Solomon wasn’t wrong when he said that there’s nothing new under the sun. In recent years, we have seen a lot of dramas born from webtoon source material. While it used to be a smattering of shows, now it’s so common that an original drama is actually the outlier.
As with most things, with this comes the good and the bad. For instance, I love that it gives artists and creatives (who do amazing work) a chance to go to the bank in a serious way with their characters and stories. But on the flip side, having source material — whether relatively unknown or hugely popular — will always add a layer of complexity. Sometimes, it makes us question the idea of an adaptation entirely: is it taking a written/drawn piece of art and translating it exactly for the small screen? Or is it about drawing inspiration from a pre-existing storyline and characters and using that as a baseline for reworking and reimagining? While we might never be able to answer that question, it might be worth a drama chat
What do you think about webtoons as a source for K-dramas? What do you see as some of the benefits or weaknesses of this as a creative process, or as a fan?