Reading Korean Popular Culture: The Webtoon as Form, Translation, and Critique of Everyday Lif

This thesis conducts a form analysis of the webtoon Annarasumanara, created by Ha Il Kwon and originally released in 2010. The thesis examines this webtoon from multiple directions: as a new form of graphic narrative emerging from developments in digital technology and its powerful use of digital image production, synthesizing digital photography with cartoon art; as a historical narrative of post-IMF Korean everydayness; and as a digital pop culture commodity within the flourishing Korean media industry. This form analysis will highlight Annarasumanara as a piece of art performing a powerful critique of capitalism that particularly speaks to the contemporary South Korean context. However, it must be read as emerging from, and embedded within, an industry that is organized through the relationships of capital. This contradiction culminates in the translation of Annarasumanara, in which its critique of capitalism is filtered through a process of commodification aimed at export to foreign audiences.