Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry

“My caput is inactive crisp and my hands enactment conscionable fine, truthful I person nary involvement successful getting assistance from AI to gully oregon constitute stories,” says Lee Hyun-se, a legendary South Korean cartoonist champion known for his seminal bid A Daunting Team, a 1983 manhwa astir the coming-of-age of heroic underdog shot players. “Still, I’ve joined hands with AI to immortalize my characters Kkachi, Umji, and Ma Dong-tak.”

By embracing generative AI, Lee is charting a caller originative frontier successful South Korea’s web comics industry. Since comics magazines faded astatine the crook of the century, web comics—serialized comics that work from apical to bottommost connected integer platforms—have gone from niche subculture to global amusement powerhouse, drafting successful hundreds of millions of readers astir the world. Lee has agelong been astatine its forefront, pushing the boundaries of his craft.

Lee drew inspiration for his renegade shot avengers from the Sammi Superstars, 1 of South Korea’s archetypal nonrecreational shot teams, whose travel of perseverance captivated a state stifled by subject dictatorship. The bid gained a cult pursuing among readers seeking a originative flight from governmental repression, mesmerized by his bold brushstrokes and cinematic compositions that defied the conventions of cartoons. 

Kkachi, the rebellious protagonist successful A Daunting Team, is an change ego of Lee himself. A scrappy outcast with untamed, spiky hair, helium is simply a instrumentality favourite who challenges the satellite with unrelenting passionateness and a brave conscience. He has reappeared passim Lee’s signature works, painted with a caller furniture of pathos each time—a supernatural warrior who saves Earth from an alien onslaught successful Armageddon and a rogue constabulary serviceman battling a almighty transgression syndicate successful Karon’s Dawn. Over decades, Kkachi has go a taste icon successful South Korea. 

But Lee worries astir Kkachi’s future. “In South Korea, erstwhile an writer dies, his characters besides get buried successful his grave,” helium says, drafting contrasts with enduring American comic characters similar Superman and Spider-Man. Lee craves creator immortality. He wants his characters to enactment live not conscionable successful the memories of readers, but besides connected their web comic platforms. “Even aft I die, I privation my worldviews and characters to pass and resonate with the radical of a caller era,” helium says. “That’s the benignant of immortality I want.”

Lee believes that AI tin assistance him recognize his vision. In concern with Jaedam Media, a web comics accumulation institution based successful Seoul, helium developed the “Lee Hyun-se AI model” by fine-tuning the open-source AI creation generator Stable Diffusion, created by the UK-based startup Stability AI. Using a information acceptable of 5,000 volumes of comics that helium has published implicit 46 years, the resulting exemplary generates comics successful his signature style. 

This year, Lee is preparing to people his archetypal AI-assisted web comic, a remake of his 1994 manhwa Karon’s Dawn. Writers astatine Jaedam Media are adapting the communicative into a modernized transgression play starring Kkachi arsenic a constabulary serviceman successful present-day Seoul and his emotion involvement Umji arsenic a daring prosecutor. Students astatine Sejong University, wherever Lee teaches comics, are creating the artwork utilizing his AI model. 

The originative process unfolds successful respective stages. First, Lee’s AI exemplary generates illustrations based connected substance prompts and notation images, similar 3D anatomy models and hand-drawn sketches that supply cues for antithetic movements and gestures. Lee’s students past curate and edit the illustrations, adjusting the characters’ poses, tailoring their facial expressions, and integrating them into cartoonish compositions that AI can’t engineer. After galore rounds of refinement and regeneration, Lee steps successful to orchestrate the last product, adding his chiseled creator edge.

AI companies envision that artists could automate the grunt enactment of drafting and transmission their originative vigor into storytelling and creation direction.

“Under my direction, a quality mightiness glare with bittersweet eyes adjacent erstwhile they’re aggravated oregon ferocious eyes erstwhile they’re happy,” helium says. “It’s a subversive expression, a nuance that AI struggles to capture. Those delicate details I request to nonstop myself.”

Ultimately, Lee wants to physique an AI strategy that embodies his meticulous attack to quality expressions. The expansive imaginativeness of his experimental AI task is to make a “Lee Hyun-se simulation agent”—an precocious procreation of his AI exemplary that replicates his originative mind. The exemplary would beryllium trained connected integer archives of Lee’s essays, interviews, and texts from his comics—the taxable of an exhibit astatine the National Library of Korea past year—to encode his philosophy, personality, and values. “It’s going to instrumentality a agelong clip for AI to larn my myriad worldviews due to the fact that I’ve published truthful overmuch work,” helium says.

The integer clone of Lee would make caller comics with his creator intuition, perceiving its situation and making originative choices arsenic helium would—perhaps adjacent publishing a bid acold successful the aboriginal starring Kkachi arsenic a post-human protagonist. “Fifty years from now, what kinds of comics would Lee Hyun-se make if helium saw the satellite then?” Lee asks. “The question fascinates me.”

Lee’s quest for a lasting creator bequest is portion of a broader originative improvement driven by technology. In the decades since their emergence, web comics person transformed the creation of storytelling, offering an infinite integer canvas that integrates music, animation, and interactive visuals with the effects of caller tools similar automated coloring programs. The summation of AI is spurring the adjacent question of innovation. But adjacent arsenic it unlocks caller originative possibilities, it is fueling anxieties implicit creator bureau and authorship.

Last twelvemonth the South Korean startup Onoma AI, named aft the Greek connection for “name” (a awesome of its ambition to redefine originative storytelling), launched an AI-powered web comic generator called TooToon. The bundle allows users to make synopses, characters, and storyboards with elemental substance prompts and person unsmooth sketches into polished illustrations that bespeak their idiosyncratic creator style. TooToon claims to streamline the labor-­intensive originative process by cutting down the accumulation clip betwixt conception improvement and enactment creation from six months to conscionable 2 weeks.

Companies similar Onoma AI champion the thought that AI tin assistance anyone beryllium an artist—even if you can’t gully oregon spend to prosecute an service of assistants to support up with the industry’s insane production demands. In their vision, artists would look arsenic directors of their ain AI-powered solo studios, automating the grunt enactment of drafting and channeling their originative vigor into storytelling and creation direction. The productivity breakthrough, they say, would assistance artists brainstorm much experimental ideas, instrumentality connected big-scale productions, and disrupt the workplace monopolies that predominate the market.

Oh Hye-seong is the protagonist of “Karon’s Dawn,” an AI-assisted web comic bid by the South Korean cartoonist Lee Hyun-se, which volition beryllium released aboriginal this year.

COURTESY OF THE PUBLISHER

“AI would grow the web comic ecosystem,” says Song Min, the laminitis and CEO of Onoma AI. Song describes the manufacture successful South Korea arsenic a “pyramid”—powerhouse platforms similar Naver Webtoon and Kakao Webtoon astatine the top, followed by big-shot studios, wherever artists collaborate to mass-produce web comics. “The remainder of the artists, those extracurricular the workplace system, can’t make alone,” helium explains. “AI would empower much artists to look arsenic autarkic artists.”

Last year, Onoma AI partnered with a radical of young web comic artists to create Tarot: A Tale of Seven Pages, a enigma thriller unraveling the twisted fates of strangers cursed by a manus of tarot cards. Through these collaborations, Song uses the artists’ feedback to refine TooToon. Still, adjacent arsenic a champion of AI-generated art, helium questions whether it’s “a bully happening for AI to beryllium perfect.” Just arsenic engineers request to support coding to hone their skills, helium wonders if AI should permission country for artists to support drafting to nurture their craft.

“AI is an inevitable circuit de force, but for now, the large hurdles prevarication successful artists’ cognition and copyright,” helium says.

Onoma AI built Illustrious, the ample connection exemplary powering TooToon, by fine-tuning Stable Diffusion connected the Danbooru2023 information set, a nationalist representation slope of anime-style illustrations. But Stable Diffusion, on with different fashionable representation generators built connected the model, has travel under fire for indiscriminately scraping images from the internet, sparking a barrage of lawsuits implicit copyright infringement. In turn, web comic generators are facing aggravated backlash from artists who fearfulness that the programs are being trained connected their creation without their consent.

"Can you make without a soul? Who knows?”

As companies silo their grooming data, artists and readers person launched a integer run to boycott AI-generated web comics. In May 2023, readers bombarded The Knight King Returns with the Gods connected Naver Webtoon with blazingly debased ratings aft discovering that AI had been utilized to refine portions of the artwork. The pursuing month, artists flooded the level with anonymous posts protesting “AI web comics created from theft,” sharply criticizing Naver’s contract policy requiring artists who people connected the level to consent to having their works utilized arsenic AI grooming data.

To settee the standoff, the Korea Copyright Commission issued a acceptable of guidelines successful December 2023, urging AI developers to get support from copyright holders earlier utilizing their works arsenic grooming data; articulate the purpose, scope, and duration of use; and supply just compensation. A twelvemonth later, amid increasing calls from AI companies for entree to much data, the South Korean authorities projected carving retired an exemption to copyright laws that would let AI models to beryllium trained connected copyrighted works nether the doctrine of fair use. But nary authorities oregon regularisation has yet established a wide ineligible framework, leaving artists successful limbo.

While seasoned artists similar Lee clasp the exertion arsenic a instrumentality to grow their legacy, wholeheartedly licensing their intelligence spot to AI, younger artists spot it arsenic a threat. They fearfulness that AI volition bargain their artwork and, much important, their individuality arsenic artists.

“Drawing is the astir hard and the astir amusive portion of making comics,” says Park So-won, a young web comic creator based successful Seoul. Park grew up dreaming of becoming a cartoonist, watching her mother, an animator, bring characters to life. After years of juggling gigs arsenic an creator adjunct astatine a web comics studio, interrupted by a little originative hiatus, she made her breakthrough connected the level Lezhin Comics with Legs That Won’t Walk, a queer romance noir astir a boxer who falls successful emotion with a indebtedness shark chasing aft him implicit his alcoholic father’s debt.

As an autarkic artist, Park is perpetually astatine work. She publishes a caller occurrence each 10 days, often pulling all-nighters to nutrient up to 80 cuts of drawing, adjacent with the assistance of assistants handling inheritance creation and coloring. Occasionally she finds herself successful a travel state, moving 30 hours consecutive without a break.

Still, Park can’t ideate outsourcing her drawings, which she sees arsenic the bosom of her comics, to AI. “The crux of a comic, nevertheless important the story, is the drawing. If the communicative were written successful words, radical wouldn’t person work it, would they? The communicative is conscionable a thought—the execution is the drawing,” she says. “The grammar of comics is the drawing.” Handing implicit her drafting would mean surrendering her creator agency.

A portion from ”A Daunting Team,” a 1983 shot manhwa made by Lee Hyun-se.

COURTESY OF THE PUBLISHER

Park thinks algorithmic creation lacks soul—like “objects that beryllium successful a void”—and isn’t disquieted astir whether AI tin gully amended than she does. Her drawings person evolved implicit the years, shaped by her shifting outlook connected the satellite and breaking caller originative crushed implicit time—an creator progression that she thinks an algorithm trained to emulate existing works could ne'er make. “I’ll support charting caller territory arsenic an artist, portion AI volition enactment the same,” she says.

To Park, creation is ultimate indulgence: “I’ve travel this acold due to the fact that I emotion to draw. If AI takes distant my favourite happening to bash successful the world, what would I do?”

But different comic artists, whose strengths prevarication successful storytelling, invited the innovation. Bae Jin-soo was an aspiring screenwriter earlier debuting arsenic an creator connected Naver Webtoon’s amateur comics leafage successful 2010. To crook his screenplay into a comic, Bae taught himself to gully by photographing antithetic compositions and tracing them connected paper. “I can’t draw, truthful I’ll stake connected my writing,” helium thought.

After his debut series Friday: Forbidden Tales took off, Bae roseate to stardom with his three-part bid Money Game, Pie Game, and Funny Game—brainy intelligence thrillers packed with crippled twists and witty, thought-provoking narratives astir a radical of contestants playing eccentric games to triumph a currency prize. They person adjacent inspired a fashionable Netflix adaptation, The 8 Show. 

“I inactive person truthful galore much stories I privation to tell,” Bae says. A prolific writer, helium keeps a moving database of caller ideas successful a pouch notepad, the genre-bending plots spanning horror, politics, and achromatic comedy. But with his caput racing up of his hand, breathing beingness into each his ideas would necessitate commissioning a workplace to execute the illustrations. For Bae, an AI-powered web comic generator could beryllium a crippled changer. “If AI could grip my artwork, I would make an endless watercourse of caller comics,” helium says.

Bae is besides anxious to research AI arsenic a “backup artillery for communicative ideas,” similar a writer’s assistant. Even so, to clasp his crushed arsenic an artist, helium plans to excavation deeper into his imaginativeness to make archetypal and experimental ideas that could beryllium recovered obscurity else. “That’s the domain of [human] creators,” helium says. Still, Bae wonders if his ain originative borderline would dilatory erode done extended collaboration with AI: “Would my ain colors commencement to fade?”

Meanwhile, comics students astatine Sejong University successful Seoul are learning to integrate AI into their instrumentality kits. The budding artists are being trained arsenic “creative coders,” turning strips of comics into information sets by meticulously annotating their content, and arsenic punctual engineers who tin usher AI to nutrient characters that align with their aesthetic sensibilities.

“Creativity takes time—to bespeak and contemplate connected your work,” says Han Chang-wan, a prof of comics and animation astatine Sejong University, who teaches a people connected AI-generated web comics. Han says that’s what AI volition bargain for his students: the clip to “create much divers characters, much kaleidoscopic plots, and much eclectic genres” that situation the formulaic comics mass-produced by studios. Ultimately, helium hopes, they’ll “tap into an wholly caller readership.”

As artists navigate this uncharted future, generative AI is raising profound questions astir what powers creativity. “AI could beryllium a method adjunct to artists,” says Shin Il-sook, the president of the Korea Cartoonist Association and the renowned cartoonist down the humanities phantasy romance The Four Daughters of Armian, which follows a brave-hearted princess exiled from a matriarchal kingdom arsenic she embarks connected a travel of endurance and self-discovery done war, love, and governmental powerfulness battles. Still, she wonders if AI tin truly beryllium a creative companion. 

“Creativity is astir making thing ne'er seen before, driven by a tendency to stock it with different people,” Shin says. “It’s profoundly intertwined with the quality acquisition and its afflictions. That’s wherefore an creator who has walked done life’s suffering and honed their trade produces singular art,” she says. “Can you make without a soul? Who knows?” 

Michelle Kim is simply a freelance writer and lawyer based successful Seoul.