What it is
AI webtoons are webcomics where generative AI draws or "touches up" the art: backgrounds, rendering, coloring, sometimes the characters. The phenomenon showed up most sharply in Korea (Naver Webtoon), the home of the format.
Where it came from
- Webtoons are a Korean vertical comics format with a huge industry behind it.
- Image models made it possible to speed up the labor-heavy stages (backgrounds, coloring) many times over.
- Platforms started rolling out AI tools — and immediately ran into conflict with the artists.
Why it got loud
- Economics: AI cuts the time and the cost of producing a title.
- Artist revolt: titles with AI art got waves of one-star ratings; artists protested against models being trained on their work.
- The argument about rights and "style theft" spilled into public view.
How to use it today
- For a solo author, AI speeds up the routine work (backgrounds, tones) and leaves you the story and the key panels.
- Be transparent with your audience: hiding AI use in the art hurts your rating and your credibility.
- Check the rights: what the model was trained on and whether you can commercialize the output.
What to watch out for
- Strong pushback from the community: webtoon readers are sensitive to anything that looks "AI-drawn."
- Legal risk around training on other people's work and the murky copyright status of generated art.
- Quality and character consistency across chapters is the weak spot of generation.