Great Manhwa Artists You Should Know About
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Highlights
- Manhwa artists deserve more recognition for their high-quality art and storytelling abilities.
- Sung-rak Jang, the artist behind Solo Leveling, may have passed away but his legacy will never be forgotten.
- The best manhwa artists like Gwang-su Lee and Ji-hun Jeong have created popular and well-regarded works, yet remain relatively unknown.
Manhw artists are a special breed, sometimes creating stories, sometimes bringing stories to life through art, and oftentimes, doing both. With so much manhwa content on the rise, there are many artists working in the industry. There is a lot of high-quality manhwa art out there, with artists coming from different backgrounds to create top-notch web comics for consumption.
With that being said, some manhwa artists stand above the rest, creating beautiful art for numerous manhwas and ultimately earning themselves a legendary status within the community. While manhwa artists in general deserve more recognition than they get, not unlike mangakas and comic book creators, the best manhwa artists are still barely known despite the amount of popular works they have given audiences.
10 Sung-rak Jang
Solo Leveling Artist
Sung-rak Jang, who went by the penname Dubu, is the main illustrator for the hit manhwa Solo Leveling. Unfortunately he passed away in the summer of 2022, and was unable to complete any other works. Despite that, Solo Leveling will go down in history as one of the greatest manhwa of all time, and Sun-rak’s name will never be forgotten.
Originally a web novel, Solo Leveling was adapted into a web comic in 2018 and would go on to be adapted into an RPG video game. In 2024, it will debut as an anime produced by A-1 Pictures.
9 Soonkki
Cheese In The Trap Creator & Artist
Soonkki is the artist and creator of the popular manhwa series Cheese In The Trap. She is also known for creating and illustrating After School Lessons For Unripe Apples. While not much is known about Soonkki’s personal life, she was born in 1985 and has amassed quite a following for her works.
Cheese In The Trap was adapted into a live action drama that started in March 2016, and was well received despite straying a bit from its source material. The Cheese In The Trap manhwa was completed with four seasons.
8 Gwang-su Lee
Noblesse Artist
Gwang-su Lee (sometimes spelled Kwang-soo Lee) is known for illustrating Noblesse, X & Ash, and Attention Please!. He was born on November 16, 1981, and has started over five manhwa’s with various creators. His most notable work is Noblesse, which was adapted into two anime by Production I.G., Noblesse: Awakening, and Noblesse.
Although he’s not quite a household name, Gwang-su Lee is one of the more well-known manhwa artists out there. He has taken on multiple titles and was even noted as anime staff on the production team for Noblesse and Noblesse Awakening.
7 Ji-yeon Park
Momentum Creator & Artist
Ji-yeon Park is the creator and artist for hit BL series like Momentum, Incidentally Dyed By Spring’s Love, and Wolf In The House. She has a distinct art style that has developed over the span of her three works in 2015, 2017, and 2021. With her first work, Momentum, being a series of vignettes, and her next two works being complete stories, she seems to have surpassed herself each time.
Although none of her works have been adapted into anime or live-action dramas yet, Ji-yeon Park is a favorite among BL fans looking for different stories and unique art styles.
6 Yongseok Jo
Windbreaker Creator & Artist
Born May 5, 1984, Yeongeok Jo is the creator and artist of the popular manhwa Windbreaker, a story about a high school cycling team called the Hummingbird crew. He has also worked on the horror anthology Chiller with other popular manhwa artists like Currygom and Tae Heon Kim.
Despite no new series announced for Yeongseok Jo, Windbreaker has a rating of 8.56 on MAL, making it one of the highest ranking manhwas on the site.
5 1230
Save Me Creator & Artist
1230 is the artist and creator of Save Me and Blood Strangers. Little is known of their personal information, but they are famous among manhwa artists for their beautiful art style and interesting stories involving young men. Save Me is about a disabled boy, bullied for his disability, and Blood Strangers is about two supernatural boys whose lives revolve around a blood-buying business.
Despite there being few details about 1230’s personal life available to fans, we do know that they sometimes go by Irisamgong and both of their works are available on Lezhin for reading.
4 Gyu-sam Kim
Hive Creator & Artist
Gyu-sam Kim (sometimes spelled Kyusam Kim) was born in Siheung, South Korea on August 9, 1975. He has written and created an assortment of works including Hive, The Dog Man, and Aura From Another Planet. He also illustrated Vigilante by CRG. Acording to Anime Planet, Gyu-sam Kim has over 8 titles under his belt.
Gyu-sam Kim’s art style seems to change with each work that he does, fitting the context and tone of the writing rather. This shows his skills as a veteran manhwa artist and makes him one fans should get excited about.
3 Youngchan Hwang
Sweet Home Artist
Youngchan Hwang is known for doing the art for the popular manhwas, Bastard and Sweet Home. Sweet Home was adapted into a live-action drama on Netflix featuring Song Kang, in December 2020. Youngchan Hwang typically illustrates horror and thriller pieces, so their art style is frequently dark and gloomy. In 2011 they participated in the horror collection, The Vault of Horror: A Collection of Nightmares, in which they created and did the art for a standalone story within the collection.
In 2023 it was announced that Bastard would be getting a live-action K-drama adaptation starring Ji hoon Park.
2 Lily
Heesu In Class 2 Creator & Artist
Popular BL artist Lily is known for Heesu In Class 2 and Seeing Double, both of which she wrote and did the art for. Her art style is unique and different from typical BL manhwa art, making her works easily recognizable to fans. She provides the audience with wholesome, yet memorable, stories about quirky boys falling in love with each other.
Heesu In Class 2 has afforded an 8.06 rating on MAL, making it to the top 50 of top manhwa ranking system.
1 Ji-hun Jeong
The Boxer Creator & Artist
Ji-hun Jeong (sometimes spelled Ji-hoon Jeong), is a talented manhwa artist known for The Boxer, The Horizon and Mosquito War, all of which they wrote and illustrated. Unfortunately there is little known about them, but fans of manhwa have surely heard about their work, The Boxer, which ranks number 7 on MAL’s top manhwa list.
Similar to Gyu-sam Kim, Ji-hun Jeong changes their art style to fit the mood of the manhwa. Though there is more similarity between Ji-hun Jeong’s works, they still show expertise in their craft when it comes to matching their art with the tone of the story.
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