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| ▲This photo, provided by Kakao Entertainment shows, a poster of 'Solo Leveling.' (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, August 9 (Yonhap) -- Sudden death of author Jang Sung-rak known for his popular webtoon “Solo Leveling” sparked other authors to take a stand to ease up their high intensity labor.
Webtoon Association released a statement on Tuesday and stated “Author Jang Sung-rak has passed away on July 23.” adding “We have to live with the sadness and talk about some very important matters, such as intense workload.”
“Inhumane work environment and deadly work load forced upon authors by the company is the reality we live in.” adding “Someone else might be losing their lives due to insane workloads as we speak, unless we put a stop to the inhumane work load.” Webtoon Association put an emphasis on the inhumane work loads of webtoon authors.
Through the private in depth interview, South Korean Webtoon Association described the current situation as more than 90 percent of the webtoon authors have trouble finishing up 60 to 70 cuts worth of work weekly.
Especially, the increased expectation of readers are forcing authors into a position to come up with better and higher quality of works with same amount of time which worsens the work environment for authors. Therefore officials of webtoon industry needs to get together to find a way to decrease the work load.
The Webtoon Association furthered their statement by stating “Platform, Content provider author and more of the officials related to webtoon industry needs to come together and understand the current situation of authors and come up with the solution to safeguard authors health.” adding “Authors are not some disposable objects should never be consider as one, because authors are the laying foundation of webtoon industry.”
Within the webtoon industry unfortunate loss of author Jang Sung-rak in his 30s due to cerebral hemorrhage raised concerns regarding webtoon author’s health and poor working conditions.
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Joonha Yoo.)
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