Manga vs manhwa vs webtoon: what’s the difference?

Manga comes from Japan, manhwa from Korea and manhua from China: the three words name where a comic comes from. Japanese manga is usually printed in grayscale and read from right to left, on the page and in the panels, while Korean manhwa is often printed in color and read from left to right. Webtoon is a different kind of word: it names a format, comics made for the internet and read as one long scroll instead of one page at a time.

That is why manhwa and webtoon overlap instead of competing. Manhwa says a comic is Korean; webtoon says it was made to be scrolled on a screen, so a Korean web comic is both. The table below puts all four side by side, with the sources we used.

Comicpix, which makes this page, draws comics in the manga, manhwa and manhua styles, among others. On the web, it doesn’t make webtoons: there is no vertical-scroll webtoon format, and you read each comic page by page, online or as a PDF.

Manga is the word for comics from Japan. In print it usually comes in grayscale and reads from right to left, on the page and inside the panels, so a reader used to English books starts from what feels like the back cover.

In Comicpix, manga is a drawing style rather than a reading format: black-and-white ink with crisp lines, screentone shading and speed lines, with expressive faces and dynamic angles. The make a manga of yourself page shows two black-and-white examples page by page, a night-market fantasy and a wordless school horror.

Manhwa is the word for comics from Korea. In print, manhwa is often in color and reads from left to right, the same direction as an English comic. Korean comics made for the internet are called webtoons, which is where the two words meet (more on that below).

Comicpix’s manhwa style is full color: clean line art, soft gradients, glossy lighting and elegant proportions, drawn as pages. On photo to manhwa, a couple’s comic shows the cover drawn from two sample photos.

Manhua is the word for comics from China. The library guide we used defines it by where it comes from and gives no single rule for its color or reading order, so this page doesn’t invent one; check the book or app you’re reading.

Comicpix’s manhua style is full color, with luminous, painterly coloring, graceful figures, flowing hair and fabric and an ethereal glow, in grand, cinematic compositions. “The Ember Crown”, a fantasy where the hero rides an ember dragon over a sky kingdom, is drawn in it, and the photo to comic page shows that cover next to the sample photo it came from.

A webtoon is a comic made for the internet. The word was coined to tell comics made for the web apart from comics made for print, and because a web page can run as long as the story needs, an episode reads as one long scroll on a phone instead of one paper page at a time.

So “manhwa vs webtoon” isn’t an either-or. A Korean comic can be manhwa by origin and a webtoon by format; a Korean comic made for print is manhwa but not a webtoon.

On the web, Comicpix doesn’t make webtoons: there is no vertical-scroll webtoon format. If it’s the Korean-comic look you’re after, the manhwa style draws it in full color on pages you read one at a time, online or as a PDF; if you need a long vertical strip to post episode by episode, Comicpix on the web is the wrong tool.