TGON Meets Comic Creator Captain Juuter!

As a leading digital comics platform, WEBTOON has revolutionized the comics industry globally, cultivating millions of readers and inspiring diverse creators to self-publish and reach worldwide audiences. Between WEBTOON Originals and its self-publishing platform CANVAS, WEBTOON hosts over 27 million creators globally, shining a spotlight on undiscovered talents and opening doors. In fact, many of WEBTOON’s most popular titles originated from WEBTOON CANVAS before being picked up, polished, and launched as Originals!

Among these hidden gems, I had the pleasure of interviewing Captain Juuter, the creator behind not one, but two WEBTOON Original series made with a whole lot of heart! As of now, Captain Juuter is best known for her fantasy adventure series, Nomads, which features a ragtag team of travelers exploring the five kingdoms that encompass their world. As a coming-of-age story originally published on WEBTOON CANVAS, Nomads launched as an Original series with WEBTOON in September 2021. It concluded in March 2025 with three seasons and 128 episodes to read for FREE via the official WEBTOON app. 

However, for readers who prefer physical copies, fear not! Nomads Volume One: The Sky Kingdom and Nomads Volume Two: The Sand Kingdom can be bought from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retail bookstores right now! If you want an adventure story that honors elements of Avatar: The Last Airbender and One Piece, you will be itching to read Captain Juuter’s Nomads! Join her protagonist, Lance, and his newfound friends as they explore five fantastical kingdoms, evade bounty hunters, and (unintentionally) cause all sorts of trouble!

Captain Juuter is also the author and artist of the ongoing rom-com Original series, The Royal Tea. Launched in March 2026, The Royal Tea features a modern-day princess named Penelope, who must compete with her (more) massively adorned sister for the crown while harboring an unapologetic obsession with the masked actor, Allan Reinhart. But when Penelope accidentally trashes Allan and his fandom on live television, she catapults herself back into the public eye, raising her ratings as a candidate for the crown, but simultaneously declaring war with Allan’s many fans!

Can Pen keep up this facade, win public opinion, and maintain her secret as Allan Reinhart’s biggest fan? You can find out by reading The Royal Tea via the official WEBTOON app. Root for Penelope as she navigates family tensions and evades relentless paparazzi and avenging Allan fans with the help of her bodyguard, Toby … who bears a striking resemblance to the actor that holds her heart!

While Captain Juuter’s first Original series, Nomads, has a strong focus on friendship and found family, her second series, The Royal Tea, focuses on fan culture and what powers fandom. Nomads, for example, would be ideal for readers who want an epic adventure story with lots of lore and beautifully developed worldbuilding. And The Royal Tea would appeal to readers who want an awkward but wholesome romance and unapologetic fangirling. With eye-catching colors and eccentric characters, Nomads and The Royal Tea check many boxes for must-reads! 

In the following interview, Captain Juuter goes into detail about what inspired her stories, brought her to the WEBTOON platform, and what keeps her going as a comic creator and freelance artist.

Captain Juuter, for readers unfamiliar with your work, can you tell us about yourself, your Original webcomic series on WEBTOON, and what drew you to comics as a creative medium?

I’m a WEBTOON Originals creator. I’ve been with them for five years now, and it’s been a wonderful experience. I finished my Nomads series, and now I’m working on my second series, The Royal Tea. 

I love webcomics as a whole and the way of storytelling behind it. I came into the medium very late in life because I only got into manga and anime in high school. Before that, I always wanted to be an animator. My dream was to make my own cartoon, and as I got older, I realized that was not a hugely achievable dream. You can become an animator and work on other series, but to have your own story animated is a huge hurdle. That’s around the time I discovered manga and comics, and that’s when my reality shifted.

I loved drawing comics growing up because I just wanted to get the stories out, so I’d scribble things down. Then when I got older, I realized it was bleeding more into the West, and people from the West were making a job out of it. I was like, “Oh, this is it. This is exactly the field I want to go into.”

What would you say inspired your ongoing rom-com series, The Royal Tea, and your completed fantasy series, Nomads, as well as their individual characters?

As for The Royal Tea, a lot of it comes from my life growing up. My mom and dad are both from England, and they came over to America to have me, so I’ve had a lot of family in England. Growing up, I’d go there every single year to visit family, and I still do. It’s more expensive now.

During one of my trips, I’d always had this back-burner idea of twin princesses. If the firstborn of the family is a twin, who gets the right to the throne? It was a twins-fighting concept. Then, on a trip to England, I was going around the shops and noticed the queen’s head was on everything. She was a bobblehead. She was on tins, cups, posters, everything. I was like, “Wow, she’s got as much merchandise as BTS.”

I thought, “Wait, that’s a really fun concept to explore.” So The Royal Tea became a modern-day twist on the royal romance genre. I like to make fun of such a popular genre, and The Royal Tea focuses a lot on idol and fan culture. 

As for Nomads, it was my passion project. Those characters had been with me from the get-go, my early OCs. I love adventure and travel stories. Adventure fantasy is my favorite genre, and found family is my favorite trope, so that was put into the story I wanted to tell.

Which of your original characters do you resonate most with and why? If you could bring one of your characters to life and have them as a roommate, who would it be and why?

The character I relate to the most might have to be Toby. But if I explain why, it gets into a lot of spoiler territory for his character and his journey. He is the easiest character I can write because his struggles and troubles are a lot of what I deal with in life.

To stay away from spoilers, I will say Penelope is the second most relatable because her bedroom is my bedroom with all the Law from One Piece. I have all of it: walls, figures, body pillow. So, very relatable.

I also agree that she and I would probably be the best roommates because we have a lot in common, with love for our respective Oshi and all that. But I feel like she would take up a lot more space with her hoard. She is way richer than me. She would be buying up everything.

As a comic creator, how would you describe your creative routine and work-life balance? Do you have a favorite go-to snack or preferred playlist when working on comics?

For my work life, I think a lot of WEBTOON creators can agree it is very grueling. At the start of it, I was definitely a workaholic by nature, which does not help. I am now a recovering workaholic, learning to have a proper, healthy work-life balance. It took me five years to get to this point. Now I have my morning routine, and I’m picking up new hobbies to help me do it all. 

Unfortunately, because I lock in so hard, I cannot snack. If I get things on my hands, it’s all over the screen. But I will have a drink. So I have a cup of coffee and tea on my desk at all times, and I have a heated coaster that keeps it hot the entire day. That is my go-to consumption.

My preferred playlist definitely depends on where I’m at within the work week. Beginning with scripts, I can only play Animal Crossing background music or a jazz lo-fi mix. It’s got to be something instrumental because I’m thinking constantly while I’m writing.

For the rest of the process, I watch a lot of videos. I’ll watch anime in dub, YouTube, compilations, deep dives, all that. I like to consume shows and videos to help me not think that I’m sitting at my desk all day. And at the end of the month, when I’m getting deadlines in, I turn on what I call my death playlist, which is hardcore, heavy rock, pop, and anything upbeat and fast-paced.

What advice would you give to aspiring comic creators?

The best advice I give, and it’s one I always say, is to just start your comic. Nomads went through so many renditions before it even got picked up. Its first-ever rendition, I just threw it out into the world, and it was the best learning experience I had.

It was very hands-on. I saw what resonated with readers at the time, what resonated with me, and I learned as I went. It helped me develop my art style by continuing to pump out panels. It helped me develop more of a story and learn how to properly tell it.

I feel like putting it out there and not being afraid of experimentation or doing something not quite right in the moment is important. It’s a learning process, and I highly recommend it.

What do you like to do in your free time? When you’re not creating comics, are you reading comics?

I’m definitely reading comics. Every night and every morning when I wake up, I read for about an hour. It’s my wake-up and my go-to therapy, between webcomics, manga, and fanfics, depending on what I’m feeling that day.

Outside of that, because that’s my downtime, I’ve just picked up One Piece TCG. I needed a hobby that’s not drawing, because drawing is now my full work life, something that gets me out of the house and socializing. I’m newly into One Piece TCG, so I’m finding comic shops around me, meeting fans of One Piece, and playing games. I haven’t felt this much excitement in a while, being able to get out of the house and socialize, and it’s been a reviving experience. 

If you could insert yourself into the story of Nomads, would you be content living in one of the five kingdoms or traveling as a Nomad?

I would definitely live in a kingdom. I wrote a lot of Lance in myself because I like to be around my family, so I think I would also live in a kingdom. Specifically the Sun Kingdom, because that has the best climate.

I don’t think I’d travel. I like to travel in real life, and I think traveling is fun, but if I had to do it constantly, I would die. I would also hate to be away from my family. So I would definitely be a permanent person.

What tropes can readers expect from your respective series? What themes do you most enjoy exploring?

Found family is my biggest contender, as you can see through Nomads. As people will find out, there are a lot of found family hints in The Royal Tea, even though it is centered around an actual family.

I also like the trope that’s defined as friendless backgrounds, which is really weird to say. I like when characters grow up not really having friends, which sounds very sad and sadistic on my end as the writer. But friends who’ve never had friends becoming friends, and almost building a found family around that, all falls back into found family being my favorite.

Friendship in general is something I love to write about. For The Royal Tea, the romance is very much friends-to-lovers, which is my favorite type of romance genre.

Before it launched as an Original series with WEBTOON, Nomads was published via WEBTOON CANVAS. From a self-published series to an Original series with WEBTOON, how would you argue Nomads evolved from its original concept?

Even by the time I had it on Canvas, it had already gone through three renditions. I threw myself out there, then experimented and learned through that. By the third time, I was like, “Wait, this is the story I want to tell.”

When it was pretty much solidified and then became an Original, working alongside an editor was a great experience. I loved being able to get great feedback and constructive criticism, and learning how to properly hit the beats I wanted to hit.

Being able to have that back and forth with someone who also knew the story as a whole really helped. It was a very pleasant experience, and it really helped me nail the story I wanted to tell.

What was your experience transitioning from a CANVAS creator to an Original creator with WEBTOON? How has working directly with WEBTOON affected you as a creator?

A higher workload, for sure. When I was on Canvas, I think I was doing it biweekly, so once every two weeks I’d post maybe 20 panels. For Originals, it’s 40 panels a week.

I was casually doing it on Procreate. The biggest jump was having to transition into Clip Studio. I was using Procreate casually, then my files were getting so big that I needed to fully transition to Clip Studio and learn the new program.

Clip Studio is a much better program to manage comics and everything, with a lot of software. There was also a lot of balancing time and figuring out assistant work because assistants are a huge help.

With Volumes One and Two of Nomads available for purchase, how does it feel to have physical copies of your comic series on bookstore shelves?

It feels like a big dream come true. It’s second only to my biggest dream of having an animated series, but the book was a huge dream come true. Now it’s immortalized on my bookshelf. 

I like to make storytelling accessible, and having the printed version helps reach an audience of middle-grade readers and younger. I wanted Nomads to be a very kid-friendly story, but still a story adults can enjoy.

I love meeting kids who have read the book. All of my younger cousins are reading it. My accountant, who helps me with taxes, has a little girl who is around six, and he told me, “She read it when I bought it for her.”

It’s been a wonderful experience to reach such a wider audience.

Is there anything you would like to add, or say to your fans?

I just want to say that I love my fans. They’re just all so smart and witty. 

With The Royal Tea, I really wanted to challenge myself to create a story that’s a lot of show and not tell, especially because I’m playing off a lot of common tropes of a genre that readers have read before. I wanted to bring some form of mystery and intrigue to them as they read along. Some things in the story might be odd, even seem obvious, but in some ways, there’s a deeper story behind it, and it brings me so much joy to read the comments each week and see everyone theorize what the bigger story is. 

I’m very thankful to just have such amazing readers. 

That concludes my interview with Captain Juuter! Remember that Nomads is officially completed and available to read via the official WEBTOON app, and right now, The Royal Tea updates every Monday!