The Journal of Culture Contents ISSN:2287-2256(Print) 2671-7026(Online) 문화콘텐츠연구

This study analyzes the “Won Su-yeon AI Project,” which used artificial intelligence (AI) to produce a new webtoon based on the work of the romance-comics artist Won Su-yeon. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic authority and Boden’s concept of transformational creativity, the study compares this project with the “Lee Hyun-se AI Project.” Using the original artist’s stage of creative involvement and the scope of decision-making authority as criteria, it establishes the concept of a “Creative Authority Spectrum” and distinguishes the two projects into the “Original-Faithful Model,” in which the original artist intervenes at every stage, and the “Original-Referential Model,” in which the artist only provides guidelines and final review. An analysis based on interviews with nine project participants and evaluations by four webtoon experts found that the project adopted an Original-Referential structure, with AI handling 80~90% of the production process and reducing time and cost by roughly 40~60%. At the same time, the experts pointed to limitations such as a lack of depth in emotional expression and an absence of contemporaneity in its fictional world. These findings reveal an “Efficiency-Authority Paradox,” whereby the greater the efficiency of AI-assisted creation, the more creative authority shifts from the original artist to the production team and AI. From this, the study offers the tentative interpretation that, in the Original-Referential Model, aesthetic authenticity, understood here as the degree to which the original artist’s aesthetic judgment is embedded in the final work, may be weakened.