South Korean entertainment already dominates the online comics format known as webtoons, and thanks to a recent move by the South Korean government, that domination looks very likely to continue. Announced on July 31, the Korean government has officially enacted the Promotion of Comics act, which discounts taxes for companies creating webtoon-style digital comics.
It was Anime News Network that first brought the news to our attention on August 2. Their reporting on the subject revealed that Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance is introducing tax credits covering 10–15% of production costs for digital comics, with the 10% going to larger comics producers and 15% going to smaller, more independent operations. Expenses covered under the act “planning and production labor costs, licensing fees for source novels, and software costs,” while indirect costs such as “marketing or promotional expenses” will not be counted.
Of course, this is not the first time that the South Korean government has put money and effort into the production of webtoons. You may recall Popverse reporting early in 2024 that the government was taking actions to grow the medium with a school dedicated to digital comics creations. That school currently is looking at a 2027 launch date.
This early on, it’s hard to estimate exactly how much the Promotion of Comics act will affect webtoons as a whole, but we can point to some of its most popular products of South Korean origin as places to watch. Take, for example, the high-school horror Noblesse, with 2 million subscribers as of this writing. Or fantasy saga Tower of God, with 41 million subscribers. Then there’s romance True Beauty, with a whopping 7.1 million followers at just 7 episodes.
Each of those numbers is staggering already, but with more opportunities being provided to South Korean creators under this act, we can expect to see even more like them as webtoons continues to grow.