웹툰은 해석 방식 "blog meets manga"

CES2025에서 버라이어티 엔터테인먼트 세션에서 웹툰(Webtoon) David LEE cc 출연 후 웹툰의 성공 방정식 공개

인터뷰는 신시아 리틀튼(Cynthia Littleton) 버라이어티 공동 편집장. 이 내용은 버라이어티 팟캐스트 Strictly Business에 공개.  기사 이하 인터뷰 전문 공개

🎨 웹툰의 정의와 시작

. 웹툰 은 그래픽 소설 과  블로그 ,  드라마 가 결합된 형태로,  디지털 스토리텔링 의 새로운 경향

. 웹툰 이라는 포맷은 약 10년 전  한국 에서 시작되어 현재 글로벌 시장에서 영향력을 미치고 있음

. 스크롤 방식의 블로그와 만화가 결합된 웹튠은  할리우드 에서 인기를 끌고 있으며, 'blog meets manga'라는 설명으로 함축

🌐 웹툰 사용자 경험의 핵심 요소

. 웹툰 은 디지털 플랫폼 으로서 비즈니스와 스토리텔링 의 핵심을 제공

. 웹툰 에서 제공되는 사용자 경험에 대해 많은 이들이 아직 잘 모를 수 있지만, 영화 등의 매체로  접했을  가능성

. 웹툰 의 주요 타겟은 Z세대로, 이들은  웹툰 을 잘 알고 있을 것으로 추정.

. 웹툰 은 전 세계적 으로 활동하며 사용자에게 독특한 경험을 제공

웹툰의 특징

• 세로 스크롤 형식으로 스마트폰에 최적화된 읽기 경험 제공
• 컬러 일러스트와 짧은 에피소드로 구성
• 다양한 장르의 콘텐츠 제공
• 전 세계 1억 7천만 명의 월간 활성 사용자 보유
• 24백만 명의 크리에이터가 매일 12만 개의 새로운 스토리 생성

Webtoon is a new form of storytelling platform that has evolved in line with the digital age. Key Features and Advantages

Features of Webtoon

• Vertical scrolling format provides an optimized reading experience for smartphones
• Composed of color illustrations and short episodes
• Provides content of various genres
• Has 170 million monthly active users worldwide
• 24 million creators create 120,000 new stories every day

비즈니스 모델

• 크리에이터와 수익 공유 모델 (28억 달러 공유)
• 마이크로 결제 시스템 (에피소드당 15-70센트)
• 광고를 통한 무료 콘텐츠 제공 옵션
• 부분 유료화(마이크로페이먼트)
• “Fast Pass”라는 방식: 최신 에피소드를 가장 먼저 보고 싶으면 15~70센트씩 지불.
• “Daily Pass”: 이미 완결된(혹은 연재 중단된) 작품을 하루 단위로 소액 결제하면서 볼 수 있는 모델.

크리에이터 혜택

• 글로벌 독자층에 접근 가능
• 실시간 독자 피드백을 통한 스토리 개선 기회
• IP 확장 가능성 (영화, TV 시리즈, 게임 등)

기술 활용

• AI 기반 개인화 엔진으로 콘텐츠 추천
• 콘텐츠 모더레이션을 위한 AI 기술 활용
• 대규모 데이터 관리 능력

Business Model

• Revenue-sharing model with creators (2.8 billion USD shared)
• Micro-payment system (15-70 cents per episode)
• Option to provide free content through advertisements

Creator Benefits

• Access to a global audience
• Opportunity to improve stories through real-time audience feedback
• Possibility of IP expansion (movies, TV series, games, etc.)

Technology Utilization

• Content recommendation with AI-based personalization engine
• Utilization of AI technology for content moderation
• Ability to manage large amounts of data

글로벌 성장과 팬덤

• 웹툰이 “그래픽노블 + 블로그 스크롤 + 소프 오페라”를 결합한 듯하다는 설명.
• 미국·유럽 등지에서는 예전만큼 대중적이지 않았으나, 최근 몇 년 사이 Gen Z(10~20대) 층을 중심으로 폭발적 성장.
• 영상·출판·굿즈로의 2차 사업화(트랜스미디어)가 활발해지면서 헐리우드 업계도 IP 소스로서 큰 관심을 갖기 시작함.
• 예: 한국·일본에서 인기 웹툰(또는 웹소설)을 원작으로 제작된 드라마·영화가 글로벌 플랫폼(넷플릭스 등)에서 흥행을 거두는 사례가 계속 늘어남.

광고 시청 대체

• 사용자가 유료 결제를 원치 않을 경우, 광고를 시청하면 다음 화를 무료로 볼 수 있게 함.
• 이 광고 모델 역시 인벤토리를 무작정 늘리기보다는 ‘사용자 취향 기반’ 맞춤 광고를 지향.

트랜스미디어(영상화, 게임, 굿즈 등)

• 웹툰/웹소설 인기작이 넷플릭스, 아마존 프라임, Tubi 같은 플랫폼에서 영상화.
• “All of Us Are Dead(지금 우리 학교는)”나 “Through My Window(스페인 소설 원작)” 같은 글로벌 히트작이 실제로 Webtoon/Wattpad에서 시작됨.
• 마고 로비(Margot Robbie)의 제작사 ‘LuckyChap’과의 영화화 프로젝트(‘Stagtown’) 등, 미국 내에서도 IP 사업이 활발히 추진 중.

기업 전략 및 전망

• 미국·유럽 시장의 인지도는 아직 초기 단계이지만, 젊은 독자를 중심으로 점차 보급률이 가파르게 상승.
• 대규모 마케팅 투자 없이도 ‘입소문’과 콘텐츠 경쟁력으로 성장해 왔지만, 앞으로 Duolingo·Discord 등과의 협업 같은 컬래버 마케팅 강화 예정.
• M&A(인수·합병)에 대해서는 “필수적이진 않지만, 좋은 기회가 있다면 충분히 검토할 의향 있음” 정도로 언급.
• “AI가 인간 창작자를 대체하는 것이 아니라, 오히려 창작자가 더 쉽게 글로벌 독자를 만나고 수익을 창출하도록 돕는 방향”을 지향.

인터뷰 전문

Han, welcome to strictly business Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment today, my guests are movers and shakers in the world of webtoons. What is a webtoon? You ask? Well, keep listening, but in Hollywood shorthand, it's like a graphic novel meets a blog scroll meets a soap opera. David J Lee is Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of webtoon entertainment, the Los Angeles based company is a big force in this growing digital storytelling medium that got its start about a decade ago in South Korea. My conversation with Lee was held January 8 as part of Variety's annual entertainment summit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A week later, I got on a zoom with the top webtoon creator Brandon Chen, to get his perspective on this cutting edge new format. My conversation with webtoon Entertainment's David J Lee is coming up right after this break. Hey,

01:24

and we're back with a conversation from CES with webtoon entertainments. David J Lee, let's start a little bit and just unpack exactly what a webtoon is. The best sort of the best short Han description Hollywood always loves, it's this meets this, plus this. But the best sort of shorthand description of what a what an actual webtoon is is sort of a mix between a blog and a manga. That might be a little over simplified, but David, if we could start just by really sort of sketching out what when people go to webtoon users online, because it's a digital platform in terms of the core of the of the business and the storytelling, when, when somebody goes to the to a find a webtoon? What? What? What user experience is that?

02:13

Yeah, it's a great question. And for those in the audience who may not have heard of Webtoon, I have a feeling you may have seen a great live action film and didn't realize it came from us. And if you have friends and family who are in our core target, which is the Gen Z target, I know that they're familiar with us. Let me explain what the company is, but then explain what the experience is. So webtoon as a company is global. We got 170 million monthly active users, but we have 24 million creators who are creating over 120,000 stories every day, right there for the taking by our Gen Z consumers. And the experience is truly digital and mobile, and it spans way beyond one genre. It's more than manga. It's any genre you can imagine. Imagine a Gen Z consumer in their palm of their hand on a mobile device with a flick of their fingers, can scroll and in a fraction of a moment see just enough imagery, a few words to tell them where a story is going. And at the same time these consumers are spending, once they find their great story, 30 to 60 minutes a day reading either a web novel or what we call a web comic or a web tune. For me, having started in the advertising business, it reminds me of a incredible next generation of a digital storyboard, which is why we love the 1.3 billion in reported revenue we generate on our platform. But we love that consumers get to see these stories as rich film adaptations on Netflix or Amazon Prime, or you saw one that came out recently after Thanksgiving on Tubi. And so we're a great untold story. People don't realize they've seen our stories. And you know, I'd love to unpack a little bit about what we're all about here.

03:58

Absolutely. Yeah, I think, I mean, you had the audience at 24 million. That is an astounding number. How do you even before we talk about sort of adapting into other media, I want to talk just the mechanics of, sort of how it works. It's it's user generated so people can upload their they upload their imagery, they upload now, in my understanding of it, it's largely kind of in, you know, graphic form, comic book form. But are you finding now, people are uploading video as well with their with their webtoons, well

04:30

with their they're starting to upload, if you think about it, these 24 million creators, the vast majority have full time jobs. You know, a great example is a young woman named Rachel Smythe, who is a brilliant graphic designer who thought she might have a story to tell in New Zealand and she can come to our site she did. It's called Canvas. We've worked really hard as a tech and an AI company to make it easy for anyone who thinks they might have a story that someone wants to see to create that story, either as a web novel, or if they have a sense of imagery, what we call a web comic. And so these are, if you think about our product, just like you can imagine going through a digital storyboard, you can scroll through vertically this unique format and see where these stories are going. In the case of Rachel, she, like many of our 24 million creators, didn't realize that her story would allow her to be a global creator. She is a New York Times best selling author in print, which we helped her enable, and we may be the only company that has shared $2.8 billion as a core function of our business model with creators. That's why we have so many because we're truly aligned to the fact that consumers want new stories. They want stories from unexpected global sources, and entertainment companies want proven validated with market signal hits that come from places like us, for them to turn into great pieces of film or merchandise or games. So that's the reason why I think we have this unique ecosystem of a global consumption on our platform, these 100 70 million monthly active users, a format that allows anybody to be able to see in a fraction of a second where a story is going, and a de risk profile for an evergreen source of stories, I hope, increasingly, for the media industry, which, which we're going to talk about more today. I

06:24

mean, you know, there's just no shortage of interest. You know, from the beginnings of Hollywood to today, the story, the the colonel, it starts with the story. It's a cliche. It starts on the page, but it's, it starts with the story and and what's interesting in the modern age is that so many people are empowered as storytellers. I think in the past, people felt like, well, I'm not a Hollywood screenwriter. I'm not, you know, but this is like a forum, like so many other social media platforms are, but it's such a specific forum. Let me ask just again, a few more questions about the mechanics of the core webtoon business. Do you, does your company? Do you curate some of these? Do you see when things start to bubble up, you curate them and help kind of recommend them? Or is it really, yeah, I

07:13

think they're think of the experiences. We're very much empowering creators, as you mentioned, to be able to present the story in a way that everyone can consume. So a bunch of our technology, for example, in here, in the US, we call it canvas, allows a great amateur creator to see if somebody might love their story as a web comic or on our Wattpad platform or web novel. But then, with 100 and over 120,000 stories arriving every single day, a lot of our AI technology is to make sure that, as a consumer, these Gen Z consumers, they want an unexpected story, but they have to find it. So having AI based personalization engines to allow we call her Maddie as her target consumer. You know, she's maybe just out of college, or maybe she's getting a cup of coffee, and Maddie loves the story that she's reading, but we know so much about what she loves that presenting her the ability to see the next story is a big part of our underlying technology. And then there's a large amount of this also, which is geared around ensuring that we protect both the creator and the consumer, to ensure that the content is safe. But also we all as content generations, generators, fight piracy. So a large amount of our tech is to make this ecosystem healthy. And because we're global, that's required us to be a tech company at origin, which we were bored out of, a global tech company, but a media and entertainment company in reality, as now that we're generating. We have over 900 adaptations of stories outside our platform, 100 of which are rich film releases in TV and movies. You know, two of Netflix's all time top 10 projects ever came from us, right? What are those titles? Yeah. So all of us are dead. Was one of them, and through my window, which was an unexpected web novel that came out of the Spanish language creators. Was amazing. But you know, every quarter this happens, right? Love me. Love me. In Italy, you know, siguros from Spain, we talked about last quarter sideline, the quarterback in me. The day after Thanksgiving here in the US was the top five hit on Tubi, which started Noah Beck, this great social media star. So more and more I think the world is waking up to the fact that people love a good story, and they love it in all formats on our platform, as a web comic or a web novel, but certainly as a rich film release, a live action release on either TV or the big screen.

09:41

How do you with over 100,000 stories coming in? Did you say every day, every day? I can't even imagine the, you know, the ranks of studio executives that it would take to process that. How do you deal with content moderation? I gotta believe that not every one of those people are good citizens. And, you know, maybe there's some stuff that you don't want on the platform. Do you reserve the right to say, hey, this isn't right for webtoon? I mean,

10:04

this is where our technology comes into play. I used to be in businesses, in mobile gaming and other consumer businesses, where we were relying on a lot of hard work by a lot of humans. But while we have that, we have the benefit of cutting edge AI technology our own, but we're very happy to partner with whoever has the best and we like to think that we provide a real advantage for creators on piracy and consumers on safety. But a large part of it is also market signal. You know, when you have 170 million monthly active users across multiple languages across the globe, and they are so protective of the community that we have, they're a big part of our warning system as well. And, you know, we can talk about all the policies, the technology we like to think we are cutting edge here, but I think the core is what's differentiating is the technology we have and the community base we have, and the track record, you know, protecting creators and consumers has been our story since its origin, and it's taken us over 10 years to arrive as now a public company at scale. But now that we are we can have these 120,000 stories that we think are readable and safe for consumers arrive every day.

11:17

I would imagine that that with that kind of volume, you'd have to have an AI tool. You would have to have something so you have certain red flags that they're that they're looking for not to hammer on this. But you know, content moderation is a big subject for us. Let's talk about so how does it work with the creators and the business model? The more people read, the more it's basically a revenue share. Yeah.

11:40

So we share in the success of amateur creators as they become superstars. And there are so many examples of folks who didn't realize that they had a voice that deserved to be heard. Our model, while simple, is really hard. You know, it is difficult for a company to do what we've done because this $2.8 billion we've shared means that we're in it with them. And from a consumer standpoint, you know, we don't force heavy subscriptions. You know, Maddie as our Gen Z target consumer. By the way, over 70% of our consumers in North America say they can't find the stories they find anywhere else. Same percent says that their experience on our platform is more fun than great companies like Roblox and Tiktok. And the reason why that's true is Maddie can surf for as long as she wants, and when she finds a story, it feels like her discovery a bit like discovering a reel or a video that she feels no one else has seen. She only pays 15 to 70 cents to see the latest breaking episode of the story that she picked. And we are patient. We let our Matties take all the time they want to find the story they want. And she doesn't have to always pay. She can watch the video. Maybe it's an advertisement that's akin to the genre. Maybe she's watching true beauty, and there's a beauty, a beauty ad that she finds relevant, that allows her to see that next episode. So we make it super easy for our consumers to be as empowered as our creators, to pick on their own time what they want to read and see. And I think that's that patience over the last decade plus. Is the reason why we feel Gen Z is we're not reaching them. They're reaching out to us for stories they can't find anywhere.

13:30

That's a good way to put it. Very, very much so with with Gen Z, what are the metrics for the for the part of the platform that does have advertising or some kind of sponsor message. What are the metrics that matter? Is it just total clicks? Is it time spent? I'm kind of curious about the intricacies of the business model.

13:50

Yeah, you know, it's a great topic for those who are interested in this. A lot of the businesses that I've been a part of, you know, you you basically cannibalize your content business if you shove your ad business up, you know, like I think about my mobile game days where, you know, I'm pushing gotcha for paid content at the expense of time spent on an ad. This is the only business I've ever seen where deep engagement helps both sides. Let me explain. So first, who's looking at the content matters. We like to think we have demographical because while we got a lot of users, we have users spending 30 to 60 minutes per day, and they're the attractive, somewhat hard to reach, users this Gen Z, Gen alpha and beyond. By the way, plenty of 50 year olds like me love our content too, because we have every genre a creator could imagine on our platform. But then in addition, just as I mentioned, if Maddie or if I are not feeling like I want to pay 15 to 70 cents if I watch an ad and I get to see the next episode without having to pay, we know that our cohort data suggests, once they read they read more because they have more confidence that one of the next 120,000 stories could be the one for them. This is the only evergreen source of content I've been a part of. If you think about every other business I've been a part of, the context static. So you're either monetizing in ads or you're monetizing in content. But that content has a shelf life. Here I have 120,000 stories arriving every day from a growing global set of creators curated and benefited from AI and technology. It's the reason why this growing ad business and we were really not focused on our advertising business until very recently here in North America, we were solely focused on our creators and our consumers and content. It's why I'm so hopeful that we can actually increase our household penetration by offering relevant ads as an alternative for people who may not want to pay to see the content that we are that arrives on the platform.

15:48

And when people in the in the pay model, is it? Is it a monthly subscription, or is it a pay as you read? Yeah.

15:56

So there are two ways, and we like to make it super simple. We want Maddie to only have to pay a micro payment of 15 to 70 cents for an episode that she wants to read, that she picks. By the way, you know, everyone likes this idea of having access to a library of content. So this first thing, these micro payments for the late breaking episode is called a fast pass. And then we have another way, which is called a daily pass. So if someone wants to see a bunch of content where episodes are not being written live every week anymore, because we have an immense library of proven hits in our platform, hits from all parts of the world. It turns out, by the way, Gen Z likes seeing stories from unexpected sources and from cultures and languages that are not their own. It's a wonderful consumer trend that we benefit from. So these are the two ways the majority, though, I would say, the majority, of our paid content is when Maddie has pre identified a great story, and she knows that the next one is coming out in a week or so, and she wants to be the first to see it, along with anybody else, that that Fast Pass is the very simple way that we keep the experience fresh. That's

17:06

great to your point about just you know you want to go, that you want to take this avenue, take this avenue. Take this avenue. My mom, let me ask you, do you? Do you with? You can't possibly host that. You can't keep things on the platform in in forever do you kind of periodically cull through and you know, older things maybe are not, are not, either not available or not platformed as much. How do you manage the volume?

17:33

Well, we our origin. We are an independent public company listed in the summer on NASDAQ, but for years, our origin was out of this great company based in Korea called Naver. And many of you may not have heard of it, but Naver is the Google and Amazon plus of Korea amazing technology. So because our heritage was tech, our ability to manage large amounts of data is the core capability of the company. We, you know, I can't claim to say that we will keep every piece of content forever, but we certainly have the capability of bringing back content that has been serialized for years. So one of the things I wanted to mention is, if a creator has a great story, these this vertical, scrolling format means that on a weekly basis, they're seeing episodes we've seen hit stories span over a decade of life with, I mean, new, fresh episodes hitting every week. Because by serializing, you continue the journey of the storyline versus a static piece of content, you know, which has a shelf life that is defined by the user experience, and that's why we always try to extend the life of the content we have, because we know that it can be serialized or brought back as one of these great film releases that I've mentioned. And so we again, we have a patient headset, and we're so data driven that we know that stories don't die easily. I want

19:01

to talk about an exciting film project that you all have coming up, but I want to ask you a question. I think a lot of people are probably thinking, who owns the copyright the Creator, Webtoon, do you share it?

19:13

Yeah, we want our creators to feel like they own their content, but at the same time we want to share and enable their success so much. You know, when a young creator is writing in a language and doesn't have the resources to know how to present it across the world to a global audience in multiple formats and multiple languages, that's where we like to think you do bring a lot to the table. Yeah. And so as a result, generally, when a creator has a voice that's clearly being heard. We convert them to what's called a professional creator, and we voluntarily enter an agreement where we generally have distribution rights in our platform, but we want them to own their content, so that if they can be a great Netflix film release, that we can do it with them. And you know, we have relationships. We one article that was recently written claimed that we may have been the source of over half of a major streamers, film releases in a country. And, you know, I can already tell you that, and we're going to talk about it increasingly, in North America, I think 2025 is going to be the year where, now that you know that we're the source of these stories, you're going to see more and more of our great platform stories arrive as live action films, either on TV or on the big screen, one of which we're going to talk about for the first time, got

20:32

a pretty cool partner lined up in Margot, Robie and her lucky chap, Productions is developing a property. Tell us about it. Yeah,

20:40

we're excited as a feature film. I mean, listen, I want to make sure we're clear. We're excited about all the live action films that are going to come out in the next few months. But one that's particularly interesting is stagtown. Stagtown started as a horror web comics story had over 18 million views. It's the story of three protagonists that arrived in stagtown, and you'll have to watch it to see the rest or read it on our platform. But partnering with Lucky chap, Margot Robbie's production company and their notable success with Barbie and other little movie we heard about last year, yeah, it, I think it goes to show that our stories can live in any format, and it goes to show that our creators have the ability not just to be very successful in our platform, but that we're really aligned to that creator success now as a live action release, I gotta

21:31

believe I just still can't get over this creator database. I gotta believe every literary agent in Hollywood, the smart ones, are calling through your platform on a daily I wish

21:42

you know, I think our almost maniacal focus on our platform, more and more creators, more and more consumers, more and more content, has meant that the the upside I think we see in advertising, and the upside and crossover IPs, just what we call these books that we're enabling, these films, these video games and merch we're just getting going. In fact, in North America, our web team, Wattpad studio, is really only less than two years old. We have a great studio called studio N based in Asia that has been further along, which is why so many more consumers in Asia know about the films that originate on our platform. I think it's an exciting time, because I would love, you know, in the next few years, for every literary agent or anyone else to be scrolling with us through our stories. Because, you know, we have proven data around these digital storylines that we know resonate and we know who loves them across the globe. So I'm very hopeful that we'll have a bigger presence outside of our platform.

22:45

Do you ever, if something is really strong and has a, has a, you know, volume? Do you ever create, like, dedicated ebooks around because that would seem like you could do that pretty easily. Yeah,

22:56

we're just beginning to explore, you know, we now have, as reported, over $500 million of capital in the bank and going public in the last couple quarters, we generate positive operating cash flow. So

23:08

your phone is going to ring so much

23:10

well, we find putting that number out there to to be able to consider, in a very careful, prudent way, using our own capital to speed up adoption, the good news for us is, I think this organic adoption here in North America and in Europe, where we're just getting going, is happening without heavy investment. But I certainly am interested in finding interesting creative ways to speed up how creators can present more stories to consumers here

23:36

and very little, very little off. You know what you'd call off air marketing. I mean, it's been such a word of mouth business, it seems like are there markets or regions where you do any kind of advertising or marketing push?

23:50

Well, in North America, we've just begun to partner with other great companies. So for example, one that I thought was interesting is we partnered with a company called Duolingo, who shares this great global Gen Z, engaged audience in a very different way. I mean, these are folks interested in learning about new cultures and languages, and we partnered with their duo, their iconic owl. And what I loved about it is we created new content. We created a series of new stories on our platform. In collaboration with Duolingo, we saw over 7 million views of this content. Is a very authentic way for us to leverage the fact that we have the same engaged audience that they do. But instead of it being, you know, a paid marketing deal, only it was, it was more authentically about creating content that people were enjoying. You're going to see us do more and more of that. We We recently did a deal with discord that I thought was also similar in that we share growth amongst this attractive young audience who want to be picking content on their own terms, and so doing deals like that, or frankly, seeing movies that you didn't realize from a fandom standpoint, came from us. And you're curious about, what else did that creator write? What other permutation of story occur? I think that's a great way to, or more organically, drive adoption amongst we only have, like, sub 5% household penetration in other countries, we're 50% so the largest market here is the market with the greatest growth opportunity for us. So you may see us, as I mentioned, using very prudently some of our balance sheet to speed up what has been largely organic in our spend on marketing. Are

25:34

you in the market for, you know, additional content, assets, production capabilities, or other forms of, you know, creative elements that could come into it. We

25:46

are, I mean, the company has a history of very prudently using acquisition as a way to one of the great examples is our our web comic platform in Japan is, last quarter was the number one consumer app in Japan, including mobile games. It's called Blind manga in Japan, but it's our business. And it was, you know, we call it the rocket ship business. It was built off of an acquisition we made of a company called ebooks Japan. So that was the launch pad business. So there are examples, geographically, or maybe to complement our existing capability, where we're not going to be shy having public currency as a newly listed public company, I think, gives us another tool to be able to consider acquisition. But on the same time, you know, in our s1 and when I talk to our investors, we haven't talked about inorganic M and A as being required for our growth. It's very much opportunistic. You

26:39

don't need to go acquire market share,

26:42

but we're very open to it, and have a pretty good history in doing it.

26:50

David, before you can't I know you've worked in me in various pockets of media, but you've also worked for companies like Best Buy and David helped bring us the Impossible Burger. What does your background in public companies and companies that have worked in very different retail, you know, different sectors, different from media and entertainment. How does, how does that inform your leadership of Webtoon, which is a very innovative company, it's

27:14

a that's a hard question to answer. I think the oddity in my background is there's only been one common theme, which is I tend to enjoy working on companies where the consumer is looking for something different, and technology is finally enabling it. So in the past, it's been large companies like turning around Best Buy or do money or Zynga, more recently, startups like launching a plant based burger at Impossible Foods. What I love about webtoon is that it's a business that I feel is a combination of consumers wanting great stories globally, it's using AI to promote human creativity, not talking about the darkness of it, replacing humans. And I feel good that my Gen Z kids are reading it, you know, like having them feel like they could be an author and a creator, and having them pick content that I think is appropriate for them to choose and read and engage and talk about it. For me, I hope it's the last job I ever have. We'll see. I came out of public company retirement. I said I would not work for another public company five years ago when I was launching the Impossible Burger. And here I am. So for me, this is special. This is a different kind of company. Don't

28:24

go anywhere. We'll hear next from Brandon Chen, a top creator of webtoons after this break, and we're back with my conversation with Brandon Chen. He's a prolific creator of webtoons and digital novels. He's known for popular series such as just a goblin, among many others. He's based in New York, but his work travels the world, and yes, he has his eye on growth through trans media, as he explains, I will just start at the beginning. Brandon, how did you get into becoming a creator for webtoons? Yeah, so

29:06

I started off as a novelist when I was from the ages of 14 to I published my first novel from 14 to 17, and then I continued doing novels until I was in my early 20s, I think at the time, it was really hard for me to do what I really wanted, which was Japanese manga. I'd been obsessed with mangas ever since I was a kid, and that was not really a medium that was possible in the United States. And so how I fell into the webtoon space was, you know, I read webtoons actually, when I was in high school, and I knew about the medium at the time, it was a very Korean dominated medium, not as many as many creators here in the US. But over time, obviously that's changed, and I won a competition in Japan, or had a very viral submission that was actually for Japanese manga. But then I got a webtoon publisher that gave me a serialization deal out of that competition. And from that publisher, then webtoon saw that project and wanted to receive a pitch or two, and then from there, I started just a goblin and Samurai notorie at webtoon. And then, you know, that's obviously ballooned into a much bigger partnership beyond that. But, yeah, that's how I got started. It started off with a love for Japanese manga, and then pivoted over into webtoons, amazing.

30:38

So wait now, at 14, were you publishing your Novels Online? How did you how did you public initial do that initial publication?

30:47

Yeah, so when I was 14 years old, was when I started the novel. So I was just publishing chapters, kind of like in a web, normal web novel format on Wattpad, which, at the time, had a lot of different stories on there. And, you know, I had, like, I was like 14, I got like 100,000 reads, and I was like, this is the best day of my life. And then, you know, obviously I took that and that the reader feedback, and packaged it into a novel which was distributed on on Amazon, for ebook and print. And then I could just kind of continued that, that process of producing novels, learning how to story tell along the way, and then eventually, like again, pivoted over into more of a visual storytelling space after I had a project in western comics which taught me how to work collaborative, collaboratively with with artists, and then, you know, the Rest is, is history. Wow. Well,

31:41

I mean, that's right there. There's a lot. You're very industrious teenager right from the get go. What? What is it? Would you say? What is the, what is the sort of classic characteristic of a web tune, something published in that format? What makes it different from a novel or a graph, or a manga or, you know, a comic book. Yeah, I think, like,

32:05

the A key difference is definitely, like in terms of pacing, but if I just talk about the format for a second, like webtoon is a medium that is, again, very, very modern, because it's is optimized for the digital format, particularly your phone. So, you know, it's better to read it on your phone than it is on your computer. But and, and that's because it has this kind of vertical scroll format, where, you know, you're kind of very active, where you're scrolling through the story as you're reading. I kind of like to think of it as, like watching still TV, and you're riding a bike, and the more you ride the bike, the more the TV moves, sort of, and that's kind of like, you know, using your finger to to make the web tune move. But yeah, it's vertical scroll, pretty bite sized chapters, you know, 50 to 60 panels on average. And it's colored, which is very different from Japanese manga, which has traditionally been, you know, black and white, and the stories on there are quite diverse in the types of content that you can tell for the different genres out there. So, yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty new medium. There's a lot of different things that make it different, from novels and TV and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of it is, you know, the serialized format, obviously, and also, you know the pacing as well. And

33:28

do you do your own illustrations? Do you do your own graphics?

33:32

No, so I'm a writer and a producer. So you know, my kind of role in this space is that I come up with a idea in the shower, and I go to Webtoon, and I say, you know, I build a pitch essentially. And I say, like, hey, like, and this comes from my background in consulting. Is that make pretty PowerPoint decks. Hey, I have this great idea. You know, would you be willing to partner on this? And, you know, webtoon says yes or no. And I start, you know, if they say yes, you know, I staff those teams with artists, you know, usually it's a lead artist, and there's also, you know, assistants that help them, like, backgrounds, coloring, all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, I'm involved, like, kind of every at every step of the production. So storyboards, in game, coloring, lettering, I'm kind of art directing at those different phases as well as writing the story. And then, you know, I have a little bit of a social media presence, so I help market the story as well. But, yeah, that's kind of my, my role in the different stories. And we, we work on somewhere between five to 10 web comics that are serialized, which is pretty exciting, and they're quite different. So my brain is getting tugged in all sorts of ways. But I also think about the accessibility at a transmedia level. Like, you know, would this work well as a film? Would this work well as a TV show and animation? Could I see this franchising beyond just just web tunes and that's that's all strategic stuff that I think about at the concepting level.

35:02

How do you know when something is really resonating with an audience?

35:06

Um, what's really great again about this the webtoon platform, is that you can see that kind of sentiment real time. You know, there's a lot of different indicators that can indicate how a series is performing. They have like likes, they have comments, and you can see those comments real time. I can press Publish, and then within the next hour, it's like, you can see if people love it or they hate it, right? And obviously the community is really, really nice, so, you know, it's, it's quite fortunate that, you know, they're, well, receiving of a lot of the different stories that we tell. But I think, like, that's the thing about serialized format that's really or digital, serialized format that's really interesting is, like, you know, you release each week, and you get that feedback immediately.

Versus, like, you know, as someone who worked in novels, it's like, I spent a whole year in darkness, pretty much now, knowing how it's going to work. And then you press Publish, and you know, you hope it works out same with like, film and TV. People spend years on these things, and they have no idea what what people are going to say, and getting that feedback has been really great. And then also, like, you know, let's say a reader says, I really like this character because of XYZ reason that actually sometimes gets me thinking, if I didn't have original plans for that character, like, oh, maybe there's a way, you know, people like this character more than I anticipated, maybe that can inform how I progress the story, like in the future, that kind of stuff. So that's been, you know, again, a benefit, and something I really like about the serialized webtoon format. And I think it can be quite motivating. I think, because I think, you know, working in darkness for solo, the only thing motivating you is yourself, but the readers, the readers can be the most motivating, in my opinion, way more motivating than I can hide myself up in the mirror, I think.

36:52

And what do you find that you have readership around the world? Do you find? Is it concentrated in in like the US and Asia, or you really feel like you you are getting feedback from all over the world. I

37:06

think there's, I do have readers that definitely follow me from all over the world. I think the webtoon us platform that we primarily work with. A lot of them, a lot of the readers are from the US. So I'm definitely what more well known in the US, I think, you know, my goals on a broader level are to, you know, be more international. So obviously, you know, with the stories, and that's all stuff that I think about, you know, in terms of trans media, and also, like, when I'm creating concepts, it's like, how can I make sure that this is a story that can resonate, hopefully, on an international level, like, if it were to be localized to Japan or Korea, because that's also where there's a lot of webtoon readers and consumption are in those countries. So that's all stuff that I think about, and obviously as a part of the strategy, yeah, what

37:55

are the benefits of this platform for a young creator who does not have a following is just starting out, but has a story they really want to tell in this medium. Well, I

38:04

think through serialized storytelling, it's a great way to learn how to story tell. I think when I was younger, you know, it was all about there was so much time spent planning, and this is the thing I see a lot about a lot of new creators, is like, there's so much time spent planning and parallel being paralyzed with wanting to create the biggest story, the next one piece, or Harry Potter, when ultimately the best way to learn how to story tell is by releasing things. And I think that webtoon as a format and any sort of story, serialized storytelling medium allows for you to learn, because it forces you to do something. It forces you to release. It forces you to put something out, chapter one, and then there, and then you get some readers on the platform and they want chapter two, and you have to give them that. So I think there's a lot of learning as a as an early creator, that you can get from from from working kind of in the serialized format. Again, Webtoon, Canvas has a really accessible, what's it called, platform for publishing for newer, newer creators. I think so, yeah, I think, like, I didn't know about Canvas at the time, and I was 14, and I didn't know how to work with artists, or how any of that stuff worked. But if I could go back, I would say, like, it would be really cool to test my hand earlier on, to create one shots or create, like a, like a short series that could teach me more about the production process earlier on.

39:36

Interesting. Well, Brandon, I so grateful for you to take the time to talk me through this and my kind of rudimentary questions here, anything that I didn't ask you, anything that's significant about the storytelling opportunity, the business opportunity of webtoons that you'd like to add, I

39:53

think you know, webtoon in the formats, is a great way for A lot of creators to tell a amalgamation of different stories. Like, there's a there's really a sky's the limit. I think it's like one of the best ways, if you are a creator that wants to go eventually transmedia. I think webtoon is a great testing ground for a lot of concepts. Like, you know, it's, it's, it's cheaper to create a webtoon comic than it is to try and fund a full on Marvel television show, right? So I think, like, it's a great way to learn how to story tell. It's a great way to to build IP and you know, if that that's a goal of any creator, I think, like, you know, it's something that people should be looking at.

40:40

Thanks for listening. Please be sure to leave us a review at Apple podcasts or Amazon music. We love to hear from listeners. Please go to variety.com and sign up for the free weekly strictly business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of strictly business