• 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.