Chapter 134 – What Planning Means
In front of the computer.
Kang Min-hyuk stroked his chin while quietly staring at Dong-gyo and Rok-hee’s planning documents on the screen.
‘Comic planning, huh……’
The question he had thrown at himself.
This question kept spinning endlessly inside Min-hyuk’s head.
If there were 100 comic artists, there should be 100 different methods of planning — that was Min-hyuk’s belief.
He thought that planning wasn’t about designing a standardized hit work, but about finding the perfect setting that suited each individual artist.
This idea was partially taken from a discussion panel held by legendary Japanese comic editors in the past (technically the future from the current timeline).
- The role of an editor is to listen to the artist’s inner voice. To bring out what the artist can truly do best.
- Setting things up so the artist can overcome what they’re bad at. That is true planning.
One of the examples the editors had used to help people understand was the work ‘Fist of the North Star’.
A unique taste created by mixing post-apocalyptic and martial arts genres.
A massive hit famous for the protagonist’s signature line, “You are already dead.”
The so-called “pressure point strike” that became the signature of this comic.
People remembered it and thought the artist was good at action, but in reality, it was completely different.
- The artist is good at static, beautiful illustrations on each page. But drawing cool and dynamic action scenes is terrible. In that process, we found a way to maximize the artist’s strengths and cover his weaknesses. That’s how the concept of “striking pressure points to defeat the enemy” was born.
It was an idea created to overcome the artist’s limitation in drawing action.
Thanks to this, Fist of the North Star became an unparalleled masterpiece in the action comic world despite its poor dynamic movement.
They had succeeded in planning in a way that hid the artist’s weaknesses and made his strengths stand out extremely.
To enable the artist to display 100%, or even 200% of their ability.
That, Min-hyuk believed, was the true charm and essence of planning.
Of course, Min-hyuk didn’t claim to have the same level of planning ability as those legendary editors.
After all, there was always a difference between an artist’s capability and an editor’s capability.
But since he understood the concept,
‘Dong-gyo is impatient and tends to make character relationships too abstract. I need to help him clearly organize that before entering the actual work.’
On the other hand……
Kim Rok-hee had the completely opposite tendency.
‘Rok-hee is too meticulous and gets overly obsessed with details, which often kills the ideas.’
Having worked together on Brave King, Min-hyuk had already grasped both of their personalities well.
That was why he decided to give Rok-hee a slightly different solution.
[Kang Min-hyuk: Stop refining the planning and just keep drawing storyboards continuously. Let’s look at what comes out and then adjust by keeping what’s fun.]
[Kim Rok-hee: Hmm, would that be better?]
[Kang Min-hyuk: Yeah. Your work has a gag feel with character-focused daily life elements. If you over-refine the planning and kill that bouncy, unique flavor, it might have the opposite effect.]
[Kim Rok-hee: Hmmmm, okay! I understand what you mean! Kuuu, as expected from Kang Min-hyuk.]
It seemed Rok-hee also somewhat understood Min-hyuk’s intention, as she readily accepted it.
“This feels a bit burdensome.”
Min-hyuk let out a sigh and stretched.
It was someone else’s work, and it was the precious debut project for both of them.
Naturally, it carried a different kind of weight compared to working on his own comic.
‘Because the two of them trust me.’
It felt good, yet strangely draining.
Shaking off that feeling, Min-hyuk typed on the keyboard again.
[Kang Min-hyuk: Huuu, everyone worked hard today. Let’s wrap up and go to sleep soon.]
[Han Yu-ra: What? You still have something left to show.]
[Kang Min-hyuk: Something left?]
[Han Yu-ra: You have to show us your new project planning too, don’t you?]
[Kang Min-hyuk: Ah…… Then take a look.]
[Kang Min-hyuk: Gangryeong (tentative title).hwp]
[Oh Seung-heon: Hmm, Gangryeong……]
About ten minutes passed.
Messages started pouring noisily into the chat room.
[Han Yu-ra: Hey, are you really going to serialize this?]
[Oh Seung-heon: ……What kind of planning is this?]
[Oh Dong-gyo: Min-hyuk-kun, this is…… pretty radical.]
Everyone openly showed their surprise.
It was a reaction he had somewhat expected.
It wasn’t surprise about the story itself, nor feedback on the ghost’s visual.
What they were reacting to was probably……
[Kim Rok-hee: Webtoons…… Is it really okay for comics to be done in this format?]
From their current perspective, it was something they simply couldn’t understand……
It was about the very format of comics itself.
[Kang Min-hyuk: For now, I’m going to try it. Since I’m challenging the webtoon genre anyway.]
[Kim Rok-hee: Uuuugh, since it’s you, Min-hyuk, I’m sure you know what you’re doing…… but it really is quite radical.]
[Han Yu-ra: I can’t even get a sense of what kind of work it is.]
[Oh Seung-heon: ……Is this really okay?]
Everyone spat out a few worried words.
But there was no point in explaining it right now.
‘Showing it once will be better than explaining it a hundred times.’
The only slight problem was that he wasn’t fully prepared for it yet.
To realize the level of directing Min-hyuk wanted, he would definitely need help from ‘that person’.
[Kang Min-hyuk: I’ll show you again once it’s more concrete. For today, let’s call it here. We have to wake up early tomorrow anyway.]
[Han Yu-ra: Good night.]
[Oh Seung-heon: Okay, see you tomorrow.]
One by one, people started going offline.
They had been working all day, so they were probably exhausted and crashing immediately.
“Huuuu. I should rest too.”
Min-hyuk turned off his computer as well.
He had spent the whole day drawing ghosts and searching for ghost stories and occult materials on the internet, so his head was pounding.
Just as he was about to get ready for bed,
Ziiing! Ziiing!
His phone suddenly rang violently.
When he opened it and looked at the screen, Min-hyuk’s eyes widened.
[Comic artist Yang Jae-han]
“Huh? Comic artist Yang Jae-han?”
At this hour…… what’s going on?
He had thought it might be Editor Go Gwang-jin or Seung-heon.
But for Comic artist Yang Jae-han to call him directly left Min-hyuk feeling flustered.
He carefully pressed the call button.
“Hello, Comic artist Yang Jae-han.”
<<Ah, Comic artist Min-hyuk. It’s been a while. First of all, congratulations on winning the Bucheon Comic Awards.>>
“Thank you. Congratulations to you too on winning the Our Comics Award.”
<<Haha, thank you. How’s the preparation for your new work going?>>
“Yes, I’m preparing in my own way.”
<<I heard. You’re preparing a webtoon?>>
“I wanted to try something new.”
<<As expected…… You seem to have something in mind.>>
‘Why is he calling?’
Considering the time, it probably wasn’t just a casual check-in call.
While Min-hyuk was tilting his head, Yang Jae-han let out a deep breath and got to the point.
<<Comic artist Kang Min-hyuk, do you happen to know the magazine [We, Comics]?>>
“That critical magazine about comics, right?”
<<Yes.>>
Min-hyuk knew it well.
We, Comics.
A magazine that covered criticism of Korean comics, interviews with comic artists, overseas comic trends, and more……
It was a magazine created under the banner of ‘The Revival of Korean Comics’.
At this time, he hadn’t known much about its existence, but he remembered that later, during the rise of webtoons when a new wind blew through the Korean comic industry, the editor-in-chief of ‘We, Comics’ had created a webzine and been very active.
Even the 34-year-old Kang Min-hyuk from his previous life had gained various information from that webzine.
<<The editor-in-chief of that magazine said he would like to meet Comic artist Kang Min-hyuk for an interview. So…… would you be able to make some time?>>
At those words, the corners of Min-hyuk’s mouth lifted.
‘An interview with the editor-in-chief of We, Comics.’
It wasn’t a bad thing.
In the early days of webtoons, from Min-hyuk’s perspective, he needed to greatly expand the pie of this market.
If he handled this interview well, perhaps……
He might be able to create explosive new momentum for his first work released to the world.
“I’d love to. I’m free anytime, so please tell him we can meet comfortably.”
Right now, I actually really want to meet him.
The corners of Min-hyuk’s mouth lifted into a smile.
***
A few days later, inside a café near his house.
Min-hyuk sat by the window, jotting down notes in a notebook.
The faint aroma of coffee spread, and the people passing by outside gradually disappeared one by one.
“Hmm, in this part, it would be good if continuous images appear as you scroll down……”
He twirled the ballpoint pen in one hand and scribbled down ideas whenever something came to mind.
What was unusual was that most of these ideas weren’t about the characters or episodes of the next work.
They were mostly ideas about directing techniques.
The content of Kang Min-hyuk’s next work, ‘Gangryeong’ (tentative title), was simple.
The protagonist joins an occult club, performs a séance for fun, starts seeing ghosts…… and gets entangled with a pseudo-religion to lift the curse.
It had mystery and twists, but the concept itself was simple and the core story was straightforward.
No, to be precise, he had deliberately made it simple.
If Min-hyuk’s judgment was correct, the winning point of this work lay in the directing, and he believed this was the right way for that to stand out most prominently.
That was why he was pouring all his energy into noting down ideas for this “directing.”
After intensely writing down ideas for a while,
“Huuuuu, this is tough.”
Just thinking about ghosts all day was starting to make his head feel strange.
Min-hyuk leaned back in his chair, took a sip of coffee, and let out a sigh.
When he looked at the clock on the café wall, it was already approaching 4 o’clock.
It was almost time for the appointment.
‘I wonder what Editor Ki Cheon-yong wants to talk about.’
He was waiting with a mix of anticipation and worry when,
Creak!
The café door opened and a man walked in.
A face full of freckles and playful energy, appearing to be in his mid-30s.
“Excuse me, are you……”
“Ah, yes. I’m Kang Min-hyuk.”
Min-hyuk stood up first and bowed politely.
The man smiled brightly.
“Ooh, Comic artist David! Nice to meet you! It’s an honor to meet you like this. Congratulations on the Bucheon Comic Awards.”
“Thank you.”
The two shook hands warmly, openly showing their pleasure at meeting.
After the greetings, they sat down facing each other.
As soon as they sat, the man began talking nonstop.
“Kuuuu, I’m a huge fan of Brave King! When I first read the King Goblin episode on Namsan, I got goosebumps all over. And what about the scene where Choi Kang-cheol dies? In the final scene, when he repeats the words he said before, it felt like hot tears of a true man were flowing.”
“Oh, really?”
He quickly got excited and recited famous scenes and lines from Brave King one after another.
It was the kind of situation that would normally make someone embarrassed,
‘This feels really good.’
But from Min-hyuk’s perspective, it was quite gratifying and enjoyable.
Having someone who had read his comic so attentively was nothing short of a blessing for an artist.
“Even when he cuts off Coup-ler’s neck at the end…… Ah, sorry. I got a bit too excited.”
Realizing he had talked too much, Editor Ki Cheon-yong stopped, scratched his head with an awkward smile.
Min-hyuk waved his hands.
“No, no, it’s something to be thankful for.”
“Huuuu…… Then, shall we start the proper interview?”
Suddenly, a serious expression appeared on his face as if the previous excitement had never happened, and the atmosphere completely changed.
Then……
Tap tap tap! Tap!
He opened his laptop, pulled up a document, and looked straight at Min-hyuk as he asked,
“Shall we start from the birth process of Brave King……?”
Gulp.
Min-hyuk unconsciously swallowed a little.
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