Over the years, many K-dramas have become live-action adaptations of popular webtoons, and Moving creator Kang Full gives his two cents on where AI fits in. Kang Full originally published the Moving webtoon in 2015, and it’s now become one of the most successful K-dramas from Disney+.
Hit K-dramas like The Uncanny Counter and the apocalyptic thriller Sweet Home first developed fanbases as webtoons. South Korea has one of the largest readerships of webtoons, with many aspiring to become artists. Many create their drawn characters and storylines by hand, much like Kang Full did with Moving.
With the rise of the internet and technological advances, webtoon artists gained traction and soon competed against Japanese manga. With the growing success of K-dramas, more webtoons have been given the spotlight as potential on-screen hits.
Like American content, the discussion of AI-generated work has been discussed among webtoon creators. With the success of Moving, Kang Full gives his thoughts on AI and the growing webtoon landscape.
Moving creator Kang Full understands the benefit of using AI, within limits
The Moving webtoon is full of color and details that are perfectly mimicked in the Disney+ K-drama, but Kang Full explains that AI can be resourceful to writers in some respect.
Speaking to Deadline in his first non-Korean press interview, Kang Full explains the webtoon landscape has changed. In many cases, a webtoon team consists of a few team members. But in a series, “the scale of the story has grown, not too much, but enough to give us more flexibility. We’ve been able to dig deeper into the histories of some of the characters, and add new ones that weren’t in the original work.”
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The current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have brought to light the use of AI, its potential to take over the jobs of fill-in actors and create AI versions of actors without having to pay, and the possibility of downsizing writers, designers, and more. Does the use of AI also take a toll on webtoons and their creators?
“AI can be a great help to human artists in technical aspects, like coloring and sketching, in the way that Photoshop was one of the big enablers that enabled webtoon artists to work on their own instead of employing big teams,” said Moving creator Kang Full.
He admits, for now, it’s not something he is heavily worried about. “We’re not thinking about it too much at the moment, but we don’t know how much further the technology can advance. In the past, there were some tensions between artists and the platforms they were working for, but now we might see similar tensions between artists and AI,” he explained.
Moving is available to stream on Disney+, and you can read more K-drama news here, and why Moving character Doo-sik disappeared here.