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I've been making an effort to read more in the past year, whether through the power of my local library, or the attic find of a box full of those old Aerie Classics paperbacks marred by the "Walmart 2 for $1" graphic on the front cover. For Christmas I gifted myself a cheap Android tablet that I primarily intended to use as an e-reader. Though I've largely been using it for Duolingo or serving videos while I'm doing cardio at the gym, I did read Nahoko Uehashi's Moribito novels (the two that are available in English) and various classics from Project Gutenberg.

I also told myself I was going to read more manga. I had picked up a Humble Bundle of Hiro Mashima's works years back that I've barely looked at (like I do with most bundles). To be honest, the only reason I bought that bundle is because it included Rave Master a.k.a. Rave: the Groove Adventure a.k.a. Groove Adventure Rave, of which I had bought several Tokyopop graphic novel releases back in those heady anime fandom days of the early aughts, though I never completed the collection.

However, once again, I played myself. Reading manga on a tablet without using a paid subscription service like Shonen Jump requires transferring the PDF of a given volume to the tablet which, given a paltry 64 GB of main storage and the failure of the expansion microSD card that I was using, became tedious. I also have to admit that while Rave Master excels at environment and character designs, the narrative arc of the average chapter is "Oh no! Hitting this bad guy isn't working! I MUST HIT HIM HARDER." I did get into Jujutsu Kaisen for a minute, through the power of my local library, but I would check out a volume and finish it almost immediately after getting home. I often fantasize about taking a day to go to the library and just read manga, but I'm thwarted by the fact that I'm an adult with bills and shit.

What has been consuming most of my reading time is Webtoon. It was by sheer circumstance of trying to find something to do at Momocon around 8:00 AM on Friday that I happened to attend a fan panel on the topic of this online comics serialization website. The panel host described Webtoon has having something of a reputation for young girl romance comics, binge-reading consumption habits within the fanbase, and what I can only describe as an emerging isekai genre of "I've been reborn as the villain of this story, but I'm going to have none of that and instead just go live in a cottage in the woods." I installed the app on my phone and perused a few titles during my downtime at the con, scarcely realizing that this little time-waster would become a borderline obsession over the following month.

This is the part of the blog post where you say: "Yeah, yeah, spare me the life story and skip to the recipe for cornbread already!"

Webtoon first launched in South Korea in 2004 before going international in 2014. Though it is primarily known for Korean comics (manhwa), anyone can publish their works on the platform. The interface is designed with mobile devices in mind, dictating a vertical panel format. As somone who's used to reading digital comics by turning virtual pages, scrolling vertically oriented panels on the Webtoon mobile app caused me some eyestrain early on, but I've since gotten used to it. It's a good idea to take frequent breaks nonetheless.

The vertical format also has the effect of big, "two-page spread" action scenes being flipped on their side, which can be disorienting or comical the first few times you encounter it. Individual episodes of a given title can be as short as a newspaper strip or as long as an American comic issue or manga chapter (or longer). Some episodes even become a multimedia affair, with background music accompanying a pivotal chapter, though the titles I've read long term have used this infrequently or dabbled with it early on before abandoning it altogether. The title's contents page will denote these episodes with a double eight note icon (♫), so you'll know when to put on headphones lest your anime battle music garner you weird looks in the breakroom.

Webtoon is ad-supported, you'll mostly see these in the form of banner ads at the end of an episode, before the related links and the comments section. Sometimes upon loading the app, there will be full-page popovers promoting a particular title on the platform, which can introduce you to something you weren't aware of or annoy the crap out you. The main monetization scheme on Webtoon is the coins system. The latest episodes are locked as "Fast Pass" episodes (I've seen one exception to this where new episodes were free as soon as they were published) and become free to read after a few weeks, but you can pay coins to read them as soon as they're live. You're greeted with a YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR anti-piracy message upon doing so.

Depending on your perspective, the coins are either a fair price to get the latest chapters of your favorite comic early, or a massive scam. I will say that if the series you're currently addicted to tends to have shorter episodes that make up large story arcs, spending coins to read the three or four locked episodes that are available only to leave off in the middle of the action can feel like a ripoff. Which 110% has happened to me. I'd suggest waiting for a seasonal sale on a coin bundle and using them sparingly.

You can get free coins by reading select titles during a special event (say, 15 chapters spread among any of 4 titles with a common theme), but this usually nets you a paltry 5 coins per event, and it can take 7 or more to unlock a single episode. Unbeknownst to me until the time of this writing, you can also get coins through cross-promotional "Treasure Hunts," usually in the form of playing crappy mobile games or signing up to be an Uber Eats driver. I can only imagine what they do with your personal data when you agree to link your account to RAID: Shadow Legends for that 1000 coin payout. There's also such a thing as a Daily Pass, where you redeem a ticket to make an episode available for 14 days, but it doesn't work for the latest 3 episodes. You know, if you weren't confused enough yet.

Even the host and the attendees at the Momocon Webtoon panel bemoaned the coins system. They asserted that if you want to support the artists, you should buy their merch or back them on Patreon, and I'm inclined to agree.

After describing Webtoon, and discussing some of its aspects as a capitalistic enterprise that make it not so great, you must be asking yourself, "Well what should I read?" Oh, imaginary person you, who I'm assuming didn't just hit the anchor tag to jump to the end. Allow me to regale you with:

Standout Webtoons as Decided by Beepner

unOrdinary

The first Webtoon I became hooked on. A society where superpowers are the norm, where the strongest rise in status and the rare few with no power are outcasts. John is one such powerless high school student, who dares to defy his place in the pecking order. Schoolyard fights in unOrdinary are not only tolerated, but the norm. And conducted with laser blasts and super strength. But is John really who he seems to be?
cw: violence, ableism

Hero Killer

They say history is written by the victors... and "Hero" literally happens to be the name of the clan that won the war for control of the world's districts. The Heroes may cause collateral damage or slaughter innocents on purpose, but the Villains they keep at bay are much worse, right? One woman sets out to kill as many heroes as she can to find the one responsible for the death of her sister, stealing their powers along the way. But she will be forced to make alliances she never anticipated in her quest for revenge.
cw: violence

Marionetta

Julia is content to be a seamstress for her Victorian-esque society's war effort, but her friend's disappearance makes her the unwitting guest of a travelling circus whose immortal inhabitants have bound themselves to the troupe in order to delay death. A mysterious voice makes Julia sign a contract to kill the circus' ringleader in exchange for extending her life. It's like Howl's Moving Castle meets Beetlejuice.

Infinite Leveling: Murim

A middle-aged warrior in ancient fantasy Korea dies and is reborn in his teenage life, retaining his battle experience and memories of future events. A mysterious status window materializes to give him MMO-style quests and inform him of status updates, and he must leverage the power of "number go up" to keep history from repeating itself.

Big Man on the Court

Eundeok begins his first year at a high school where every student is required to join an extracurricular activity, and at 6'10", all the sports clubs are headhunting him. A case of mistaken identity lands him on the basketball court, where he claims to be a novice, but his muscle memory betrays more experience than he claims to have. I can't help but wonder if this is going to end up as a Quiet Man situation, in which he's trying to escape his sordid past where he killed another man on the basketball court.

6th Degree

This is a new one. Kris is a K9 Unit, a human with doglike agility and ferocity in a city where superpowered cops and mafia fight for control. Oh, and she has to cut out and eat human hearts to survive. After her father is killed in an ambush and a mysterious woman comes to her aid, Kris finds herself abandoned by her police brethren and sets out on the trail of her mysterious benefactor for answers. This initially drew me in on the grotesque visuals alone, but I'm interested to see where it goes.
cw: violence, gore

Honorable Mentions

In conclusion... I didn't think of much by way of a conclusion. I guess I can leave you with a fun little drinking game. Most Webtoons I've read censor profanity with an asterisk in the middle vowel such as "f*ck" or "sh*t." So, take a drink whenever you find one that spells out the full, unblemished cuss word.

That's it for me. Go read some Webtoons!