Before Webtoons, Korea Had Comic Book Rooms
From neighborhood comic shops and weekly magazines to smartphones and global webtoons — this is how a generation of Koreans changed the way they read comics.
When I was a kid in Korea, we didn’t have webtoons.
We had comic book rooms.
They were called manhwabang (만화방), and they were everywhere.
You walked into a room filled with shelves and shelves of comic books, found a series you liked, sat down and started reading.
Some places even stayed open 24 hours.
And if you wanted to read at home, there was another option.
The comic book rental shop.
When Comics Cost a Few Hundred Won
I still remember borrowing comic books for around 300 or 400 won each at the rental shops in my neighborhood.
Usually, you had to bring them back within a day or two.
Borrow a big stack — maybe 10 or 20 books — and some shops would give you an extra day.
They also had something that sounds surprisingly familiar today: prepaid credit.
At one shop I remember, if you paid 10,000 won in advance, they might give you something like 12,000 won in credit.
Looking back, it almost sounds like an early version of topping up an account on a digital platform.
Except instead of tapping a screen, you walked home carrying a heavy stack of comic books.
And there was another ritual I remember even more clearly.
Waiting for the new comic magazine.
Before “New Episode,” There Was “New Issue”
Korea had weekly comic magazines such as IQ Jump and Boys’ Champ.
They weren’t one long comic.
A single magazine contained many different serialized stories, with a new installment of each appearing issue by issue.
Sound familiar?
Today, you might open a webtoon app on Wednesday because the next episode of your favorite series has arrived.
Back then, we waited for the next magazine.
Different technology.
Very similar anticipation.
Korean comics were part of those magazines, but Japanese manga also had an enormous presence during my childhood.
Dragon Ball.
Slam Dunk.
For my generation, these weren’t obscure foreign comics.
Everyone knew them.
And when I really loved a series, borrowing wasn’t enough.
I bought the individual volumes.
The Books My Mother Threw Away
I used to keep my favorite comic books carefully lined up on a bookshelf.
You didn’t bend them.
You didn’t leave them lying around.
You certainly didn’t spill anything on them.
They were a collection.
If I’d kept some of those old editions until today, they might actually be worth something.
Unfortunately, I didn’t.
When my family moved, my mother threw them away.
All of them.
Yes.
I still remember. 😂
But while those books were disappearing from my bookshelf, something much bigger was happening to comics in Korea.
They were beginning to leave paper behind.
Then Comics Entered the Computer
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, Koreans were spending more and more time online.
And comics followed them there.
Early Korean internet comics appeared before smartphones existed. Works such as SnowCat and Marine Blues helped establish a new kind of comic created for people reading on a computer screen.
Then Korea’s huge internet portals entered the picture.
Daum began developing its webtoon service in the early 2000s, and Naver followed soon after.
Creators were no longer limited by the dimensions of a printed page.
A story could continue downward.
And downward.
And downward.
Readers simply moved the mouse wheel.
Long vertical spaces could create suspense.
The distance between two images could control timing.
A frightening reveal could wait just below the screen.
The computer wasn’t simply replacing paper.
It was beginning to change the language of comics.
Then the Smartphone Arrived
This is where everything fit together almost perfectly.
Korean webtoons were already designed to be read vertically.
Then millions of people began carrying vertical screens in their pockets.
Suddenly, you didn’t need to go anywhere to read comics.
Think about how much that changed.
When I was young, I went to the comics.
I went to a manhwabang.
I went to a rental shop.
I went to a bookstore.
Later, I sat down in front of a computer.
Today?
The comics come with you.
On the subway.
On the bus.
While waiting for someone.
During a lunch break.
For five minutes before bed.
And, yes, probably in the bathroom too. 😂
Comics no longer needed their own special time.
They could fill all the tiny empty spaces in everyday life.
Maybe We Didn’t Change That Much
The technology changed dramatically.
But sometimes I wonder whether the readers really did.
When I was young, I waited for the next issue of a comic magazine.
Today, readers wait for the next episode of a webtoon.
One magazine contained many serialized stories.
One webtoon app contains hundreds.
We bought individual volumes of the stories we loved.
Today, readers pay for early access, additional episodes or digital ownership.
And back then, there was always one dangerous sentence:
“I’ll read just one more.”
Today?
“Just one more episode.”
Some things survive technological revolutions remarkably well.
And Then “Webtoon” Left Korea
Today, webtoons are no longer simply a Korean way of reading comics.
The word itself has traveled.
Readers around the world now discover Korean titles through global webtoon platforms, while successful series move into animation, games, films and television.
Japan still has its enormous manga and anime culture.
China has its own rapidly developing digital comics industry.
Other countries have their own traditions and platforms.
Webtoons aren’t the only future of comics.
They’re something more interesting than that.
They’re one of the ways Korea found its own place in that future.
And that didn’t happen overnight.
It grew out of comic book rooms.
Rental shops.
Weekly magazines.
Internet cafés and home computers.
Mouse wheels.
Smartphones.
Subway rides.
And millions of people who simply wanted to know what happened in the next episode.
Thirty years ago, I carried stacks of comic books home from a rental shop.
Today, someone riding the Seoul subway can carry thousands of episodes in one hand.
The screen changed.
The place changed.
The way we read changed.
But one thing probably hasn’t.
Just one more episode.
And yes.
I still wish my mother hadn’t thrown away my Dragon Ball collection. 😂