From Perpignan high school, the beach is only 30 minutes by bus. Nothing too inaccessible for Ines, a 14-year-old second-year student, on this July afternoon. If not this badly stuck math class at 3 p.m., the last resistant of the last week of classes of the year. To keep busy between two time slots when you’re a teenager and you don’t have a penny in your pocket, the over 20s of the Catalan city will tell you that they strolled at the time in the manga department of Fnac , to browse for free the naruto, one-piece and other behemoths of the 2000s. For Ines, even more need to move to the sign. These adventures drawn to him, he flips through them directly on his laptop. A style of comics called webtoon, whose rescue of Inès’ day partly explains why the phenomenon has been surging in France in recent months.
Emerging in Korea in the early 2000s, the webtoon is taking over the whole world, so much does it correspond to its time. This is a comic book to read on your laptop, which you download on platforms designed for, like Netflix boards. “It finally uses the entire digital format of comics. It’s not a gimmick, it has a real web identity”, boasts Maëva Poupard, scriptwriter of comic strips under the name of Rutile and author in particular of colossalFrench blockbuster of the genre.
Designed and adapted for digital
No more comics that hardly contort more than they adapt to your touch screen, where page jumping is complex and the edges seem to be on the verge of asphyxiation. The webtoon is entirely devoted to mobile reading. Starting with how to read it: by scrolling from bottom to top like teenagers, the target audience, do with TikTok videos. “With the democratization of the laptop, videos on social networks and the advent of streaming platforms, the smartphone has become democratized as a clean entertainment tool,” says Oscar Lemetayer, digital publishing assistant at Ankama.
But it is not only the mimicry of the fingering or the habit of the screens to explain the success. Digital is above all a certain idea of freedom – and of the potential for creation: empty screen to prolong the suspense or the silences, animation, sound effect, page of infinite or, on the contrary, tiny size to vary the pace intrigues… A new way of telling stories, more dynamic, freer too, reminiscent of the success of manga a few decades earlier. The filiation between the two successes does not stop there, for Diane Ranville, teacher in comics & new media at Sciences po Grenoble and author, in particular of webtoon Our Powers. Just as the manga had benefited from the fascination with Japan of the early 2000s, the webtoon relies on the omnipotence of current Korean soft power, BTS and other K-pop artists in the lead.
New stories for a new generation
A novelty of style, genre and codes, but also stories. Certainly, given the growing success of the format, old comic book monsters are adapting in webtoon, in particular these good old Mickey, Donald and Scrooge – Disney launched its own Ducktoons platform on June 12. A way for these grandfathers of the 9th art to offer original formats and stories. An almost blank page that makes Inès very happy: “As soon as you say you like a manga, an old man comes to explain to you that One Piece, Bleach Or DBZ it’s better and you don’t know anything about it. And throw myself into One Piece NOW ? It’s already more than 100 volumes to catch up. In webtoon, there are no great sacred monsters or ”It was better before” yet, it’s up to us to find them. »
A salutary renewal also for our two screenwriters. “It’s an opportunity to see new authors and authors and provide literature with new stories,” argues Diane Ranville. As for Rutile, “it’s thanks to the webtoon format and colossal that I found success, with a new audience, a new narrative, new opportunities”. Count six million unique readings for his adventures of Jade, a young aristocrat who prefers bodybuilding to imposed social evenings.
The lost pleasure of snacking episodes
We saw it with the adaptations of Scrooge, the webtoon is not stingy with recycling old recipes. And not just in the characters. Digital comics has brought out a concept that is sometimes sorely lacking these days: the episodic. “Each story is designed as an independent episode that is self-sufficient”, boasts Oscar Lemetayer. Before a start of nuance: “Obviously, we arrange for some cliffhangers or mysterious end to keep the public interested”. We must encourage the reader to read on.
Encourage, but not compel. And in the opinion of the main interested parties, it’s a hell of a breath of fresh air: “We find a lost art, that of waiting for the next episode for a week, which increases the tension and the excitement, smiles Rutile . Readers are happy with this temporality and this unity per episode, they don’t have to stay awake for 300 pages in a row, and take pleasure in ”snacking” a work by consuming it in pieces”.
The secret garden
The pleasure and the zenitude also work for the authors and autrices, supports Diane Ranville: “There is no longer any need to release a whole album to broadcast episodes on the platforms. At least, we can see directly if it is liked or not, and then there is no need to persist for nothing”, especially since – digital obliges – the format lends itself particularly to comments and debates online, giving a direct return. At the time of the series where all the episodes come out at the same time, from binge-watching and where YouTube’s trending videos exceed an hour, “A beginning, an end, knowing how long we’re going to read, that’s good too,” says a conquered Inès.
All contained in a flagship object of adolescents, the mobile phone. “When you buy a manga or comic book in physical format, your parent sees it, will be able to judge its content, comment on your choice. There, everything is contained in the laptop, generally the teenager’s secret garden, where the parent does not enter and does not interfere, ”underlines Rutile. Who says internet also says cheaper prices than its physical competitors. “Even the manga has become very expensive,” she continues.
In the country of Franco-Belgian comics, where manga is also king – France is the second most consuming country behind the irremovable Japan, the webtoon is gradually imposing itself. “Between last year and today, all the publishers got into it,” notes Diane Ranville. And according to Oscar Lemetayer: “We are only at the beginning of the webtoon”. A success such as the webtoon is now available… in paper format. Something to keep teenagers busy even on the shelves of Fnac.