Webtoon apologized via social media yesterday after several comics creators called out a recent advertisement placed by the webcomics behemoth.
“Comics are literature’s fun side-hustle” appeared on one of several ads in the New York subway system, which you can view over at The Beat. Several comics creators called out the ad for disrespecting the work they put into creating the very comics that make a platform like Webtoon even possible:
Webtoon responded fairly quickly to the wave of criticism they received yesterday, not only apologizing but also noting they planned to update the ad:
As you can see, that tweet received a lot of replies as well, as many responders offered advice to the company on how they could have avoided this — from having creators review the ads prior to posting them to paying creators more so it doesn’t feel like a “side-hustle.” A few comics companies took the opportunity to post their own responses: