Ambition for a famous Vietnamese webtoon in Asia

“It’s time for Vietnamese young people to be present as storytelling artists, not just consumers or webtoon producers” – director Charlie Nguyen reminded.

Last week, at Manga Comic Con Vietnam 2023, director Charlie Nguyen announced the second season of the COMINK comic creation contest. The winning work will have the opportunity to be adapted into a movie or series.

COMINK is an annual comic creation competition starting in 2022, founded by Australian filmmaker Paul Brenner, director – film producer Charlie Nguyen and friends.

This year, the competition takes place for 12 months, from August 2023. Total prize value is up to 300 million VND plus courses with experts in fine arts and film production.

Not just a comic book “worker”.

As co-founder and judge of COMINK, director Charlie Nguyen commented: “Vietnam is currently the place to consume and process many international comics and webtoons…

It’s time for Vietnamese young people to be present as storytellers, not just consumers or processors. I believe that Vietnamese people are just lacking a playground, not lacking good stories.”

The work of “manufacturing comics” is being done by many Vietnamese artists for foreign companies, especially Korea – a country with a very developed webtoon industry.

The Korean side transferred the storyboard to Vietnam with character creation and artistic direction. Vietnamese artists will draw 100% of the story based on the available script and then transfer the story page to Korea. The Korean side will add the language and then publish it.

Can’t keep working forever

Regarding director Charlie Nguyen’s comments, screenwriter Nguyen Khanh Duong – co-author of the comic Long Than Tuong and artist Thanh Phong – expressed agreement.

Author Khanh Duong said: “As a comic maker, this is something I do not want at all. I want comic creators in Vietnam to tell their own stories, to bring Vietnamese stories to the world. with domestic and international readers.

But I also understand that it is currently difficult for the domestic market to help Vietnamese authors make a living with their profession. Therefore, it is completely understandable that they choose a stable job to produce stories for foreign countries.”

Currently, there are a number of Vietnamese comic book authors who are famous in the market and have won international awards, have been praised by the press, and are also working as comic book creators for Korean webtoon companies.

Meanwhile, there are also authors who choose not to do outsourcing work but stay at home and receive a low salary to draw their own stories.

In that context, playgrounds like the COMINK contest are necessary to motivate the community of young people passionate about comics. However, the comic book world also wants systematic plans to develop the entire industry.

“I have researched the comic book market in Vietnam for many years and I know Vietnam has a very interesting art history spanning many centuries.

The global webtoon market size increases each year and focuses more on the younger generation” – founder Paul Brenner expressed.

Mr. Paul Brenner leads a number of countries with large young audiences (under 24 years old) of webtoons such as the US, Thailand and Indonesia.

In Vietnam, the market is dominated by foreign content. Through COMINK, the organizers want to build a webtoon platform for Vietnamese people and bring Vietnamese comics to the top in revenue in the Asian region.

tuoitre.vn