Webtoons are an interesting form of media and literacy. The best way I can describe Lore Olympus is a serial graphic novel. It takes the design of a graphic novel, but that is where the similarities end. It takes advantage of the most popular form of media, the internet. This allows the story and art to reach more people than it would have if it was printed. Using this form of media has its benefits too. In the past, books, like The Three Musketeers, would be released a chapter a week in a newspaper. This is the modern form of that. Every week a chapter is released online. What makes it better than print is that all the previous chapters are still there so you don’t have to start in the middle. This mode of publishing keeps the readers coming back every week, allowing the artist time to create and increasing readers exposure to the site and hopefully other author’s works. I know that I have been coming back to Lore Olympus every week since I started reading it. The most prevalent mode of storytelling in this is art. The world is created through the style of the art. The design of the character, including color, reveal parts of their characters. For example, both Artemis and Apollo are purple because they are twins. Hades is more serious so his shape is blocky and Persephone/ Kore is more gentle so she is made with softer lines. The style of the art is very unique. This sets this webtoon apart from all the others. The art is visually pleasing and it really matches the type of story. The vibrancy of the colors are exactly what you would think of for the world of mystical beings. It makes sense that they would live in a more colorful version of a modern city as their realm is usually seen as something more than our world. The focus on art also requires a literacy in reading faces and body language. There is not a whole lot of words and so the reader has to figure out the character’s thoughts and emotions from their bodies. This also makes the emotions more powerful, as it is more impactful to see something that it is to have that thing described to you. Some of the webtoons use multiple forms of media, sometimes they will include sound. This is not one of those. However, like all graphic novels, it does combine two different forms media, pictures and words. I am very new to this style of literacy. This is the first year that I have read something that was integrally integrated pictures and words sense I was a kid. It is nice to bring back and relive the joy that I got when I was younger but with material that matches me.
https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/lore-olympus/list?title_no=1320
Emma,
This is a GREAT analysis of how webtoons stands as its own form of medium, as well as genre. I particularly like how you compared the webtoons medium to the historical standard of serially printed penny or dime novels.
Your analysis of needing multiple sets of literacies to read Lore is very interesting. I love how you notice that you have to be able to read the body language of the characters, since the webtoons uses few words.
Great job!!
Megan