Seo Jang-hoon is a Korean webtoonist who created the idiosyncratic Webtoon Bong and the media franchise around it. The series follows the daily life of a fictional town called Bongho, with its inhabitants made up of an eccentric cast of characters inspired by real life people. The webtoon itself uses traditional Korean three-character taglines (with the inclusion of the webtoon’s title) to make up a traditional comic strip format.
The website launched in 2003 and ran through 2006, with its success providing Seo with enough money to support himself doing freelance work in comics and working as an English tutor. In 2006, he had his first published comic book in Korea under the name Bong Go by Dong Young-shik (who was also known for his work on the “Tiger & Bunny” anime), and two years later, he began his career as a film director with “Master” (2009), an animated short that won Best Short at Annecy.
About Seo Jang Hoon :
1. The Webtoon artist Seo Jang Hoon is a graduate of Ilsan Art College.
Last year, he worked as an English teacher at Dong-Soon High School. Seo Jang Hoon is a man of few words. But he is known in the local press as a man who loves his job as an artist. He does online comics at Webtoon Bong and works for Dong-Soon High School, where he teaches English. The 47-year-old, who posted online comics on webtoon.com and was awarded the Grand Prize of Daum Webtoon Contest in 2004, is a man of few words but has an interesting art style.
2. Jang Hoon is now a member of Gyeonggi Creation and Service Center.
– Hoon recognized the potential of the webtoon as a professional tool. He saw the need for more professionalism in webtoons in Korea and moved to Busan. He lived there for a few months, commuting to Seoul and working on his projects when he wasn’t doing his English classes at Dong-Soon High School.
3. Seo Jang Hoon is a freelance webtoon artist now.
– Seo’s story is an example of how people who don’t come from a creative field can become professionals in their fields. He graduated from an art college, but he didn’t want to take his art as his profession, so he taught English. He switched to webtoons after creating the webtoon Bong, and now works on his own projects and has several titles running at the same time, including The Webtoon Bong series, which was released on the 14th of November.
4. Seo’s Bong series was created in 2003, and posted online when the genre was still developing.
– In the early days of his career, not only did he have to make up a title for his stories, he also had to think up a name for himself. He chose Seo Jang Hoon (literally meaning “Seo is a man”), because it fitted well with the other names floating around on the webtoon sites at that time (such as “Naver” or “Daum”).
5. In 2006, Seo published his first comic book under Dong Young-shik’s name in Korea.
– In an interview with The Hankyoreh, Seo said he didn’t want to work as a webtoon artist anymore and wanted to create something more solid and professional. He wrote some comics for Dong Young-shik at the time, who was known for his animation work on the animated TV series “Tiger & Bunny”.
6. The short film “Master” by Seo won Best Short at Annecy.
In 2009, the award-winning short film “Master” (directed by Seo Jang Hoon) was shown in France at Annecy International Animation Film Festival. In November of the same year, Seo released his animated film “The Webtoon Bong Over Summer” at the Busan International Cartoon & Animation Festival.
7. Seo is concerned with animation and 3D modeling.
– After the release of “The Webtoon Bong Over Summer”, many people raised their interest in Korean animation and it was named as “the best short film at Annecy”. This short film was about a father and son on a car trip, that is different from ‘The Toy Car’ (a previous work by Seo). The reason why this animation was made: to make an animation that will take people to Korea without opening an encyclopedia.”
8. Seo has been working in Korea since 2004.
– Seo Jang Hoon’s first work was a text comic called “Bong”. He graduated from Ilsan Art College and somehow got contacts in the industry, then he became an animation writer under Dong Young-shik of the cartoon series “Tiger & Bunny”. He did a lot of animation writing at Dong Young-shik’s studio. In 2006, his work was released as a comic book by Dong Young-shik.
9. Seo received a Hyundai Project Award in 2006.
– Seo won a Hyundai Project award in 2006 for his comic called “Bong”. He published this work on webtoon.com and was awarded the Grand Prize of Daum webtoon Contest in 2004.
10. Seo Jang Hoon is married, with two children and a third on the way.
His wife is a kindergarten teacher at Dong-Soon High School and teaches English as well.The couple has two children, one boy and one girl who are already going to school. They just got their third baby son, born May 24 this year (2013).
