Naver Webtoon announced on the 22nd that it will hold offline events in Taiwan and the United States where local creators, partners, and users come together.
In Taiwan, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 'LINE Webtoon' service, the celebration event 'Mantunton Summer Party' was held in Taipei from the 20th to the 21st of this month. LINE Webtoon is the number one webtoon platform in Taiwan.
At this event, five popular webtoon artists from Korea and Taiwan attended in person to interact with fans. Notably, Yaongi, the creator of the popular Korean webtoon 'True Beauty' with over 6.4 billion global views, and Jeon Seon-wook, the creator of the Korean webtoon 'Free Draw' which gained great popularity in Taiwan, participated.
LINE Webtoon started its Traditional Chinese service in July 2014 and has invested in fostering the webtoon ecosystem in Taiwan. Overseas Chinese creators living outside the Chinese-speaking regions, such as in Spain and Malaysia, also showcase their works through the amateur platform 'Canvas,' broadening the diversity of content.
Local works discovered by LINE Webtoon have also achieved success in secondary creative businesses such as video adaptations and games. Four original Taiwanese webtoons have been confirmed for video production and are currently in progress.
In the United States, the English service 'Webtoon' will participate in the 'San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC)' held from the 25th to the 28th of this month (local time), hosting a panel session commemorating its 10th anniversary of global expansion and a signing event with local webtoon artists. Webtoon ranks first among webtoon platforms in the U.S.
At SDCC, Diablo Cody, an Oscar-winning screenwriter and producer known for films such as 'Barbie' and 'Juno,' will discuss the video adaptation project of 'Death of a Popstar,' an English webtoon original of the same name in which she is involved as a producer. Additionally, Lee Shin-ok, head of Naver Webtoon's North American service, will join English original webtoon creator Uru-chan of 'Unordinary' to discuss the evolution of webtoon fandom culture in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the English service.
In North America, active video adaptation work is underway through the in-house studio Wattpad Webtoon Studio. The Wattpad web novel 'Boot Camp' is being made into a film scheduled to be released next month in the U.S. and Canada, and several English original works are also in the process of being adapted into videos.
Naver Webtoon has been striving to build an environment where global creators can create stably based on the diversified creator revenue model pioneered domestically in 2013. According to Webtoon Entertainment, the total amount paid to creators from 2017 to 2023 is $2.8 billion, and as of 2023, the top 100 creators earn an average annual income of $1 million.
Moreover, beyond exporting Korean-language works translated overseas, the number of 'multi-way cross-border content'?works discovered and produced in various overseas regions and translated into multiple languages for export, excluding Korean original works?is increasing. As of last year, the number of multi-way cross-border contents increased by about 60% compared to 2021. Among webtoon works officially serialized on platforms other than Korean, 47% are Korean original content, while more than half of the rest are works born overseas.
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