February 2023

The heyday of webtoon has arrived. Webtoons are translated into various languages and exported worldwide, and webtoon writers appear on the shows as influencers. Considering that just 30 years ago in Korea there was a prejudice that cartoonists could not make money, it is a remarkable change.

Poster of the ¡®K-webtoon Exhibition¡¯ held at KCC Thailand

Thailand, the Cornerstone of Webtoons¡¯
Overseas Expansion

¡°Webtoons,¡± which originated in Korea, refer to digital cartoons serialized on media platforms. When the word webtoon first took off in 2000, it was regarded as an unfamiliar fringe culture in Korea and abroad, but it has imposingly established itself as a globally dominant medium today.

In particular, Thailand is a country that has become a cornerstone of overseas expansion of famous Korean webtoons. Currently, Thailand takes fourth place among Korean webtoon importers. Since webtoons entered Thailand in 2014 and Kakao Webtoons in 2021, webtoons have been as popular as K-pop, K-dramas and K-movies. As of 2019, the number of webtoon users in Thailand was 16.8 million. Kakao Webtoon also proved the great popularity of Korean webtoons with more than 3 million downloads within a year of its launch in Thailand in June 2021.

With interest in webtoons growing in Thailand, the Korean Cultural Center in Thailand provided an opportunity for locals to enjoy webtoons in a different way. It was the ¡°K-webtoon Exhibition¡± held from October 2022 to January 2023.

The Korean Cultural Center in Thailand organized the exhibition around a total of four webtoon¡ª¡±Solo Leveling,¡± which takes first place in the action category among the works available in Thailand, ¡°Solitary Lady,¡± which tops the Saturday webtoon list with more than 500000 subscribers within two days of its launch, ¡°A Business Proposal,¡± of which the number of views has soared about 10 times in Kakao Webtoon Thailand as it was aired as a drama on Netflix and a webtoon of its own making.

The Korean Cultural Center in Thailand constructed the exhibition so that, aside from simply reading webtoons, visitors could feel as if they were actually in webtoons by using various devices: the Dark Room where you could enjoy the splendid action scenes of ¡°Solo Leveling¡± on a huge screen, the Mirror Room that reflected the setting of ¡°Solitary Lady,¡± the Photo Zone that imitated the company¡¯s office, the background of ¡°A Business Proposal¡± and the Character Photo Zone.

Also, in order to make the exhibition a meaningful time for would-be webtoon writers in Thailand as well as to introduce webtoons, the exhibit prepared a special program in which Narak, the writer of ¡°A Business Proposal,¡± was invited to hold a talk and demonstrate webtoon paintings.

Webtoon artist Narak, who illustrated ¡®Business Proposal,¡¯ discusses with an aspiring local webtoon artist in Thailand.

New Initiative

It is more remarkable that the Korean Cultural Center in Thailand directly produced a webtoon on the subject of ¡°Thai Soldiers Participating in the Korean War,¡± proving that K-webtoon could become a herald of cultural diplomacy. During the Korean War, Thailand was the first Asian country to dispatch soldiers. Thai soldiers in Korea, called ¡°Little Tigers,¡± overcame the bitter cold that they experienced for the first time, and won consecutive victories. However, since a long time has passed, there are not many young Koreans who remember that Thailand participated in the Korean War and provided food.

The Korean Cultural Center in Thailand directly produced a webtoon to effectively promote the precious relationship between the two countries. Asking Korean writer Kim Eoheung to write a script and Thai writer Phoenix to draw a cartoon, it even made the webtoon production process a forum for exchange between Korea and Thailand. For the next 18 months, they visited and interviewed Korean War veterans. Based on their experiences and a ¡°Study on the Thai Veterans during the Korean War¡± published in Korean by a Thai Ph.D. student, Kim Eoheung completed the script. With colorful paintings added by the illustrator Phoenix, who was selected through an audition, its own ¡°One Day, My Favorite K-pop Idol Group Leader Disappeared!¡± made its debut on September 24, 2022.

People watch webtoon videos played in a shopping mall in Bangkok.

New Model of Soft Power

The webtoon that the Korean Cultural Center in Thailand produced on its own to make known the historical facts about the Korean War to Korean and Thai teenagers drew a lot of attention, surpassing 250,000 views on the Kakao Webtoon Thai platform within three days of its publication and ranking 11th in the overall popularity list. This attempt is particularly significant in that it showed a new model of soft power exchange between the two countries, and was well-received by young people through appropriate media.

It is obvious that Korea has become a cultural content power. In recent years, various Korean cultural content such as K-pop, K-drama and K-movie have created a boom around the world. As indicated by the webtoon of the Korean Cultural Center in Thailand, Korean cultural content is expected to build a bridge between Korea and other countries with its strong power and charm.