TGON Meets WEBTOON Creator, Punko, at SDCC 2026

In February 2025, I interviewed American comics industry veteran Marty LeGrow, who readers may know better as Punko, the creator behind TOKYOPOP’s top-selling gothic dark fantasy graphic novel series, Bizenghast, and two of WEBTOON’s hit Original series, Stagtown and Cinderella Boy. In this initial interview with Punko, we delved into her beginnings with the leading storytelling platform WEBTOON, her creative process as a comic creator, her original stories with WEBTOON, and her separate approaches to writing horror and comedy. In that interview, Punko also delves into how she balances creative projects and briefly gives advice to aspiring creators based on her professional experience. Over the course of her extensive career, Punko has worn many hats, ranging from prop builder, character performer, toy and costume designer, and comic creator. 

With WEBTOON, Punko has two Original webcomic series, one horror and one comedy, that have individually cultivated eager audiences. Originally self-published on WEBTOON CANVAS, Punko’s signature horror series Stagtown was discovered, greenlit to be a WEBTOON Original, and launched in March 2021. As a horror comic, Stagtown explores themes of psychological unease, paranoia, sacrifice, secrecy, and the effects of trauma. Combining folk and eldritch horrors and preying on the human fear of being watched and judged, Stagtown has been dubbed a shining example of what horror comics can be since its conclusion in June 2023. During and after its run, Stagtown gained a loyal fanbase, high praise as a standout horror comic, and major industry interest.

In January 2025, WEBTOON Entertainment announced that Stagtown would be adapted into a live-action major motion picture in partnership with LuckyChap Entertainment. And, as of October 2026, Stagtown: Volume 1 can be bought from major book retailers! Right now, the paperback version can be pre-ordered, but starting this October, horror fanatics will find Stagtown: Volume 1 on bookstore shelves! Perfect for a Halloween read!

This year, comic creator Punko attended San Diego Comic-Con as a panelist for WEBTOON, and I got the opportunity to meet her in person on-site. In this SDCC exclusive interview, Punko discusses highlights of her creative career, her Originals on WEBTOON, and her history attending Comic-Con over twenty years. Keep reading to learn what Punko has accomplished throughout her career, how she earned a movie and book deal, and came back to Comic-Con again and again with a mission.

As a twenty-year veteran in the comics industry, how would you describe your journey thus far, and what have been some major milestones for you?

My biggest milestone was getting through a big slump in my career, where I wasn’t working in comics for several years and had to take any job I could — retail, whatever. I remember my mom was dancing around the phrase, “Maybe it’s time you thought about getting a real job.” I told her, “Mom, I want to keep going in comics. I know I can make a good career out of it.” So it was a lot of coming to San Diego Comic-Con year after year with my portfolio, sitting in the portfolio pavilion waiting to meet editors, trying to get a job, getting a lot of rejections and ghostings — that’s just part of the job; you can’t take it personally. I’m really glad I stuck it out, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have any of the things I have now. I’d probably be stuck teaching art at a college or something.

What are some of the many hats you’ve worn in your creative career?

I’ve had every job, literally. I worked as a birthday party princess — Cinderella, Snow White, Elsa a lot. I worked as a professional prop builder and costumer for haunted houses, especially Terror Behind the Walls in Philly. I was a wardrobe director for an operetta company. I worked on an assembly line making jewelry. I worked as a professional toy designer for a toy company near me. All of that ended up informing my career as a comic artist — I learned about costume design, toy design and production, acquiring rights, and adapting things into a toy format. Every job along the way had some part in shaping the career I have now.

With two WEBTOON Originals, Stagtown and Cinderella Boy, what’s been your favorite between them and why?

Definitely Cinderella Boy, because it’s a lot easier to write — it’s fun. I’m glad I did Stagtown, but, as a horror, it’s very dark and scary. I enjoy writing the jokes for Cinderella Boy — sitting around coming up with dumb one-liners for Chase to say each week is probably my favorite part. That, and all the crazy, ridiculous fan art readers make — it makes me laugh so hard. I’ll feature it on my creator feed and do fan-art roundups from social media. The stuff they come up with is so funny and impressive — sometimes I think, “They could draw my comic better than I do; they should have this job.”

Your Cinderella Boy protagonist, Chase Hollow, is supposedly based on yourself. What traits did you specifically apply to Chase? And are any other characters — in Cinderella Boy or Stagtown — based on yourself or real people from your life?

I wouldn’t say Chase is really based on me, but he has the same sense of humor and outgoingness as me. He also has celiac disease, because I have it — I was diagnosed right as I was working on Cinderella Boy. Originally Chase was going to have a reaction to sugar that made him break out, so he’d only eat sugar when he was in the storybooks because he knew it couldn’t hurt him. 

Once I found out I had celiac, I swapped the joke to gluten since I thought it would be a much better representation. He doesn’t hammer on it a lot, but it shows how difficult it is for him to find anything to eat while he’s walking around. There are certain aspects of Chase that are me — like when people are talking in a room, and he bursts in through a trap door like “Everybody shut up and look at me, I got something to say.” That’s kind of me.

Only little bits of my personality show up in different characters, though. Frankie from Stagtown isn’t very much like me — she’s not a creative person, she’s grumpy and dour — but she’s like me in that instead of getting scared, she gets really angry at things that bother her. We both have terrible tempers; I try to keep mine in check, she doesn’t do as good a job. Her response to things is “Don’t be afraid, just get angry” — that’s kind of my response too. I see a scary bug in the room, and I’m like, “What the heck, I was just about to go to sleep, how dare you, now I have to get a cup and put you outside — this is a real inconvenience, bug.”

How does it feel to have Stagtown bound for bookstores after concluding in 2023? Would you want to see Cinderella Boy in print as well, or adapted into another format?

It’s great to see Stagtown in books, and the Stagtown movie is moving along too — we’re really excited about that. I tend to focus on whatever I’m working on right now and kind of forget every previous project — I give everything I have to whatever it is I’m working on at the time. We’re in discussions about a possible Cinderella Boy publication, but we probably want to wait until after Volume One of Stagtown is out.

An animated adaptation would be great too. A lot of fans have commented that Cinderella Boy reads like it could be a TV show — and that’s because I specifically wrote it that way. The pacing and humor, the A/B story structure — every arc is about the length of one full episode. So if anybody wants to make a show, I’ve got a lot of material ready; it’s all done — the jokes are already written, not a lot of work needed. Let’s make that happen.

Here at San Diego Comic-Con, you must encounter plenty of fans familiar with your work. Do you have any favorite fan interactions?

Honestly, all reader interactions are my favorite — I’m just glad people showed up and took the time to see the panel. I know how hard it is to get through the crowds and get all the way to the other side of the convention center to see just one panel. It’s so much easier just to walk away and be like, “Nah, I tried.” So I appreciate when people show up.

You have a long history here at San Diego Comic-Con. As a creator who’s worn many hats, how does it feel to be back at SDCC with so much accomplished – and what would you say has been a highlight for you at Comic-Con?

Sandy Resnick [WEBTOON Head of Rights] and I were just reminiscing about when Comic-Con had the “bag size arms race,” the big bags that everybody got free and carried around. I said to Sandy, “Remember when we had the bags so big you could fit two people inside of them fifteen years ago?” They were enormous, like four feet by four feet. 

People used them as sleeping bags to camp out for Hall H. People would get their bags, bring sewing machines to the convention center, and use the bags to make suits, jackets, and dresses to wear on the floor all weekend. I remember putting two of my friends in one of those bags and dragging it around — it was so much fun, but a massive fire hazard. I still have several of those bags; I use them to take out my recycling now cause they’re so enormous.

It’s fun to see how things have changed but also see, when you come back, how much things are very much the same. And I came to Comic-Con so many times in the last twenty years – since 2004. My first one was in 2004. I won a little trophy in the Masquerade, and then we used to compete in it almost every year. I actually got to go see Martin [Martin Jaquish, Comic-Con and WonderCon Masquerade coordinator since 1992], who still runs the Masquerade after 20 years, and say hi to him. 

It’s great to come back and see the same folks, but also see a ton of new people and new events, and see how the con has spread out through the whole city — it used to just be the convention center, and now there’s all this cool outside stuff too. That’s really exciting to see.

Remember that Punko’s Stagtown is completed and available to binge on WEBTOON, and Cinderella Boy updates weekly! Stay tuned for more WEBTOON and webcomic-related news! Tell us in the comments if there’s a specific WEBTOON creator you want me to interview next! And keep on reading!