A Painter Who Draws Dungeons: English Novel, No Comic

A Painter Who Draws Dungeons is the series r/manhwa keeps telling you to start, and the detail those threads skip is that no English publisher has licensed the comic. You type the title into a search bar and the first results are scan sites. The official English pages we found are for a novel, and the novel is the version those same Redditors call slow.

We checked the licensing on November 8, 2026. The table below has the answer.

Series banner on the Tappytoon novel page. Image: Tappytoon.

A Painter Who Draws Dungeons in English: what is actually licensed

MangaUpdates lists Wattpad and Tappytoon as the official English translations of the novel, and nothing for the comic.

The Wattpad edition is posted by the account "SERIES by WEBTOON" and got Chapter 100 on July 21, 2026. Tappytoon's page says "Published by Tappytoon under license from partners."

That is why the Reddit threads read the way they do. A July 9 thread asking where to read it filled up with people asking one commenter for an epub, and on July 28 another reader wrote "There already are hundreds of people asking".

Scan sites carry the comic and shared files circulate for the novel. None of that is licensed, and we don't link to it.

What the official novel costs on Tappytoon and Wattpad

Novel cover on Tappytoon. Image: Tappytoon.

Both stores give you 5 chapters and charge for the other 95. Tappytoon prices each paid chapter at 300 points, and its membership screen quotes 5,300 points for $4.99. Going by that offer, one month's worth of points would cover about 17 chapters, Chapters 6 to 22.

Buying all 95 would take 28,500 points, about $27 at that rate, if every later chapter costs the same 300 as the ones the page lists. Wattpad paywalls Chapter 6 onward and puts a price tag of 5 on each one; the page doesn't say in what unit, so we didn't convert it.

Why r/manhwa tells people to start with the comic

Most of the comic-versus-novel comments in these threads lean one way. On July 28 a reader who had read both explained that the first 15 comic chapters cover 30 novel chapters "but basically convey the same amount of information", and that many novel chapters are "just about Gio's cooking process". Another, on July 15, was blunter: "Every other novel chapter is a full exposition dump needlessly describing the food that the MC cooks or eats". A third, who had read both, said the comic "improves the pacing soooo much".

The threads split on the novel itself. The same July 28 reader loves "the character interactions and worldbuilding" and says it "definitely won't appeal to everyone", while another reader found it "pretty bad". The complaint is speed, and it lands early: a commenter on July 29 tried 15 to 25 chapters and found the cooking and planting inside the painting "literally like watching paint dry".

A Painter Who Draws Dungeons: where the comic stands

Character art from the Tappytoon listing. Image: Tappytoon.

MangaUpdates shows the comic as ongoing, with the latest chapter at 32, last updated on November 7, 2026, and a rating of 7.95 from 89 votes. The database credits Hobby Writing Principle and OSHOT as authors and Glee as artist, with Ridibooks as the original publisher.

Readers counted 17 chapters on July 29 and 27 on October 9. MangaUpdates now shows 32, about 15 since July. A September 14 reply in one thread said "Hiatus", which is one commenter's report of a break.

The premise is official and simple: art teacher Seo Gio dies in a fire, wakes up inside a portrait, and gains the power to create life and open gateways to other dimensions. One reader on July 14 described the feel as the standard Hunter manhwa setup, "but SCP foundation kind of story". If you want fights, this isn't that.

One commenter on July 14 called it "a Hunters gate trope version of" My Possession Became a Ghost Story.

Our take: sample the novel, but don't plan around it

Chapters 1 to 5 are free on both stores, so read them for the voice and the premise. They won't settle the pacing question, because the readers who dropped the novel say it happened in the teens and twenties.

If you want a real answer, one Tappytoon month reaches exactly that stretch, about $5 for an informed no. Reach Chapter 22 bored and you have the commenters' verdict, so stop there.

The bigger problem is order. If the Reddit ratio holds, the comic's 32 chapters cover about 64 novel chapters, so the English novel's 100 already runs past the comic. Read to Chapter 100 and you've spoiled a comic you can't yet read legally.

That is the case for waiting. The best reviews are for the comic, and the comic is the version English readers don't have. Neither MangaUpdates nor AniList lists an English license for it, and the legal fallback for Korean or Japanese readers is the original on Ridibooks or the Japanese edition.

Our guide to reading manhwa legally covers which English app carries what, and how to read manhwa free covers the free routes.

Do this: read the free 5 chapters tonight, spend one Tappytoon month on Chapters 6 to 22 only if you want more, and if you're bored by 22, stop and wait for a comic license.

How we checked this: On November 8, 2026 we read the Tappytoon and Wattpad series pages, the MangaUpdates records for the comic and the novel, AniList, and the comments in ten r/manhwa threads dated July to October 2026. We read neither the comic nor the novel, so everything about the story comes from the official synopses and from readers.

Related Reading

• Where to Read Manhwa Legally in 2026: which app carries which series, with prices.
• How to Read Manhwa Free Legally: the free options in more detail.
• Dungeon Manhwa: 7 Best Series With Gates, Towers and Floors: seven dungeon series, from gates to towers.

References

1. The Painter Who Draws Dungeons (novel), Tappytoon
2. The Painter Who Draws Dungeons, Wattpad
3. The Painter Who Draws Dungeons, MangaUpdates
4. The Painter Who Draws Dungeons (Novel), MangaUpdates