• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.14
• /
• pp.15-35
• /
• 2008

This is a study about importance of reading comics and discussions highlighted on anthropological perspective as a proper way of education. In introduction, we broght in the issues about failure of the past cartoon education in responding adequately to the flow of current comic book industry, as it has been biased to technical education which resulted in negligence of studies about meaning and function of cartoon. On the other hand, emphasizing the need for cartoon education complemented cultural and academic aspects, we presented reading comics and discussions as an alternative. The challenges we need to pay attention throughout reading comics and discussions have considered in all its aspects specifically like creative process of cartoon, coping with social prejudice against cartoon, study about aesthetic value of cartoon, the role of cartoon in cultural democracy, issue about postcolonialism, multiple popularity and etc.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.89-100
• /
• 2021

Comedy has been popular since ancient Greece. In order to visualize comedy more effectively, the actor's acting acts as an important factor. Then active discussion is needed on how actors can actually shape their comedic performance. I would like to approach comedic acting methods, focusing on the character of Kim Seo-young in the play . This researcher played the character of Kim Mi-young, and the characteristics of comedic acting include exaggeration, repetition, fast tempo, changing tone, and exaggerated physical behavior. Comedic acting comes from a dissonance of reactions. This is because unexpected reactions to stimuli can cause audience laughter. Comedic acting is also important in exaggeration and repetition, which must be based on true acting. The fast tempo of the act and the changing tone of the words also affect comedic acting expressions, and the embodiments of 'slapstick' and 'group dance', which are characteristics of farce acting, play an important role in causing audience laughter. In order for these characteristic elements to show comic effects, the actor's true acting must be the basis. What is important in comedic acting is understanding the narrative flow and features of the text and expressing it accurately. Comedic effects can be sufficiently represented if an actor truly expresses his means and faithfully demonstrates what the text requires. It is hoped that such research will help explore various acting arts, the acting education field, and the theater creation process.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.123-132
• /
• 2019

This paper analyzes the performances of actor Song Kang-Ho in the background of interdisciplinary and integrated film acting, using performance rather than acting as a general term. If the act is a concept limited to acting training or acting skills, performance is a broad concept that includes expressions, movements, and emotions. The performance on the screen can be explained in the context of film and can be extended to the social attitude of acting. In addition, I used the term screen in terms of representation rather than film referring to medium. Song Kang-Ho expressed the performances of various characters in more than 30 films. Although his facial expressions, gestures, and voices suitable for individual characters in various genres are represented in various ways, personality inherent in the actor Song Kang-Ho integrates persona with character. What drives it is the social attitude of screen performance. As a sign, acting is an ideological construct and foregrounds a character who describes a certain social and historical moment. Song Gang-Ho as actor, persona and character, who asserts the popularity, speaks to society and makes discourse. His comic performance is always confronting the tragedy of life, his face is the spirit of the times, and it expands into social meaning. The face of the close-up does not laugh at all, the gesture symbolized by the curved rear view is exaggerated disorderedly and disturbingly, and the voice using dialect accent does not follow the standard of the vocal.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.51
• /
• pp.181-201
• /
• 2018

The cartoon industry in Korea has continued to decline due to the contraction of published comics market and decrease in the number of comic books rental stores until the 2000s when it rapidly started to experience qualitative changes and quantitative growth due to the emergence of webtoon. The market size of webtoon industry, valued at 420 billion won in 2015, is expected to grow to 880.5 billion won by 2018. Notably, most cartoonists who draw cartoon strips are using digital devices and producing scripts in data, thereby overcoming the geographical, spatial and physical limitation of contents. As a result, a favorable environment for the creation of local ecosystems is generated. While the infrastructures of human resources are steadily growing by region, cartoon industries that are supported by the government policy have shown good performance combined with factors of creative infrastructures in local areas such as webtoon experience centers, webtoon campuses and webtoon creation centers, etc. Nevertheless, it is true that cartoon infrastructures are substantially based on a capital area which leads to an imbalanced structure of cartoon industry. To see the statistics, companies of offline cartoon business in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province make up 87%, except for distribution industry. In addition, companies of online cartoon business which are situated outside of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province form merely 7.5%. Studies and research on local webtoon are inadequate. The existing studies on local webtoon usually focus on its industrial and economic values, mentioning the word "local" only sometimes. Therefore, this study looked into the current status of local webtoon of the present time for the current state of local cartoon ecosystem, middle and long-term support from the government, and an alternative in the future. Main challenges include the expansion of opportunities to enjoy cartoon cultures, the independence of cartoon infrastructure, and the settlement of regionally specialized cartoon cultures. It means that, in order to enable the cartoon ecosystem to settle down in local areas, it is vital to utilize and link basic infrastructures. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider independence and autonomy beyond the limited support by the government. Finally, webtoon should be designated as a culture, which can be a new direction of the development of local webtoon. Furthermore, desirable models should be continuously researched and studied, which are suitable for each region and connect them with regional tourism, culture and art industry. It will allow the webtoon industry to soft land in the industry. Local webtoon, which is a growth engine of regions and main contents of the fourth industrial revolution, is expected to be a momentum for the decentralization of power and reindustrialization of regions.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.50
• /
• pp.101-130
• /
• 2018

Since the advent of the Smart Devices, the smartphone has become a popular tool to view Webtoon. This phenomenon has caused the convergence of cutting-edge technologies and Webtoons in diverse forms, creating unique versions of Webtoons including, but not limited to Smart-toon, Effect-toon, Cut-toon, Dubbing-toon, Moving-toon, AR-toon, VR-toon, and Interaction-toon. By comparison to these rich diversities of Webtoons in the online industry, there is a lack of academic research on this topic. There are some papers which talk about the different types of multimedia technology conversion and its case presentation or the effectiveness and problems of visual effect, but the effects of these convergence technologies on comic readers' concentration and reading effectiveness have never been investigated so far. Therefore, this paper will discuss the unique method of immersive storytelling that is often used in comics and analyze each aspects of immersive method in technology-converged Webtoons along with its problems. Furthermore, this paper will analyze different aspects of "immersion" and interaction elements that can be found in the popular Interaction-toon, (Encountered). Through this, this paper discusses the positive influence of the interaction elements on comic readers' immersion level and its limitation. To classify the technology-converged Webtoons in terms of the immersion level, the Effect-toon sometimes interferes viewer's flow by using excessive use of multimedia effect, creating information overload. The Smart-toon which applied motions to each frame under horizontal mode of smartphones was a good try, but it hindered the readers' activeness and made it hard for the readers to be fully absorbed in the story. The VR-toon, which utilizes virtual reality gadgets to allow viewers to explore the world of Webtoon was also a nice try to overcome the limitation of vertical screens. However, it often caused dispersion of user's attention and reduced the users' immersion level. The Moving-toon which only emphasized the reading convenience also invaded readers' activeness and disturb users' concentration. On the other hand, the cartoonist Il-Kwon Ha applied high technologies such as face recognition technology, augmented reality techniques, 360-degree panorama technology, and haptic technology to his cartoon (Encountered). This allowed the readers to form a sense of closeness towards the cartoon characters which let the readers to identify themselves with the characters and interact with them. By this way, the readers can be fully immersed in the story. However, technology abuse, impractical production and hackneyed storylining often showed later in the story remains as its limitations.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
• /
• no.39
• /
• pp.221-235
• /
• 2013

Through the comparative analysisand inductive research on main creation styles of Chinese, American and Japanese animation films, a conclusion can be given out, which means that the animation film style of each country can hardly be formed without their own traditional painting art, aesthetics habits and ways of thinking. It is these characteristics that form their unique animation film style. America emphasizes realism art, development and utilization of new technology, Japan pays sepcial attention totraditional painting art and comic stories. In business aspect, they bring about different business models relying on the experience of satisfying the diverse needs of domestic and global entertainment markets. When it comes to the content field, they carry forward universal values and meet the individualistic heroismso that a variety of business animation films and art animation films find their ways into the global market and acquire great popularity among audiences from all over the world. Through the comparasion of American and Japanese animation films, a new view to analyze the animation films of China is created. Animation creation is largely based on the need of socialist ideology from 50s to 80s. Even though the purposes of animation film creations returned to satisfying the diverse requirements of commercial markets and audiences, the consequences, such as the break gap of creations and talents, the lack of diverse creative styles and commercial market operation mechanism, sitll affect China's animation films today. Japan found thier position from the American model and became successful. Nowadays, China need find our own creative style and position from American model and Japanese model. And the systematic reformings that are detailed in the government managements, industry standards, internationalized talents cultivation and accumulation are the essential point.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.40
• /
• pp.211-242
• /
• 2015

Recently, the shrunk influence of printed cartoon has been superseded by the influence of Webtoon in the comic industry. Webtoon has gained popularity and interest by being served on internet quickly and easily. Their novel material and sympathetic topic have made it possible for many Webtoons to be reproduced into tv dramas and movies, so, the influence of them has been increased as the copyright industry of culture contents industry. The increasing interest for Webtoon has induced academic studies for the subject. Among the various studies in need on Webtoon, the most important study topics in need are 'Story' and 'Quality' which are criterion for readers to choose Webtoons to read. To create the Webtoon that are great at 'Story' and 'Quality', the study on plots should be preceded, which recast episodes organically through a logical causal relationship. Therefore, in this study, the plots of Webtoons have been analyzed through Rescue plot in and the Riddle plot in selected from the Kang Full's Webtoon series, 'mystery psychology horror season', which are evaluated as the great work at 'Story' and 'Quality.' The analysis was implemented based on Tobias' theory which suggests 'the characteristics of plot' and '8 principles for good plot.' First, Kang Full's webtoons were analyzed through 'the characteristics of plot' and '6 principles for good plot' which is modified from '8 principles of good plot' based on Tobias' theory. Applicability was checked if Tobias' theory could be applied to Kang Full's Webtoon checking through the scenes and contents of the Webtoon. (1) Tobias' 'the characteristics of plot' could be applied to both Rescue plot in and the Riddle plot in . (2) Among '6 principles for good plot', 5 principles are shown in The Lighting Store and all of the 6 principles in Neighbor. The result shows that Tobias theory could be applied to the plot of Webtoon. The fact that Kang Full's Webtoons are composed in a formulaic form could be identified through 'the characteristics of plot' and '6 principles for good plot' shown in Rescue plot in and the Riddle plot in .

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.38
• /
• pp.177-194
• /
• 2015

This study that had been conducted two months by a research team of Pusan National University at the request of Korea Manwha Contents Agency in Dec. 2013 is about the statistical analysis on 'Korean Webtoon DB and its Flow Report' which resulted from the complete survey of Korean webtoons which had been published with payment in official media from early 2000 to 2013. Webtoon which means the cartoons published on web has become a typical type of Korean cartoons and has developed into a main industry since 2000s when traditional published cartoons had declined and social environments had changed. Today, it represents cultural contents in Korea. This study collected the webtoons officially published in media with payment, among Korean webtoons having been published from the early 2000s to Jan. Based on the collected data, it analyzed the general characteristics of webtoons, including cartoonists, the number of cartoons, distribution chart of each media, genre, and publication cycle. According to the data analysis and statistics, a great deal of Korean webtoons are still published in main portal websites, but their platform is being diversified and a webtoon's publication cycle tends to be shortened. In terms of genre, traditional popular genres, such as drama, comic, fantasy, and action, are still popular, and the genres of history, sports, and food are on the rise along with a social trend. Regarding webtoon application, such events as relay webtoon and brand webtoon, and a new type of webtoon featuring PPL commercialism appear. Such phenomena can realize the common profits of cartoonists, media, and ordering bodies, and are various trials to test the possibility of webtoons. In addition, what needs to pay attention on in the expansion of webtoons is increasing webtoons for adults. The study subjects are the webtoons published with payment, excluding free webtoons. However, this study failed to collect the webtoons published on the online websites already closed, and the lost information on cartoonists and their lost webtoons, and it is necessary to conduct a complete survey on all webtoons including free ones. Despite the limitations, this study is meaningful in the points that it categorized and analyzed Korean webtoons accoridng to official media, webtoons, cartoonists, and genres and that it provided a fundamental material to understand the current conditions of webtoons. It is expected that this study will be able to contribute to activating more research on webtoons and producing more supplementary data which will be used for the Korean cartoon industry and academia.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.49
• /
• pp.53-85
• /
• 2017

This study deals with the production system of the superhero animation that are based on DC comic books and are produced by Warner Brothers company, and tries to find out ways in order to vitalize the new window of the animation market. 28 superhero animations released from 2007 until 2017 are analyzed. Several critical points are drawn out and can be applied to the Korean animation industry. There are two categories, one is about the management of the production system, and the other is about the subcontract system. In managing the production system, there are three points: First, there are several people who play the role of either a producer or a director many times. Second, producers used to work as a group. Third, some people work not only as a producer but also as a director. In carrying out outsourcing contracts, there are six points: First, only Korean and Japanese companies participate as subcontract companies. Second, about two companies used to take part in the subcontract production in a year. Third, in case of number of people involved in production, there are more Japanese than Korean. Fourth, Japanese companies deal with some parts of the pre-production as well as the main production in . Fifth, a Japanese company has a sub-subcontract with a Korean company in one episode of . Sixth, Korean companies mostly focus on the production part of key animation. Important points that the Korean production system has to consider are also suggested under the two categories. In the production system management, there are two points. It is needed to make use of the group producer system, and it is critical to develop the story line of universe type such as DC Universe. In case of the outsourcing production system, it is essential to keep up educating 2D type of animation and, at the same time, to participate actively in the global outsourcing production. By considering these crucial points, it is expected to keep producing animation that can be used for the media window such as IPTV.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.67-88
• /
• 2019

Webtoon is a Korean-style digital comics platform that distributes comics content produced using the characteristic elements of the Internet in a form that can be consumed online. With the recent rapid growth of the webtoon industry and the exponential increase in the supply of webtoon content, the need for effective webtoon content recommendation measures is growing. Webtoons are digital content products that combine pictorial, literary and digital elements. Therefore, webtoons stimulate consumer sentiment by making readers have fun and engaging and empathizing with the situations in which webtoons are produced. In this context, it can be expected that the sentiment that webtoons evoke to consumers will serve as an important criterion for consumers' choice of webtoons. However, there is a lack of research to improve webtoons' recommendation performance by utilizing consumer sentiment. This study is aimed at developing consumer sentiment pattern maps that can support effective recommendations of webtoon content, focusing on consumer sentiments that have not been fully discussed previously. Metadata and consumer sentiments data were collected for 200 works serviced on the Korean webtoon platform 'Naver Webtoon' to conduct this study. 488 sentiment terms were collected for 127 works, excluding those that did not meet the purpose of the analysis. Next, similar or duplicate terms were combined or abstracted in accordance with the bottom-up approach. As a result, we have built webtoons specialized sentiment-index, which are reduced to a total of 63 emotive adjectives. By performing exploratory factor analysis on the constructed sentiment-index, we have derived three important dimensions for classifying webtoon types. The exploratory factor analysis was performed through the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using varimax factor rotation. The three dimensions were named 'Immersion', 'Touch' and 'Irritant' respectively. Based on this, K-Means clustering was performed and the entire webtoons were classified into four types. Each type was named 'Snack', 'Drama', 'Irritant', and 'Romance'. For each type of webtoon, we wrote webtoon-sentiment 2-Mode network graphs and looked at the characteristics of the sentiment pattern appearing for each type. In addition, through profiling analysis, we were able to derive meaningful strategic implications for each type of webtoon. First, The 'Snack' cluster is a collection of webtoons that are fast-paced and highly entertaining. Many consumers are interested in these webtoons, but they don't rate them well. Also, consumers mostly use simple expressions of sentiment when talking about these webtoons. Webtoons belonging to 'Snack' are expected to appeal to modern people who want to consume content easily and quickly during short travel time, such as commuting time. Secondly, webtoons belonging to 'Drama' are expected to evoke realistic and everyday sentiments rather than exaggerated and light comic ones. When consumers talk about webtoons belonging to a 'Drama' cluster in online, they are found to express a variety of sentiments. It is appropriate to establish an OSMU(One source multi-use) strategy to extend these webtoons to other content such as movies and TV series. Third, the sentiment pattern map of 'Irritant' shows the sentiments that discourage customer interest by stimulating discomfort. Webtoons that evoke these sentiments are hard to get public attention. Artists should pay attention to these sentiments that cause inconvenience to consumers in creating webtoons. Finally, Webtoons belonging to 'Romance' do not evoke a variety of consumer sentiments, but they are interpreted as touching consumers. They are expected to be consumed as 'healing content' targeted at consumers with high levels of stress or mental fatigue in their lives. The results of this study are meaningful in that it identifies the applicability of consumer sentiment in the areas of recommendation and classification of webtoons, and provides guidelines to help members of webtoons' ecosystem better understand consumers and formulate strategies.