Forum - View topicThe Fall 2025 K-Comics Guide
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milkyy
 Posts: 257 |
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Is it all just... porn?
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catandmouse
Posts: 256 |
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Are you only reviewing series that have a print run? Because there are a ton of K-comics in the market currently (and some I’d like to see featured).
Anyway, thanks for these reviews. The only 2 series I know about (but haven’t really read) are PotN and Roses and Champagne. I was especially interested in the Roses and Champagne review and Rebecca answered a question I’ve been having about the series. I don’t know if you know, but I constantly see Caesar be compared to the Male leads of Passion and Codename Anastasia, and the opinions are varied. Some day out of the three, Caesar is the most unhinged, others say one of the other 2 are. I’ve read the other 2 series completely ( their novels, anyway), and I really, really enjoyed both, but from what I’ve read, some of the things that Caesar did to Lee Won make him seem worst than the other 2 MLs. My point being that I’d like to make up my own opinion about Caesar and was debating whether to just read the comic or if I should or need to read the novel, and judging from what Rebecca said, I think if I want to have the best idea of Caesar’s character, I think I need to read the novel (especially cus I’ve read Passion and Codename Anastasia in its entirety, so I really got to “know” the characters). Keep up the good work guys. |
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2488 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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Just gonna say it. The fact that the cover art for each of these titles look almost indistinct from each other is NOT doing the K-comics medium any favors. I mean, I know japanese manga covers tend to feel generic sometimes, but Jesus! Which one with the pair of unbelievably beautiful people should I choose?
They say never judge a book by its cover, but it's at least a variable. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2808 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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We tried to have a mix, but it's often down to what we have time to fit in. I wish we could cover more of the online-onlies. What are some of the titles you'd like to see covered? I'm always looking for new things to read! |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
Posts: 2808 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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Nope! Fourteen out of twenty-three are not. (Including the one with the tentacles.) And I'd argue that of the remaining number most have sex in them but aren't porn. (That Guide's still coming.) |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1828 Location: South America |
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I read some Korean and Chinese "manga." The one I remember enjoying the most was "I, the Female Robot," sort of a Ghost in the Shell but trashy version, which I guess is from Taiwan. So far, I haven't found anything that was really good art like some classic Japanese manga (think Nausicaa, Gunnm, Ashita no Joe, Berserk). It is true that great Japanese manga are rare gems in a sea of bad or mediocre slop, but they do exist. What are the great masterpieces of Korean manga? Do they exist, or is it just erotic slop? |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2999 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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A good number of them were released back in the 00s during the initial attempt at releasing Korean manhwa/K-Comics in English, i.e. before Webtoons largely took over the medium. Titles like Ragnarök, Priest, Faeries' Landing, Bride of the Water God, Rebirth, NOW (Park Sung-woo, in particular, had a bunch of his stuff brought over), Rure, Jade of Bango, Chronicles of the Cursed Sword, King of Hell, etc. Unfortunately, while some of them were fully released I'd say that a good majority of them never got finished before most English manga companies largely dropped manhwa cold, especially following the OG manga bubble burst alongside the Great Recession. It also didn't help that many publishers tended to license some of the longest manhwa ever produced (20+ volumes, 30+, 40+, 50+, etc.), so there was really no chance at some of them ever being remotely close to fully released. Today, though, I don't see any English publishers ever bothering to give any of the old manhwa another chance in English, not when Webtoons remain so popular & prevalent. There are still "traditionally" published manhwa over in South Korea, i.e. serialized in physical magazines (often alongside Korean translations of popular current manga), but they're now kind of a minority in the market & are more often than not ignored by English publishers. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 8229 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Unless a small time publisher(s) like let say Fantagraphic, or Manga Mavericks could pick up the license to the older manhwa titles. I mean as long as you have webtoons (along with manga) readers which could lead these same people to crossover to reading actual manhwa, and adding the Gen Z love for retro stuff including retro media, it could be possible for those old manhwa titles to find a newer audiences amongst younger readers. Hey, you never know. If a very famous K-pop idol who are also influencer and that K-pop idol happens to be a fan of older manhwa, and show it off on social media. Yeah, that could help the older manhwa titles find new life amongst younger Gen Z/Alpha audiences. |
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catandmouse
Posts: 256 |
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I’m always afraid to recommend these because they do have a questionable romance, but if you’ve read Roses and Champagne and seem to be ok with the questionable content, then if you haven’t read these, I’d recommend (and would like to see featured) Passion, Codename Anastasia and Payback (all three have comics and the novels have all been licensed in English as well) |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
Posts: 2808 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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Thanks for these! I understand the hesitation; I've definitely felt it myself. I will, however, read nearly anything, and with a few exceptions, go by the "fiction is fiction" mantra. I'm particularly happy that more of the source novels are getting translated - I just picked up the I Raised a Black Dragon books, though I haven't read them yet. I don't know if you looked at the Light Novel Guide, but Flower of Allure was in there, along with one of HYBE's Kpop collaboration novels. |
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SaneSavantElla
 Posts: 290 Location: Philippines |
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There was a time when I believed Korean webtoon is its own art format that is not just trying to copy copies of tired tropes. The deliberate sparse paneling in webtoons compared to manga and comics create its own unique effect and style of storytelling. I don't think it's a 'masterpiece', and I'm not sure how popular it is, but the first webtoon that made me feel this way is: https://myanimelist.net/manga/50027/About_Death. Though not in terms of "art" as in drawings, it does match the atmosphere of works like Inio Asano, Oshimi Shuzo, and even reminds me of Chica Umino at times. All that said, I don't consume enough manhwa to comment on it, but noting that almost half of this guide on k-comics is pretty much 'porn', I feel like it's accurate to say that webtoon art has been 'industrialized' in a sense? Similar to how Japanese isekai light novels and adaptations are produced like boxes of cereal in a factory production line these days. While the art appears to be more polished, the stories also become more generic. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2999 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I wouldn't use what's being covered in the guide to be emblematic of manhwa/K-Comics, as a whole, but rather possibly be emblematic that the companies that are releasing them for English release are pigeonholing themselves by focusing primarily on a single type of story, in this case romance. There are plenty of manhwa out there, both in "traditional" print form & Webtoon, that are nothing like the titles showcased in the guide here, but it's clear that the publishers have seemingly decided that (by & large) the romance titles are what should be prioritized over almost anything else. The only problem is that, eventually, market saturation will happen & those romance manhwa will no longer continue to sell... and then what? Like I said in a previous post, there's an entire history of classic printed manhwa that had been given a chance in English 15-20+ years ago, but it really looks like no English publisher today is willing to give those another chance, even when (for the sake of manhwa's sustainability in the future in English) they probably should be given that second chance, to some extent, if only to provide some form of variety from the medium. The same is kind of true with Chinese works, too, as now danmei is seemingly the only thing being brought over from there, despite manhua also having been given a chance back in the day in English, too. |
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