Naver Webtoon booth set up at the 'Amazing Festival' held in Paris, France, from the 11th to the 14th [Photo provided by Naver Webtoon]
Naver Webtoon announced on the 15th that it operated the only exhibition hall among French webtoon platforms at the 'Amazing Festival' held in Paris, France.
Naver Webtoon is the only global webtoon platform to participate in the event for three consecutive years. Held from the 11th to the 14th, this event introduces and allows attendees to experience popular culture attracting worldwide attention. It breaks away from the traditional format of only showcasing Japanese popular culture by also gathering and presenting popular culture from countries excluding Japan, such as Korea, the United States, and Europe.
During its first participation in 2022, Naver Webtoon focused on introducing the unfamiliar Naver Webtoon brand and the digital comic format called webtoon to Europeans. As the awareness of webtoons has increased in France, since last year, the exhibition hall has been designed to offer visitors various attractions and experiences to directly engage with Korean and French webtoon intellectual properties (IPs).
This year’s event featured ▲ autograph sessions with popular Korean and French webtoon artists ▲ fan meetings for buyers of printed volumes ▲ take-away posters ▲ and an animation viewing event of 'Fight Class 3' in collaboration with Crunchyroll. The large 'hanging LED' installed on the ceiling of the Naver Webtoon exhibition hall, a first in the history of the event, also attracted visitors’ attention.
Notably, Naver Webtoon exhibited and sold printed volumes of six popular Korean webtoons at the exhibition for the first time this year. These works were published after forming a partnership with Michel Lafon, a leading French publisher, in June last year.
Additionally, at this event, Naver Webtoon unveiled volume 1 of the printed edition of 'Killer Badro' for the first time and held a fan meeting where buyers could directly interact with the creator. The special edition of Killer Badro sold out, and more than 3,000 printed volumes were sold in total.
An animation viewing event for 'Fight Class 3' was also held in collaboration with the animation streaming platform Crunchyroll. Kim Jeong-hyun, the artist responsible for the original webtoon’s illustrations, explained ▲ the differences in directing between the webtoon and animation ▲ and differences in character expression, while watching the first episode of the animation with about 500 attendees.
Kim Yeo-jung, Naver Webtoon’s EU General Leader, said, "In our first year of participation, we focused on promoting the new content format and brand of webtoons, and since last year, we have emphasized the appeal of our content platform centered on IPs loved by the French. We will do our best to strategically strengthen our IP business, including publishing, and to expand the local webtoon base."
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