For years now, I’ve been reading webcomics. webcomics ,or manhwa, as they’re known in Korean, comics written and drawn by Korean authors. Instead of being read left-to-right, like Western style comics, or right-to-left, like Japanese manga, webcomics are read in a scrolling format, from top-to-bottom.

Since I was in high school, I’ve been reading webcomics on an app called Line WEBTOON. I appreciate WEBTOON because it’s a space where anyone can create their own comic and share it with the world, and in spite of its issues, I still come back to try to find something new.

Article: The Worst Webcomic Tropes (According to these redditors)

I’ve been around the block, and over time, I’ve come to appreciate (and not appreciate) specific tropes that are largely found in the webcomic genre.

Unfortunately, I feel like my least favorite webcomic tropes far outnumber my favorite ones.

Let it also be noted that my dislike for certain things may be why someone else likes a comic, so this is my own opinion. My opinion also isn’t an indictment on the medium as a whole, or against the authors.

With that being said, let’s move on to the first trope in the list!

Pitting Female Characters Against Each Other

This trope occurs a lot in specifically romance webcomics. While some of them are worse than others, this trope occurs so often, I don’t think I can even give a set number.

This might look like the secondary female characters of the comic starting rumors about the female lead (who I’ll refer to as FL from now on). They may bully her and make her feel generally bad about herself, or if they’re feeling particularly bold, try to steal the affections of the male lead away from her.

In many a fantasy romance webcomic, FL will be the illegitimate child of some duke or king. Her sister or stepmother will treat her like a cockroach that they had the dishonor of stepping on, giving FL a very sad life that Generic Male Lead can save her from. Granted, this probably happened a lot in real life, minus the magic, but I just want FL to have a good relationship with her sister/mother figure/other female characters. Just once, and I’ll be happy!

Getting Hit and Killed by a Bus

(And Being Reborn as a Hot Lady or Guy)

This isn’t just a trope that romance webtoons have. It’s actually everywhere, in every genre. This trope is even featured heavily in Japanese manga and anime, but they’re called Isekai (and about five hundred come out every year).

The version of isekai usually marketed towards women might feature a Plain Jane from our world, probably a woman in her late twenties to early thirties, who works a dead-end office job. She probably likes to read or is a writer herself. One day, she may suddenly die from a stroke caused from overworking (possibly a reflection of South Korea’s unhealthy work culture). Or, the alternative, and my favorite, she’s hit by a bus or semi-truck. Don’t ask me which manga/webcomic this happens in, because it’s pretty much all of them.

(For those of you who aren’t familiar with webcomic/manga and anime culture, Truck-kun is a cultural icon, and he shows up in many an isekai, and he’s killed many a boring main character.)

Source: Medium.com "Exercise 22 — Finding Truck-Kun" by Jonny Ghizmo

Then, FL wakes up and she’s a beautiful princess in her favorite book, or even her own book that she’s written. Sometimes she decides to make a life for herself in this fictional world she’s found herself in, or even tries to change the plot of the book. Rarely does she try to return to the real world. In fact, she doesn’t even seem to miss it, even adapting seamlessly to the fictional world’s rules and culture, and even the existence of magic and fantastical creatures!

After this, the comic tries to make her into some girl boss character, who has a plan for everything. However, it seems like most things just kinda fall into her lap. All character development, or anything that makes FL remotely interesting, is averted. Add in an equally bland love interest for the cherry on top!

On the other hand you have the other version of this trope, where the male main character gets hit by a truck, dies, and enters a fantasy world based on his favorite comic or video game. Instead of one boring love interest, add in five to make it a harem! Just like our girl boss main character, he doesn’t go through any character arc and every success he has feels unearned.

I know that the characters are pretty much like empty shells so that the reader can insert themselves into the story easier. The author wants the reader to be able to relate to the main character. I’ve even read quite a few of these types of stories and have been thoroughly entertained!

The “Ugly” Character

(She was really just wearing glasses)

This trope isn’t isolated to just webcomics (see: Princess Diaries), and it's also related to the "Beauty Equals Goodness" trope.

I don’t think I mind having attractive characters. A lot of my favorite comics feature beautiful characters! However, what throws me off is when a character is thought to be ”ugly” because they have glasses on, and when they take off the glasses everyone is floored because they were pretty/handsome all along. Or, they put on some makeup and curl their hair, and everyone falls in love with them. In movies, this happens because the actress/actor playing the character was already very conventionally attractive. Likewise, the artist draws the character so that they're just an attractive person wearing glasses, with their hair either slicked back or in a simple ponytail.

This would all be fine, but often, the message if the comic is that people should accept themselves as they are, regardless of their looks. Why then, do these comics seem to have the exact opposite message? The character can never be accepted by their peers as an 'average', 'plain', or 'ugly' person. Instead, they need to have some kind of drastic makeover or complete change of appearance to be loved. The question then is, are they really accepting themselves for who they truly are, or just as society says they should be?

I don’t know; I’m just a lady with opinions on the internet.

TV Tropes Article: Beautiful all Along

You may think that I have a bone to pick with webcomics, but that isn’t the case whatsoever. In fact, I actually have quite a few favorites! Feel free to check out this article: My Favorite Webcomics (In No Particular Order).