WEBTOON Advanced Tamiboo's Guide to Comedy Webtoons
Hi, I'm Tamiboo, a Webtoon artist
Have you ever wondered how comedy webtoons are created?
Do you think those with a natural comedic sense
create those stories spontaneously?
Having a natural comedic sense is important
But if you rely solely
on spontaneous ideas and sense
it’ll be hard to meet the deadlines we’ve promised
Even comedy Webtoons has a structured
writing process and principles
to creating humor as well
Just as having great ingredients alone
doesn’t make a delicious dish
without a recipe for it
you need techniques to consistently
turn ideas and material into manuscripts
with reliable humor by the deadline
In this session, I’ll share my 10 years of experience
in comedy webtoons to explore
the art of comedy Webtoon creation
Are you ready to laugh together?
Basic Principles of Comedy
Before making a comedy Webtoon
we need to understand the principles of humor
The philosopher Immanuel Kant once said
Laughter arises when an expected situation
turns out to be nothing
Think of those moments
when you chuckled at a dad joke
Unexpected outcomes
or surprise
are at the core of comedy
For instance, imagine a Webtoon drawn
with an action-style illustration that turns out to be absurd comedy
Or a protagonist who looks like an MMA fighter
but is actually a 7-year-old girl
What if a peaceful kindergarten resembles a prison
on a remote island straight out of a Hollywood movie?
The comedy Webtoon Brilliant Action Kindergarten
was created based on such unexpected twists
Every episode involved constant thinking about
how to subvert readers’ expectations
This use of surprise
isn’t limited to comedy
In thrillers, a seemingly good character can turn out to be the villain
In romance, a cold-hearted character
might reveal an endearing clumsy side
What makes comedy Webtoons unique
is that this element of surprise is focused on eliciting laughter
So, how do we make the most of surprise in comedy?
The key lies in leveraging stereotypes
Stereotypes help readers quickly
and easily understand a story
That’s why you start with stereotypes
It's okay to use familiar themes from daily life
or well-known fairy tales and movies as inspiration
Even clichés can be
excellent materials for building a comedic Webtoon
Let’s take a look at a work, 'I’m Pet'
The timid protagonist works overtime even on their birthday
Feeling drained from daily life, stops by a pet shop on her way home
Oh, this is a healing story, you may think
That's the expectation
But upon entering the pet shop
a strange-looking dog sitting with its legs crossed
lost in solitude
This dog walks on two legs, gives the protagonist
a suggestive look, and even proposes they live together
Here, stereotypes about pets and healing genres
are broken, generating laughter
But simply breaking stereotypes does not guarantee humor
It could end up being unfamiliar and not funny at all
Breaking one stereotype with another familiar stereotype works better
In I’m Pet, the character Antonio, a dog
walks on two legs and speaks like a human
but his attitude and mannerisms towards the protagonist
resemble those of a close male friend or a butler
These are familiar stereotypes
the close male friend or a butler
Antonio combines traits of a loyal dog and a butler
creating an entertaining character by focusing on
their shared trait of loyalty
like a butler or a male friend
Famous movies have also inspired content and concepts
For example, New World and Infernal Affairs
explore a police officer infiltrating a crime syndicate
and a gangster posing as a cop
Drawing from this, New Cat World was created
about a dog infiltrating the world of cats
The stereotype of dogs and cats being different
and not getting along was blended
with a parody of a famous movie
he protagonist, Shinse, a police officer disguised as a cat
suffers from a collapsing sense of identity
eventually becoming neither fully dog nor cat
It's a hybrid
a cat-dog, at this point
Do you get the idea?
Pairing one stereotype with another
unexpected one creates humor
This is the essence of comedy
Let's talk about making a comedy Webtoon
following these rules of comedy
How to Create a Comedy Webtoon
When I create a comedy Webtoon
the first thing I consider is
the target audience
Here's a comparison with food
For older adults
you might want to serve softer
less spicy dishes
for children, sweet yet nutritious options are preferable
for those who enjoy drinking
snacks that pair well with alcohol are ideal
Similarly, deciding who you want to make laugh helps set clear guidelines
for the material, concept, and storytelling approach
The narrower the target audience, the better
For instance, when I created The Vampire Student
my goal was to make my third-grade son laugh
For I’m Pet, the target audience was single women
in their early 30s like Kwon Ah-im the character
During serialization, I had numerous conversations
with a producer in this age group to refine the story
As for Brilliant Action Kindergarten
my target audience was men over 40
who had loved action manga like
Fist of the North Star in their youth and had
experience raising young children
In essence, I created it for people like myself
Occasionally, when I ask aspiring Webtoon creators
about their target audience, and they answer
Everyone in all age groups
While it’s natural to want your work
to appeal to a broad range of readers
setting too broad a target often results
in a story that resonates with no one
Narrowly defined targets allows you
to anticipate reader reactions to some extent
When working on a long-term series
here are times when the story’s direction may be lost
In such cases, it’s helpful to recall
your target audience
This work targets third-grade elementary school children
so it shouldn’t become too serious or heavy
That's the direction of the story
For The Vampire Student
I wanted to make elementary school boys laugh out loud
but my friends said it was too childish for them to read
which didn’t bother me
because it wasn’t aimed at adults anyway
But when my son said
Dad, my friends are saying The Vampire Student
is getting too serious and not fun anymore
I would break into a cold sweat
and rewrite the draft entirely to make it suitable
for elementary school tastes
Who's your target audience?
Once you’ve decided who your target audience is
the next step is finding ideas
Cooking starts with deciding on a menu
and checking if you have the right ingredients
Sometimes, you decide based on what’s available in the fridge
like finding eggs and
deciding to make steamed eggs
Finding ideas is like opening the fridge
Just as you need a variety of ingredients
stocked to start cooking
you should develop a habit of
stocking up ideas for your work
This requires a habit of taking notes
I always note down ideas as they come to mind
even if unrelated to my current project
despite the fact that it has
nothing to do with my work now
In the past, I used a notebook
but now I use my smartphone and note apps
Ideas that come during showers
get scribbled on foggy mirrors
Those that pop up while driving are recorded
as voice memos on the dashcam
to be written down later
However, most of these ideas
turn out to be useless upon review
If I can get two or three decent ones
out of a hundred, I feel lucky
That's still worth it
Ideas must always be noted and recorded
Then, from the pile of random ideas
I sort out and organize the useful ones
For comedy Webtoons, I classify
ideas based on the type of humor
That’s right
There are different types of comedy
My classification includes relatable comedy, parody
wordplay or dad jokes
comedy from contradiction, and slapstick
This is just my way of categorizing them
so no pressure here
Relatable comedy is based on observing daily life
and recreating it in detail
often used in slice-of-life Webtoon
Detailing relatable daily life
is a great technique to evoke laughter
Parody comedy involves taking well-known stories, movies
TV shows, or comics and repurposing them humorously
This makes comedy by repurposing something
The episode-based comic strips
that appeared in newspapers are an example
For example, in Brilliant Action Kindergarten
I parodied Romeo and Juliet
and Dragon Ball for some scenes
Wordplay comedy involves adding
small puns in dialogues or sound effects
It may not elicit big laughs
but serves as a spice between major comedy moments
creating an overall humorous tone for the work
So it's a very nice spice
Contradiction relies on mismatched situations
to induce laughter
and is one of my most used techniques
In the past
I did something differently
I would include a straight character
to point out the contradiction
and have them react to it
But nowadays, I no longer do this
Readers highlight such moments in the comments
Sometimes, I even plan contradictions
to engage readers in the comments
Slapstick uses exaggerated
facial expressions or actions for humor
I often use character costumes, hairstyles
and accessories for comedic effect
like muscular characters in kindergarten uniform
suspicious tails covering private areas
or a wolf cut hairstyle on a lion
All these are examples of slapstick
In Brilliant Action Kindergarten
I used slapstick comedy by depicting
a character’s face, inspired by
a child’s first attempt at makeup, to resemble the Joker
Classifying comedy types
is a crucial work
as they determine the intensity of laughter
helping decide which type to use
as the main dish and which as seasoning
For example, in Brilliant Action Kindergarten
with an average of 40 panels per episode
I needed to use the right type of comedy
to induce the right amount of laughter each episode
Contradiction was used for major laughs
while slapstick, parody, and wordplay
were added as spices
for moderate and subtle humor
Just as ordering sundae soup at a Korean restaurant
comes with side dishes
a comedy webtoon should balance
main laughs, the main dish
and small giggles, the side dishes
This categorization reflects my personal method
Even among comedy Webtoon creators
each has their unique main and side dishes
How should our sundae soup be different
to attract more customers among so many restaurants?
Just like this
you need your own style of comedy
To do this, understanding your strengths
in comedic techniques and the type of humor you aim
to deliver is essential
Once you’ve set your target audience
and determined the idea and concept
the next step is creating the story
Start with a main storyline
and build smaller episodes around it
For Brilliant Action Kindergarten
the main story is enduring intense kindergarten training
to become stronger elementary school students
From the first episode to the finale
this remains consistent
This main storyline determines
the smaller arcs, or the episodes
In an episode
there is another main storyline
and its smaller arcs
that are equivalent to events
The beginning of the main storyline
represents the head
and the tail becomes
the ending
Usually people brainstorm for a new story
starting with the head of the main storyline
If I can’t envision the ending, or the tail
I don’t start creating
Without a clear destination
I will lose my way
Once the head and tail are clear
maintaining a consistent tone
and concept throughout multiple episodes becomes easier
Once the story is somewhat developed
the next step is character development
Sometimes the order switches
where characters are created first
and the story is built around them
If the story is the train tracks
then characters are the train running on them
Typically, tracks come first
but sometimes the train is designed first
and tracks are laid to fit it
In any genre, including comedy Webtoon
characters are crucial
Readers often recognize
a work by its character
The character is the subject of the story
or even the story itself
And it's even the work itself
Now, let’s delve into creating characters for comedy Webtoons
The first principle is simplicity
Characters should be intuitive and easy to understand
so that adding unpredictability later
enhances the impact
Using familiar images or real-life inspirations
allows readers to grasp characters
without excessive explanation
Intuitive visual design also helps
in quick communication with the readers
For Brilliant Action Kindergarten
characters were designed based on fighters
action stars, and athletes
to evoke a strong, intimidating image
upon their first appearance
A character’s debut in a work
is like a first handshake with the audience
so the appearance alone
should convey their traits
and draw readers into the story
This is an important point
Two, growing intrigue
The second principle is growing intrigue
If a character reveals everything at once
their charm quickly fades
As the story progresses, gradually reveal
the character’s hidden charms
to keep readers intrigued and engaged
This principle is even more crucial for long-form work
Just like in dating
you are drawn to someone who reveals
new sides over time
Characters should also unveil
more charm as the story develops
For example, a tough-looking child
might actually love flowers and nature
with their sensitive trait
A seemingly creepy character of a dog
might be a loyal and dependable
companion to its owner
Characters that become more captivating
with each episode play a vital role
in immersing readers in the story
Three, likability
The third principle is likability
Comedy webtoon protagonists should be likable
because readers want to laugh
along with characters they enjoy
If the character is unlikable
even the funniest situations
can feel uncomfortable
Ensure the audience sympathizes with
and roots for the character
Quirky, outlandish behavior is acceptable
but if it leads to dislike
readers will drift away
Design characters so readers feel
so that readers like them
Four, imperfection
Comedy webtoon characters don’t need to be perfect
Flaws and shortcomings
often evoke
humor and relatability
Just as a lived-in house feels more comfortable
than a pristine and perfect, yet plastic model home
Imperfections create a sense of ease
as in this case
A sense of ease
prepares readers to laugh
Even silly appearances or slapstick elements
can contribute to this effect
For example, I’m Pet
uses intentionally messy artwork
to create a relaxed reading experience
It's not because I am bad at drawing
I can tell you that
It's all calculated imperfection
To make a more multidimensional character
based on the four principles, here's a tip for you
Try defining aspects not covered in the story,
such as their background, personality, preferences, or motto
Even if not explicitly shown
these details help create characters
that feel alive and move naturally in the story
some very multidimensional characters
These multidimensional characters
do their own work
Imagine running into
a longtime friend on the street, without expecting it
How is it?
You can easily picture their reactions, expressions
and words, things like that
This is what a multidimensional character is
A great way to test this
character development
is through a character interview
Ask any questions
It can be structured
or very spontaneous questions
If answers flow naturally
it’s proof the character is well-developed
Once, I created
a very rebellious character
who outright refused the interview
saying, no way I'm doing this
I could picture that scene in my head
In that moment, I felt assured
that I had crafted them well
Of course, that didn't feel nice
The lion Kim Myung-soo was a case
where the character came first
Initially, I posted short comics featuring this character on Instagram
and received positive reactions, leading to a 30-episode series
The protagonist, Kim Myung-soo
was inspired by my rebellious teenage son
preferring burgers and ramen over raw meat
enjoying the show Infinite Challenges
and being so timid
that it can't kill a fly
yet deeply loving his human father
whom he resembles
That's the character of this lion
His human father, also a protagonist
was created as a clumsy and immature parent
who feels guilty for raising Myung-soo
like a spoiled human son
So he decides to make him a true lion
by sending Myung-soo to a carnivore training academy
Timid and weak Myung-soo resents his father
and struggles with the training
That's how the story was developed
Sometimes, the process of creating characters
naturally generates a story
Simply defining the relationship
and thoughts between the human father and the lion son
was enough to outline the narrative
Making a character multidimensional
is directly tied to crafting the overall story
Always keep that in mind
Today, we explored how to create comedy Webtoons
While the process of brainstorming jokes
and drafting scripts to make others laugh
might not always feel enjoyable all the time
remember that the fun of wanting
to make others laugh
is our great driving force behind
comedy Webtoon creation
I hope my humble experience provides
even a small hint for your creative journey
This concludes the lecture
Enjoy creating
Thank you
Summary Basic Principles of Comedy Core Element Surprise
Tips for Enhancing Surprise Utilize stereotypes Break stereotypes with other stereotypes Borrow ideas and themes from famous works
Starting Stories Using Stereotypes Use daily life themes Use famous works Use clichés
How to Create Comedy Webtoons Story Planning Relatable Comedy: Relatable everyday observations Parody: Parody widely known works
Wordplay: Puns in dialogue or sound effects Contradiction: Mismatched situations Slapstick: Exaggerated facial expressions or actions
Character Design Principles Easy to understand Grow more intriguing Likable Have flaws
Comedy Webtoon Tips for Multidimensional Characters Set details not addressed in the story
Use a character interview to test if the character is well-rounded A multidimensional character is closely tied to the overall story