Local Ink, Global Scroll: Ten UK Webtoon Voices to Watch This Year
Photo: Miguel Discart, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Britain's webtoon scene has never been louder — or more local. In 2026, UK creators are not just making comics for a global app; they are smuggling specific places, accents and anxieties into vertical panels. The result is a shelf of serials that feel like they could only have come from here: damp bus stops, shared houses, coastal folklore and jokes that land best after a long day.
We are not ranking these ten creators. We are pointing a torch at voices worth following, mixing quick art-style notes, mini-interviews and direct Toonily reading links. Think of it as a starter pack for the UK corner of your webtoon library.
1. Isla McRae — Glasgow, slice-of-life
Art style: soft grey washes, thick ink contours and backgrounds that look like photocopied tenement closes. McRae's panels are quiet, but her faces do the heavy lifting.
The serial: The 33 Bus follows three art-school graduates sharing a flat near the Clyde. There are auditions, overdrafts and one recurring villain: the last bus home.
Why it cuts through: McRae's humour is dry, specific and never winking at the audience. 'I wanted a comic where the big dramatic moment is someone finally getting a seat on the bus,' she says. 'Glasgow humour is dry, and the city is full of small comedies.'
2. Theo Achebe — London, horror anthology
Art style: high-contrast halftone, cramped panels and lettering that seems to breathe. Achebe uses negative space like a jump scare.
The serial: Night Bus Routes is an anthology of horror stories set on the last services across the capital. Each episode is self-contained, but a shadowy conductor keeps turning up.
Why it cuts through: London horror often leans on landmarks. Achebe leans on the in-between bits: retail parks, bus shelters, the 2am walk from the station. 'London after 1am is a different city,' he says. 'I wanted to draw the version tourists never see.'
Read Night Bus Routes on Toonily
3. Cerys Llewellyn — Cardiff, fantasy
Art style: painterly fantasy with sea-green palettes, wet rocks and folkloric silhouettes. Llewellyn's splash panels feel like stained glass.
The serial: Salt & Sorrow is a slow-burn fantasy about a fisher's daughter who makes a bargain with something under the Bristol Channel. Welsh myth is not decoration here; it is the engine.
Why it cuts through: The series trusts readers to sit with atmosphere. 'Welsh myth is not decorative,' Llewellyn says. 'It is often about obligation, land and what you owe the people around you.' That tension gives every episode weight.
4. Nisha Solanki — Manchester, romance
Art style: clean linework, bold flat colour and a fashion-forward eye. Solanki can make a rainy Northern Quarter street look like a runway without losing the grit.
The serial: Rain Check is a queer roommates romance about two people who keep almost saying the right thing. The will-they-won't-they is agonising in the best way.
Why it cuts through: Solanki's dialogue has a lived-in rhythm. Her characters text in half-sentences and apologise with tea. 'I want the romance to feel like a real Manchester flatshare,' she says. 'Messy kitchen, big feelings, no perfect speeches.'
5. Callum Doherty — Belfast, black comedy
Art style: scratchy inks, cramped framing and colour that looks like a faded photocopy. It is rough on purpose.
The serial: The Last Sunday follows a family-run corner shop trying to survive a supernatural takeover of the local high street. It is part sitcom, part folk nightmare.
Why it cuts through: Doherty writes arguments that sound like relatives, not scripted banter. The horror sneaks in through mundane details: a wrong delivery, a regular who stops coming in. 'Belfast humour is a survival tool,' he says. 'I wanted that in a comic.'
Read The Last Sunday on Toonily
6. Freya Hall — Leeds, diary comic
Art style: watercolour washes, wobbly handwriting and panels that feel torn from a notebook. Hall's pages are deceptively simple.
The serial: Overdraft is an autofiction serial about freelancing, burnout and the indignity of buying one expensive coffee as a treat. It is funny because it is true.
Why it cuts through: Hall captures the texture of UK work culture without turning it into a lecture. 'I like comics that admit the day was mostly admin and still find a punchline,' she says. The series has become a comment-section support group in the best way.
7. Mo Oduya — Birmingham, Afrofuturism
Art style: neon colour, kinetic layouts and character designs that leap off the scroll. Oduya's action scenes are built for thumb-speed.
The serial: Second City Saints is a superhero story set around Birmingham's canals, where a group of teenagers discover that the city's overlooked spaces are portals. It is loud, funny and full of heart.
Why it cuts through: Oduya refuses the usual London-centric superhero map. 'Birmingham has its own mythology,' he says. 'I wanted kids to see their bus route in a comic and think: yeah, that could be magic.'
Read Second City Saints on Toonily
8. Ailsa Reid — Dundee, folk horror
Art style: cross-hatching, cold blues and close-up panels that make skin crawl. Reid's horror is patient and tactile.
The serial: The Kelpie's Apprentice is a folk horror about a veterinary student who takes a summer placement in a village that is a little too interested in its own legends.
Why it cuts through: Reid uses Scottish landscape as a character, not a backdrop. The dread comes from silence, weather and the sense that everyone knows something you do not. It is perfect for readers who like their horror slow and damp.
Read The Kelpie's Apprentice on Toonily
9. Jonah Mercer — Bristol, sci-fi
Art style: psychedelic colour, glitch effects and panels that warp as you scroll. Mercer treats the vertical format like a playground.
The serial: Static Tide is a sci-fi mystery about a sound engineer who starts hearing broadcasts from a version of Bristol that never existed. The city's graffiti, bridges and floating harbour all become clues.
Why it cuts through: Mercer's series is built for mobile reading. Reveals land at the bottom of the scroll, and the panel gaps do as much work as the dialogue. It is the kind of comic that makes you scroll back up to check what you missed.
10. Priya Shah — London, romance drama
Art style: expressive faces, warm lighting and carefully staged close-ups. Shah's emotional beats are timed like a good pop chorus.
The serial: Six Stops Home is a romance drama about two commuters who keep meeting on the same late train. It is about timing, class and the tiny decisions that change a life.
Why it cuts through: Shah writes longing without melodrama. Her characters have jobs, bills and family expectations. 'I want readers to feel the whole journey home,' she says. 'Not just the kiss.'
Read Six Stops Home on Toonily
What makes the UK scroll different
The through-line here is not a single aesthetic. It is texture. These creators are drawing council estates and coastal towns, dialect humour and multicultural Britain, NHS waiting rooms and terrible public transport. That local specificity is exactly what makes their work travel. Global webtoon readers do not need another generic fantasy kingdom; they respond to voices that know what they are talking about.
For UK readers, there is also the thrill of recognition. A bus route, a regional insult, a specific kind of rain — these details turn a scroll into a place. And for creators, the vertical format is proving flexible enough to hold all of it.
If you are building a reading list for the rest of 2026, start here. Then follow the comment threads, share the links and keep an eye on the next wave. The UK webtoon scene is not a satellite of the bigger markets any more. It is its own noisy, funny, rain-soaked corner of the scroll.
