Lee Donggeon, creator of the popular webtoon "Yumi's Cells" (2015), on Sept. 26 told Korea.net in a written interview that he considers mass appeal the most important principle for drawing webtoons and stressed the convenience of comics as light reading. (Lee Donggeon)

By Kim Seon Ah

"You can choose to only see the special but relate with the ordinary."

Lee Donggeon gave this reason for the success of his hit webtoon "Yumi's Cells" (2015). The story is about the growth of an ordinary career woman, 32, and her cells.

He entered the webtoon scene in a unique way. A year before his debut, he founded a self-run stationary maker Sweet Company and made diary stickers called "A Bittersweet Life." He began his cartoon career by creating a webtoon to promote his products.

Through his first work "A Bittersweet Life" (2011), he became an official webtoonist at age 30. He has also dabbled in the romance genre with "Ex-Girlfriend" (2014), "Yumi's Cells" and "Daily Jojo" (2021) and most recently the series "Romance Sweetness 100%." 

The following are excerpts from Korea.net's written interview with him on Sept. 26.

How did you come up with the round and cute drawings in "Yumi's Cells?" 

My drawings stemmed from the designs I drew for a stationery design company. I began with round, small and cute styles and later developed them further that turned into my first work "A Bittersweet Life." In comics, however, I felt more detailed expressions were needed to convey the emotions of the characters, so I believe I gradually honed my drawing style now by developing the proportions of my characters' fingers or characters.

Why are your protagonists regular people with no supernatural powers or skills?

You can choose to look only at the special but relate with and support the ordinary, and place yourself in their shoes if you go further. In that respect, I think my readers quickly warmed up to my characters and backed their growth.

Among Yumi's cells, her "love cell" exerts the most influence in Lee Donggeon's hit webtoon "Yumi's Cells" (2015). (Lee Donggeon)

Your leading work "Yumi's Cells" has an original and unique setting of cells containing human desires.

They're commonly used jokes. People say "My love cells must've died" or "Next week's me will take care of work I've put off." I enjoy such expressions, so I didn't want to leave them out and used them to create a story.

"Yumi's Cells" was made into a hit live-action drama. As the creator of the original, how did you feel when seeing this adaptation?

It's a thrilling experience to have your work made into video content. Adaptation into a drama is another realm of creativity, so I enjoyed it from a viewer's perspective.

But because I thought adaptation into a drama is another realm of creativity all its own, I only answered the production team's questions on the show's early settings and did nothing else. The changes made for the drama had their own strengths, so I wasn't particularly disappointed. 

"Yumi's Cells" was made into a live-action drama by the domestic online streaming service Tving. With Season 1 aired in 2021 and Season 2 last year, the drama was sold to about 160 countries including those in Europe, North America and Southeast Asia and became a huge hit. Shown is a teaser poster for Season 2. (Tving's official Instagram account)

Your genres are mostly daily life and romance. What kind of webtoons do you like?

I enjoy similar kinds of webtoons. I like cute drawings and detailed psychological depictions as well as the feeling of an essay and lifestyle webtoons.

As webtoons rise as a leading form of Korean content, global intellectual property issues have come to the fore. What would you say to your readers about copyrights?

I know that many problems remain in illegal webtoon distribution but the reason that the webtoon market has surged through paid content is that readers are highly aware of intellectual property. If I have anything to say to readers, I should thank them than make a request. 

Finally, tell Korea.net readers about your plans.

I love this aspect about comics: looking at common things in a special way. I want to keep creating stories that add comic imagination to routine stories. 

This is a caricature of both webtoonist Lee Donggeon that he drew and Loving Gun, the protagonist of Lee's webtoon series "Romance Sweetness 100 Percent" (2023). In a written interview on Sept. 26, Lee told Korea.net that he likes the drawing styles of Belgian comic strip artist Georges Remi, better known as Herge and famous for "The Adventures of Tintin," and Japanese manga giant Osamu Tezuka. (Lee Donggeon)