spectrum of what shounen has to offer. I don't know much about manhwa, maybe there is more depth to what we are served, or maybe it is just that they just focused on what is commercially successful.

> Isn't the "weak guy becomes tough guy" power fantasy make the majority of the manga market, at least in the west?

Shōnen is probably the bigger market, but it’s worth noting that the key to the “style” is that it’s the term for the target market: young boys. There is usually a power accumulation fantasy, but more accurately these are typically coming-of-age stories.

So:

Shōnen: Young Boys

Shōjo: Young Girls

Seinen: Young Men

Josei: Ladies (there is also a separate category for “Young Ladies”)

As you can see, these are less genre terms and more demographic terms.

They’re different kinds of power fantasies. The one in webtoons is called “naroukei” in Japan, has more self identification and a dark brooding incel hero, and implies you’ll get a girlfriend by being really good at video games. Most popular Japanese example is SAO, although the author of that has lightened up a lot and is woke now. (The fantasy novel “isekai” variant has a strange tendency to have the MC buy sex slaves and the author to explain why it’s fine actually.)

Jump comics are the best selling manga in the US, but the brand basically works by having a few big magic power based series (Demon Slayer etc) that draw you in and then a lot of other ones in different genres (Spy X Family is a family comedy). Also, while none of the editor staff are or ever have been women, these are actually appealing to girls.

Rather than a single self-identification MC, Jump’s magic battle shounens tend to have very large ensemble casts who simultaneously have unique superpowers and are in some kind of corporate org chart power ranking. It’s unclear how they figure out that the guy who can turn into lava on Thursdays is rank #5 and the guy whose shoulders are drums and when he bangs the drums your head explodes is #28.

That is increasingly less the case, thankfully. These things do take time though. An interesting parallel is the French market for translated manga, which has a much higher diversity of series in non-shounen demographics available. Hard to know how much of that is due to the French actually being more interested in these demographics, and how much is American publishers believing that manga targeted at other demographics is likely to be less successful and hence mostly going with safe bets.

Additionally in manhuas, some non so usual topice are overreepresented, like a _lot_ of shonnen manhuas about business character success/CEO kind of stuff.

That’s normal for Korea - Kdramas do it all the time too. Not so much in the West.

> Not so much in the West.

There are plenty of soap operas that feature similar plot lines.

Maybe that's because the distributor thinks other genre of manga is so fringed that cannot generate enough revenue to justify the translation?

I dunno, it might be your choices. I have seen way more diverse range of manghwa genres then, say, comic. By diverse, I mean there was comedy, romance, historical drama, workplace dramas, stuff seemingly aimed at stay at home women, you name it.

The stuff you name is stuff aimed at young men or boys. But there is more to it then just that.

And quite often, there's a tower... there is some kind of obsession with a tower which escapes me, but I can understand its usage, it's a convenient way of shifting scenes into something completely new, instead of having to maintain continuity

You have only seen a small part of manhwa and you are trying to define what manhwa is. Way to go, sir. Keep doing it. You may at the end gain a small followers

Well said, and I agree with every point. I love Solo Leveling, and it’s very much action based like Berserk, but it will never reach the same depths of emotion Berserk can elicit.

Caveat emptor: I’ve worked on both manhwa and manga as a scanlation (unofficial translations) proofreader.

True, but one of the things I loved of Solo Leveling (it's finished, right?) is that some times the colors are AMAZING, like there were some panels where I would just stop and get lost in the art for a bit, while that rarely happened to me with black and white manga. Even when it DID happen with manga, it's literally missing an order of magnitude, so IMHO peak manga B&W can barely compare with peak full-color art (and I'm not even saying Solo Leveling is top-level color art, what I'm saying is that it's "very good" and with that it beats "top level" B&W any day IMHO).

I cant disagree that color art has dimensions to it that black and white (and halftones) can’t quite reach.

But to say that color alone makes it better than greyscale… No, I can not agree with that. A matter of taste? Perhaps. But there is some absurdly beautiful art in Manga too.

Starkness, working within constraints, has its own beauty.

And, as an aside, full color manga is becoming a thing too. More and more full color webtoon style comics are coming from Japan; from mangaka.

I'm not saying that color alone makes it better than greyscale, that'd be absurd. What I'm saying is that for the same "percentile of quality", color wins pretty much always.

Since full-color as a set technically includes the B&W set (and in the case on point of Solo Leveling, there are some scenes that are notably impressive while being mostly B&W! or grayscale with a shadow hint in other color) then it's a truism that full-color reaches to heights that B&W can never reach.

An author known for her detail is Kaoru Mori. Her art is really beautiful. And while it’s Josei I think it’s appealing to those outside the usual demographic. It is much better than any webtoon where most suffer from samesie character design.

I suspect you only say this because you read on your phone. The true strength of black-and-white illustration is in being able to see how individual pen strokes have contributed to the feel of the final image. To do this properly you really need a physically large image (and the artist to have started with the intention of producing a physically large image). I didn't think Naoko Takeuchi was that great of an artist until I read the Eternal edition of her magnum opus, and the difference is night and day.

Halftones, delicate hatching and thin lines all turn to mush when anti-aliased, so they just won't show up in a medium optimised for grabbing the attention of the infinite-scrolling phone-reader with thumbnail-sized images.

Are there any particular tools of the trade for scanlations, or does everyone use Photoshop/GIMP and call it a day?

Primarily Photoshop for scanlation. Official workflows will use a combination of Photoshop for retouching and InDesign for lettering/prepress

Yup, photoshop almost exclusively for the redrawers and typesetters, and plain ol' text documents (with some "this line goes on this page in this bubble" shorthand) for translators and proofreaders.

Gimp, sadly, does not really work, since it doesn't represent .psd files the same way photoshop does. It's easier to sail the high seas than it is to get a Gimp workflow working. :(

Thank you for your work.

It's fun (well, when you're working on one you enjoy), and there's plenty of need. If you're on Mangadex, just look for the requests teams are making as part of their headers or footers in scanlated chapters. It's how I found my way in.

Proofreaders in scanlation are basically touching up the translations to make them read well in English (tenses and idioms that don't always translate well), as well as checking for consistency between chapters in tone and spelling.

I was talking to a friend the other day about how it feels like manhua/longstrip webtoon comics has yet to experience its creative peak.

Looking back at the history of manga, it is possible to see how new innovations have played with and manipulated standard ideas of paneling and framing to produce fascinating and artistic work. A seemingly constrained format (small-size black-and-white comic book) becomes a canvas for extraordinary creative expression.

Longstrip comics are not worse than manga, of course, but it feels like creators have yet to explore the edges of the format. What can a longstrip do that a traditional book can’t? How can the limitations of the format be turned into strengths? I wonder if this will come to pass, and how long it will take.

Have you seen this story (must be non-mobile)?

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=...

If you’re mobile the scrolling breaks. Otherwise it’s an interesting example of the medium.

Manhwa, mànhuà, manga... 漫画.

Ultimately, it's all in line with the rise of South Korea. 1980s : Japan :: 2010s : S. Korea

> sometimes a panel requires a lot of pinching and zooming.

The iPad (12.9") is what got me into comics and manga, the screen size is almost perfect so it's a very pleasant experience.

Do you read 2 pages at a time in landscape mode? I like reading manga on my 11” iPad (in portrait mode), but IIUC this is actually significantly larger than print manga.

On my 12.9" I read one page at a time in portrait. The size is nice since it lets me see the details and small text well without holding the tablet close to my face or zooming.

The 11" model is a very good size for manga reading and allows for this too, though. 11" is my preferred size actually, but I went for the 12.9" instead to be able to better test apps on that model — an app designed for 11" only will have a lot of wasted space running on a 12.9". The miniLED backlighting is nice too, wish that 11" had that.

It is not a form factor everyone takes everywhere. Webtoon can be read comfortably anywhere anytime with mobile phone pretty much everyone has in the hand or in the pocket. That is huger difference.

I think in Japan most manga is still read on paper

Oh, I see. I didn't realize that the term "manhwa" was specifically used for Korean comics. I always just thought it was a general term for any type of webcomic. It's interesting to hear about the differences between manga and manhwa. It sounds like manhwa are more accessible and mobile-friendly, but that manga has a higher story density and more complex art styles. I suppose it's all a matter of personal preference.

In Korea, Manhwa tends to refer to printed comics like Manga, whilst Webtoon refers to online digital comics.

Still in Korea, people often say "read manhwa" on (webtoon platform). Webtoon is just a digital version of manhwa but not separate thing.

You don’t have to comment if you don’t actually know. What you just said is quite wrong.

The medium is the message.