Webcomic company Lezhin Comics / Lezhin Entertainment recently released an apology to its creators regarding the issues of a so called “blacklist” (where certain series are excluded in the promotions), contract irregularities, and for the uncalled closure of its web novel platform last August 2017.
Changes to be Implemented the Soonest
Some of the creators were emotional after receiving the apology statement from the company’s CEO, Hee Sun Hang.
Lezhin Comics acknowledges the irregularities and will be pushing changes into the creators’ contracts removing everything that is unfair to create an equal system agreeable for both parties. They will also be taking immediate actions in regards to the delays of creators’ payments which is cost around 430 million Korean won. They have also promised a better and fair distribution of promotions of all webtoon series in the website and in other media.
The Cold Protest
Korean webtoon and webnovel authors working for Lezhin organized a protest last January 11 in front of its office building expressing their anger and disappointment towards the company’s unfair payment system wherein 70% of the earnings of each chapter being purchased will be given to their employer leaving only 30% to themselves.
Among those who are affected with Lezhin’s issues are GL artists Team Gaji, creator of What Does The Fox Say and Aji, creator of On A Leash. In their respective Twitter accounts, they have expressed previously that the issues of Lezhin have caused them stress leading them to the decision of discontinuing their works.
This protest was then followed by a few hearings months later and continuous awareness of the issue through the use of social media.
Hoping for the Best
This issue in regards to a large company vs. a large group of content creators is a first of its kind in South Korea. After so many months of sacrifices and voicing out the irregularities, it was all worth it.
With everything seem to be going into the right direction now, we can only hope that this will be a start of a new chapter for Lezhin, its readers, and its previous and current creators.
If you want to know more about this issue, Korean webtoon artists and readers shared and retweeted a website containing information and updates on the issues. You can visit the site here (Korean).
Source: Ohmynews (Korean) – Source 1, Source 2
Images from Yonhap News, OhmyNews, Huffpost Korea
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[…] Correspondent Serena also noted that webcomic site Lezhin has apologized to creators after an earlier scandal regarding blacklists and unfair payments which affected the GL section of […]