Oh Seong-dae


Oh Seong-dae is a South Korean webtoon artist. He is best known for creating a horror thriller anthology webtoon series :ko:기기괴괴|Tales of the Unusual. His other works include The Cliff, a survival miniseries about two men who trapped at the edge of a cliff; My Wife's Memories, a supernatural drama follows a middle-aged man who witnesses the ghostly impression of his deceased wife’s memories after she suddenly passes away in a tragic accident; and Beauty Water, a body horror story is about a young woman who regain her perfect beauty by using a cosmetic liquid product that can allow people to change their looks just as well as plastic surgery. When she become addicted to the product, until she discovers a terrifying side effects that begins to affect her.

Life and career

Oh Seong-dae was born on November 18, 1982 in Seoul, South Korea. He developed a love of drawing since he was in elementary school. He graduated from Seoul National University of Science and Technology. He also studied subjects about art and design. He started working as a designer, but he quit shortly afterwards. Seong-dae went into webtoons as he participated in a comic competition held by Naver, which gave him the chance to debut.
From October 2009 to November 2010, Author J was published on Naver WEBTOON follows an eponymous deceased novelist whose consciousness is transferred into an AI and encased within the computer. From April 2011 to August 2012, Bonbon au Chocolat was published on Naver WEBTOON is about a funny love story between the two middle school students and from July to August 2012, The Cliff was published on Naver WEBTOON focuses on two men who go hiking in the woods then accidentally fall and trapped at the edge of a cliff, while waiting to save their lives, one of them has to die.
On May 8, 2013, Seong-dae created an anthology webtoon series, :ko:기기괴괴|Tales of the Unusual, which was published on Naver WEBTOON. Compared to his previous webtoons, Tales of the Unusual contains horror and thriller genres, with elements of supernatural, psychological, mystery, dark comedy, drama, science fiction, and modern-dark fantasy. In contrast to Author J, which used mild, brighter colors, Seong-dae opted for an art style and visuals in Tales of the Unusual using monochromatic black-and-white with muted, toned down colors.
Seong-dae described Tales of the Unusual as "strange", "unusual", "thrilling", and "mysterious", often with more darker tone than his previous webtoons. The series consisting of standalone, self-contained short stories follow characters, who find themselves in strange and unusual events. Some plot elements of each story details with different topics like real life events, social issues, viral phenomenon, paranormal events, urban legends, and usually involving bizarre and supernatural occurrences with an unusual and unexpected twist.
An influences has cited on Tales of the Unusual was inspired by the works of Junji Ito, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, R. L. Stine, Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami; as well as korean horror films; anthology television series, such as The Twilight Zone, Goosebumps, The X-Files, and Black Mirror; and films directed by Jason Blum, M. Night Shyamalan, Darren Aronofsky, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Alfred Hitchcock.
In June 2013, an anthology film Horror Stories 2 was released on June 5, 2013. One of the stories is adapted from The Cliff.
From July to August 2014, the Chinese and English translated version of The Cliff was published on WEBTOON. From July 2014 to now, the English translated version of Tales of the Unusual was also published on WEBTOON.
In August 2014, Sina Weibo user Yaoyaoxiaojing translated My Wife's Memories into Chinese and posted it on her Weibo. 550,000 people had shared the comic just after two days she had posted it, making it an instant hit among the Chinese community, and gaining him fame. From October 2014 to now, the Chinese translated version of Tales of the Unusual was published on WEBTOON.
On February 11 2015, Seong-dae attended at :zh:台北國際動漫節|Taipei International Comics and Animation Festival along with fellow webtoon artist massstar. Both of them hosted autograph sessions to their fans in the booth of WEBTOON.
In June 2015, Sina Weibo user Hanmansimida translated Beauty Water into Chinese and posted it on her Weibo. As the story is close to our life and voices that concern about the present situation, it had been viewed by 1,000,000 people, making it an instant hit among the Chinese community, and gaining him fame, just like last time. After knowing this, Seong-dae thanked the Chinese readers on Facebook in Chinese.
On October 2, 2015, Seong-dae also attended and gave fansigns to his fans with fellow webtoon artist Jo Seok, Son Jae-ho, and Lee Kwang-soo at China International Comic Festival EXPO. On October 19, 2015, WEBTOON released a promotional animated trailer for Tales of the Unusual, which was produced by an animation studio, Delpic Design Studio.
On December 18, 2015, Seong-dae received a "Webtoonist of the Year" for his webtoon, Tales of the Unusual on WEBTOON's Webtoonist Day. On June 9, 2016, Seong-dae also attended and gave fansigns to his fans in the booth of WEBTOON at Beijing Comic-Con along with fellow webtoon artist Jo Seok.
In 2017, the Japanese television series Yo nimo Kimyō na Monogatari was released. One of the episode is adapted from My Wife's Memories.
In 2018, the first print volume for Tales of the Unusual was published on June 10, 2018. On February 21, 2019, the first animated short series based on Tales of the Unusual was released on Naver WEBTOON YouTube Channel.
On September 18, 2019, Seong-dae announced that he had been renewed the series for a second season after the first season concluded, which was published on May 21, 2020.
In 2020, an animated film adaptation of Beauty Water is produced by a South Korean animation studio, Studio Animal, which was scheduled to be released on August 2020.

Works

Long comic