Hello I’ve had this on my mind for awhile. How much of the plot is Rachel’s doing? What I mean is that we all agree that the canvas series was written better. So how much of the original is actually written by RS and how much by webtoon? RS said it herself that she didn’t think the comic would be longer than 40 episodes. What are your thoughts?
There have been AMA's in the past from Webtoons Originals creators where people have asked those questions, and many other statements from creators on Twitter basically verify everything that's been said in these AMA's (or at least pretty close). I don't know what Rachel's situation is specifically, but Webtoons really doesn't exert as much control over the final product as, say, traditional markets do.
Like, in the book publishing market, if you want to work with a publisher, that means you have to submit a manuscript to publishers until one accepts you. Then they'll typically assign you an editor who will go through your book and help make it into the best version it can be before it gets put on shelves. While they'll try to work as best to your original vision as possible - as your original vision is what they accepted in the manuscript stage - they'll still be holding certain expectations over their authors because they don't want to release a book that's crap. They want to ensure the book that releases is good enough to make money, because if it makes money, that benefits both the publishing house and the writer. If the writer refuses to work with the editor - whether due to the publisher not acting in the writer's best interests or the writer being too stubborn to allow change - then the publishing house and writer may decide to go separate ways as the publishing house doesn't want to sell a book that isn't up to their standards.
Webtoons, on the other hand, does not operate this way. The 'editors' seem to be less for the sake of quality assurance and polish and more for acting as middlemen between the creator and the company. The creators do not speak to the "higher ups", if they have questions or concerns that can only be answered by specific departments in Webtoons (ex. statistics, finances, etc.) then they have to ask those questions to their editor who will then go to the higher-ups, get the answers they can, and then relay them back to the creator. This is basically the bare minimum function of editors. Anything else they do for creators is offering helpful suggestions which, unlike in the traditional publishing industry, the creators are not obligated to listen to. The creator's only real obligation is to meet their deadlines. The editors are really just there to ensure that the creator is following Terms of Service guidelines (i.e. if the creator submits an episode that blatantly breaks those rules, the editor can tell them no) and to act as a liaison between the creator and the company.
So, knowing this, I fully believe a lot of what's happening in the comic is Rachel's own doing. That said, they could very well have a different structure with how they operate due to Lore Olympus being the #1 comic on the platform. Maybe Rachel is more obligated to listen to whatever the higher-ups say. Maybe it's in her contract that she has to include certain things for the sake of "marketability". We don't know.
What we DO know is who edits Lore Olympus. Bre Boswell.
This is where I'm gonna go on a bit of a tinfoil hat rampage, so bear with me, but take everything I'm about to say with a potentially-lethal dose of salt.
I see people bring up the editor a lot, but honestly, I don't think LO having a bad editor is the case. Bre Boswell edits a lot of series on Webtoons - and it's a well known issue that many editors are working on WAY too many series at the same time but that's a separate can of worms - but none of them are quite as blatantly awful as LO is. The Kiss Bet isn't a masterpiece, but it's just fine for what it is. Shiloh and Nevermore are both solid pieces of work with great art and great writing. Aside from that, I've spoken personally to people who know Bre and can attest that she's a great editor and a very sweet person.
But Bre wasn't always the editor of LO.
The original editor was Bekah Caden.
Bekah is no longer an editor at Webtoons. Whether it was her own choice, again, we don't know, but she does stand by the fact that Webtoons wasn't an awful company to work for during her time there, so I'd like to believe she had an overall positive experience.
Of course, Bekah has not been the sole editor of Lore Olympus since Episode 30. So while I'm sure she's speaking in good faith here, I think a lot has changed on the backend of Webtoons since she was a part of it, especially during that pandemic period when Webtoons experienced a boom in readership... only to lose a lot of it by 2022, when the company made some risky ventures in advertising and got (justifiably) called out on it, and when many creators stepped forward to talk about their negative experiences with the company (as much as they could under the weight of their NDA's). I'm not saying Bekah is lying here, more so just that clearly things have changed since she was working for the company. She hasn't been the sole editor for LO since 2018, literally two years before the plague.
Of course, that was when she was the sole editor. For a short period of time, LO actually had two editors - Bekah Caden and Annie LaHue.
Now, Bekah has worked for other publishers like Dark Horse and has calls for work, but Annie, on the other hand, seemed to have her breakout with LO, and then switched gears entirely by working for Webtoons' competitor, Tapas. Now it seems like she's stepped away from editing entirely (but she's writing a book so that's neat ! )
Anyways. Where does Bre come in to all this?
Bekah slowly phased out of editing LO, fully quitting by Episode 54 where Annie took over.
And then Annie just... disappeared.
There was no transition period like there was with Bekah. Annie was there, and then as soon as Episode 100 hit, she was gone. Bre took over as the sole editor of LO with Episode 101, and she's been the editor ever since.
So now let's talk about Bre.
Bre is the editor of Lore Olympus. She's also the editor of Down to Earth, Shiloh, Nevermore, The Kiss Bet, The Doctors Are Out, Edith, Metaphorical HER, Messenger, Matchmaker Hero, Lavender Jack, Wolfsbane, Soul on Hold, Muted, Unlucky is as Lucky does, Brass & Sass, Assassin Roommate, BOO! It's Sex, and I'm sure many more that haven't been updated on her website. She's not the only editor who's managing this many series, there are some editors who are rumored to have 30+ series on the go. That is a ridiculous amount for ONE person to have to keep track of. That's a lot of series for one person to have to read all on their own schedules, let alone manage. In Bre's case, out of that list alone, that's something like 16 separate creators to keep tabs on, communicate with and for, with series that vary wildly among genres and contractual obligations.
So yeah, Bre is a straight up badass, but something about her sudden presence in LO has always bugged me. Then it came to me, something that I believe I've mentioned here before, but will talk about again because it really is interesting food for thought to chew on.
Bre came on as the editor in March 2020. Five months after the Jim Henson purchase was announced.
And what does Bre have on her resume?
Traditional animation, with a minor in Writing for Television.
This is very tinfoil hat, don't get me wrong, so take this with MOUNTAINS of salt, but there are a LOT of things that point to LO turning out the way it did due to its TV deal. Not only did Bre come on suddenly shortly after the TV deal was announced, but that time range is when the art really started to look like what it does today - because it's where Rachel started taking on more assistants, some of whom still work on the series to this day (ex. Dnaeri, who came on as a regular assistant around Episode 74, which came out August 2019, two months before the TV deal was announced, but had likely already been signed. Dnaeri, btw, has an education in... you guessed it, Fine Arts in Animation.) Many of her assistants nowadays are people with experience in larger industries and massive portfolios featuring work far more advanced than what's being done in LO.
So while I don't think a lot of the plot threads are on Bre or the platform - I think it's genuinely just Rachel writing herself into a corner and not wanting to let go of the one project she clings to the most as her only "success" - I do think there are some creative decisions regarding the structure of the comic (like it's constant use of pointless soap opera style cliffhangers and its corporate scrubbing of the art style) that may be consequences of the comic being picked up for TV. Like how it now feels like the comic is being fluffed up with way too many plotlines, possibly in an attempt to give the TV show more to do, or how it feels like they're scrubbing and retconning all the S1 content that came from before the TV deal.
A shame if that is the case, because the TV show hasn't happened and likely isn't going to happen. It feels like such a waste of Webtoons' resources and money to sign on all these industry-class assistants and editors for a comic that's being managed by Rachel "Retcon" Smythe.
