Manhwa” is the name used to designate the Korean comic strip. Due to the importance of Korean culture, Manhwa is very dynamic and comes in many forms: paper, internet and mobile phone. Today, South Korea is one of the leading comic book producing and exporting countries. Like Japanese manga and Chinese manhua, manhwa is strongly influenced by classical Asian art, particularly Chinese.

Beginnings under Japanese occupation (1909-1945) On June 2, 1909, with the first publication of Daehanminbo, the first manhwa appeared. On the first page, under the title Saphwa, Koreans can discover the work of the cartoonist Lee Do-yeong. Lee Do-yeong’s woodcut manhwa seeks to awaken the spirit of the Korean people through a work that is both satirical (the pro-Japanese officials are depicted as monkeys) and didactic.

With the Korean War, Manhwa regained a central place in the propaganda of both sides of the conflict. Cartoonists were mobilized and produced many leaflets, particularly in the south. Kim Yong-hwan’s soldier Todori, who exalts the courage of soldiers, meets with enormous success. Censorship is tightened again and overly critical cartoonists are severely condemned. Nowadays, Korea’s dynamic society follows fashions with extreme speed, so manhwa produces many genres, sometimes influenced by manga, and adapts to new ways of reading.

Young authors are looking for radical innovations both in the style of the drawings and in the chosen media. The penetration rate of broadband internet, which is one of the highest in the world, favours the diffusion of manhwas via the internet. The manhwabangs’ websites offer to buy manhwas pages on the internet. A new market is in full development: four-box manhwas, with sound, which you can download and read on your mobile phone screen.

All mobile phone companies offer manhwas to their subscribers, making dozens of studios work. The government is now seeking to disseminate and publicize the manhwas, which are still little known and too often assimilated to manga, to the rest of the world. They are beginning to be published in Europe, the United States and Japan.

Here are some Manhwa/Manhua rebuilds that you might like :

• Solo Leveling
• Tales of Demons and Gods
• Star Martial God Technique
• The Descent of the Demonic Master
• Master of Gu
• Apotheosis
• God of Martial Arts
• Chronicles of Heavenly Demon
• Everlasting God of Sword
• Magic Emperor