< Members of the research team. From left: Ammar Al-Taie, a postdoctoral researcher at the KAIST Information and Electronics Research Institute; Professor Ian Oakley of the School of Electrical Engineering; and doctoral student Hyunyoung Han. >
Webtoons are coming to life in the physical world, ushering in a new era in which comics are not merely viewed, but experienced.
A KAIST research team has developed the world's first next-generation extended reality (XR) comics platform that enables a wide range of readers to enjoy immersive, three-dimensional comics in physical space. By expanding webtoons beyond the screen and into the real world, the team has opened up new possibilities for the future of comics.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on the 21st of July that a research team led by Professor Ian Oakley from the School of Electrical Engineering has proposed core design principles and future directions for next-generation extended reality (XR) comics through a systematic user study involving 15 participants, including human-computer interaction (HCI) experts, professional webtoon creators, and readers.
< Figure 1: A comic summarizing our study: Comics evolve to meet reader needs, and the digital age has further changed their layouts. To address the next stage in their evolution, we investigated how comics may be laid out in eXtended Reality (XR). >
The research team developed ComiXR, a new platform that enables users to both read and create comics in XR environments. Participants used the platform to transform a conventional print comic into an XR comic and explored how different visual, auditory, haptic, and interactive features could be combined.
Comics, which originated in printed books and newspapers, have evolved dramatically with the rise of smartphones. The vertical-scrolling format of webtoons has become particularly successful by adapting comics to the interaction methods of mobile devices.
The research team viewed XR devices as a potential next stage in this evolution. To explore how spatial depth, three-dimensional rendering, spatial audio, eye tracking, and facial expression tracking could be incorporated into comics, the team built ComiXR using a Meta Quest Pro headset.
< Figure 2: Screenshots of participants using ComiXR. Left: ComiXR's intitial state; passthrough with menus to spawn XR features. Middle: a participant testing eye-tracking to highlight a character. Right: a participant triggering a speech bubble through eye-tracking by looking at the character. >
While wearing the headset, participants freely positioned 3D characters, speech bubbles, sound effects, and other comic elements throughout a physical room. They were able to construct comic environments that they found comfortable, engaging, and immersive.
The results showed that readers strongly preferred designs that actively used the depth of physical space over simply displaying flat comic pages in a virtual environment. Immersion increased significantly when characters were positioned at a different depth from the background and speech bubbles were separated into distinct layers. In particular, an eye-tracking feature that revealed the next line of dialogue only when the reader looked at a specific character proved effective in preventing spoilers.
The platform also demonstrated new sensory experiences that are not possible in conventional comics. Special effects could be triggered in response to readers' facial expressions, while haptic feedback could convey sensations such as a character's heartbeat or the impact represented by an onomatopoeic effect.
< Figure 3. The study setup. First, a 15-minute introduction phase with participants using ComiXR to experience different XR comic features. Second, a 45-minute transformation phase, in which participants adapted a print comic (top left) into XR (top right). Finally, participants answered a post-study survey indicating the acceptability of XR comics. >
Based on the study, the research team also proposed four key design concepts for XR comics. The first, "The Panel Gallery," transforms the walls of a room into a gallery for displaying comic panels. The second, "The Pop-Up," presents comics like pop-up books on desks or walls. The third, "Around Comic," places 3D characters and other comic elements in outdoor spaces. The fourth, "Inclusive ComiX," improves accessibility for a wide range of readers.
The research team expects XR comics to complement, rather than replace, existing smartphone-based webtoons. They could be used for special exhibitions and educational content that allow audiences to experience fictional worlds more vividly, as well as platforms that improve access to cultural content for a wider range of users.
Ammar Al-Taie, a postdoctoral researcher at the KAIST Information and Electronics Research Institute, participated as the first author, while Hyunyoung Han, a doctoral student in the School of Electrical Engineering, participated as a co-author.
The research was presented at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2026, or ACM DIS 2026, one of the leading international conferences in human-computer interaction and design. The ComiXR platform has also been released as open-source software for public use.
Paper title: ComiXR: Exploring Comic Layouts in eXtended Reality
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3800645.3812857
Related Video: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D9Efp3T0biDbUm1K5Gu6HLSSy89Uaq8R?usp=sharing
Open-source platform: https://github.com/ammarjamal/ComiXR
The research was supported by the KAIST Jang Young Sil Fel¬lowship Program (Excellence Track). The authors acknowledge support from the IITP (Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation)-ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) grant funded by the Korean government (Ministry of Science and ICT) (IITP-2026-RS-2024-00436398).
