[Alert] Please remember to support the manhwa teams!
Creating manhwa is difficult.
Drawing a comic takes a ridiculous amount of time.
Each week, artists are expected to upload a high quality, full color comic with at least 65 panels (cuts).
How to best support these artists?
#1 - Support them officially on the official platform of choice, tappy, tapas etc. This is by far, the best way to support them overseas.
- Supporting on kakaopage would be great too, but I don’t see many people willing to support in a language they can’t read, even if it’s cents per chapter.
#2 - follow their social media (twitter, instagram etc), and comment on their weekly release posts.
- shout out your praise of a pretty panel, of how much you like their work, how you look forward to every chapter, how you wish they have a good day, how you’ll continue to support them etc; make it as cheesy and fangirly as much as possible. Emojis are OK too.
- Even if they don’t have time to respond to every comment, they are always very happy to get comments, especially positive ones. Their thanks is implied.
- Artists are always happy to get international comments too, twitter has a handy translation feature so it’s super easy for them to get a quick translation - type your english, japanese, indonesian, spanish comments proudly!
- mention you support them on tappytoon/tapas/whatever official site you use - they’ll love that too!
Please DO NOT:
- If you do, for whatever reason, read on an manhwa aggregate site (not official sites like tapas, tappy, etc) NEVER mention you read off an illegal manhwa aggregate site, you’ll literally make them demotivated and cry. They worked so hard, yet readers would read on an unofficial site instead of supporting officially? it hurts their soul. They’re already stressed and sleep deprived enough (refer to the post below from Luna Heng)
- Excessively bother the creators by tagging them on stuff. They’re very busy creating the manhwa we love!! We don’t want them to be so uncomfortable that they turn off comments on their posts!!
If you are financially able to, please support them officially!
Because I have a part-time job, I have extra spending money so I:
1) Purchase the weekly chapters from kakaopage
2) Purchase the weekly chapters from Tappytoon
3) Purchase the physical books from KR sites for collection purposes
4) Occasionally post on the Artist’s twitter weekly to give them support
--
More info below:
It’s been documented how much stress artists are under to succeed and to provide entertainment for the readers (as well as deal with pressures from management. The most well known cases is of "Solo Leveling" artist Seongrak Jang (Dubu), who died in 2022 due to a brain hemorrhage connected to chronic illness (1). Starting in 2023, after the controversy regarding Juniljus, “Roxana”’s artist’s miscarriage from overwork in summer 2022, there were some changes in the main webtoon platform, kakaopage korea, allowing artists a 4 week on, 1 week off period in publication. However, this isn’t enough.
Some statistics (2)
1. 28.7% of Webtoon writers that responded to the survey have depression, compared to the national average of 7.7%
2. 17.3% had suicidal thoughts, 8.5% planned it, 4% tried it. Nationals averages being (10.7%, 2.5%, 1.7%) respectively
3. Depression, Anxiety, & Sleep disorders were more likely to be diagnosed if the artist received negative comments.
4. The average amount of cuts per chapter is 60-70, this only includes sketches, not detailed art, or coloring so the real number is around 3 times that.
5. muscle disorders, and other body illnesses were high due to long periods of sitting. Web platforms are growing but so is anxiety about impressing readers, so authors are including more cuts.
6. 51% said their income was between 2-4 million won (1600-3200 USD)
With the statistics above, these Korean artists are under a TREMENDOUS amount of stress and pressure to meet their deadlines. Their “off” weeks are not meant for them to go on vacation, it’s for them to catch up and get a bit more sleep, but also to build their “saves” (future chapters). This is also true of when series goes on 3 months - 1 year or more hiatus: it’s not meant for a rest and relaxation period. The artists continue to draw, and build up a stash of chapters to post during the “active posting period.” Each artist’s drawing speed is different, but an estimation is that one panel can take on average 2-6 hours to draw (Suol, the artist for Villains are Destined to die mentioned in a tweet somewhere iirc). Some key frame panels take up to 12 hours to draw!.
Regarding “saves” - ideally the artist has 5+ saves ready for a smooth publication schedule, but most of the time, they only have 1 or less. That’s why it’s so common for series to take an extra week (or four) for an unexpected hiatus, because they literally don’t have any chapters to post, they’re literally finishing hours before the posting deadline.
Social medias mentioned:
twitter @NightWitch_0615 - Artist of “A World Without You”
twitter @binu_1209 - Artist of “The Viridescent Tiara”
twitter @Domics714 - Artist of “The Lady's Dark Secret”
insta @ zoosun816 - Artist of “I Stan the Prince”
twitter @_HENG_HENG - Artist of “Villain Duke's Precious One"
twitter @sano_ramyun - “Artist of “A Talented maid”
Shortly after starting the Lady’s Dark Secret, DOHA was hospitalized. Here she points out how much her art changes based on how she feels - when she’s in good shape her art is quite beautiful, but when she’s trying to push through to meet deadlines when she isn’t, we see wonky proportions. All these artists work hard, but they get limited understanding from readers. It’s common to see readers pointing out how bad the art is... causing the artists pain because they really do try hard, but they have relentless deadlines to fulfill.
Binu has been having health issues since the serialization of “A Viridescent Crown”. In response to DOHA’s post above, she also mentioned she was hospitalized during the publication period of S2. During it’s run, netizens were quick to see that the quality of S2 dropped a lot, and many readers even dropped the series because of the drop in quality or poking fun at weirdly drawn art, the ML was not as hot as he used to be and has “a dorito chin”. Meanwhile she’s trying her best to finish her work, but has required a lot of breaks and hospitalizations to recover. Even so, S2 ended 10/2022, and the earliest estimation of a return will be sometime in Jan 2024 (14 month hiatus!). The Season 1 break was 8 months, and even then, that wasn’t enough.
Lunaheng, the artist of “Villain duke’s precious one” seems to have avoided hospitalizations and poor health, but she still speaks out about working all day and getting few hours of sleep at night. She even had to post it twice in english to try to stop readers from reading it from unofficial sites!
I can’t find the tweet (because she’s so active on twitter), but Night Witch, the artist of “ A World Without You” was actually hospitalized in March 2023 while working on two series at the same time. She had a family member post updates for her while she was recovering to not disrupt the posting schedule.
zoosun, the artist of “I Stan the Prince”, has had health issues limiting her ability to draw. The last chapter was posted 12/2021, and is projected to resume serialization 8/2023.
Even Hayeon, the artist for YM, had some health issues 12/2022 where she took 5 weeks off to recover. She seems to be doing better this year though
><
Sanho, the artist for “A Talented Maid”, revealed she had issues after finishing the second season. She went on an extended hiatus from 6/2021-12/2022, about 18 months. Despite having depression and being on medication, and having a herniated disk (which is known to develop/worsen from poor sitting habits like slouching or sitting for long hours), she still tried to push through and it really took a toll on her health, which caused her to extend the hiatus even more.
As you can see, these creators work really hard to create content for readers. They really do sacrifice their well-being to create. Yes, the workforce is harsh, the business model is exploitive, but at least for us, as overseas readers, we can support them by purchasing the official versions if they’re available in our country.
Sources:
1) https://twitter.com/Manhwabang_/status/1611503074325024768?s=20
2) https://t.co/kEZnwFV4Pe, https://t.co/7cIN8965hq
20 notes
·
View notes
*slaps top of Angela and Rayburn like a car salesman* These badboys can fit so many tropes in them:
Childhood friends
First love
Forced proximity
Both fell first and harder
Time skip
Misunderstanding (that got resolved pretty quickly)
Physical touch as love language
Sun x moon
Black cat x golden retriever
Sunshine x sunshine protector
Introvert x extrovert
Friends to lovers
Secret identity
Rich x poor
Opposites attract
Mutual pining idiots
Grumpy x sunshine
Idiots in love
Everyone knows but them
69 notes
·
View notes