Naver Webtoon’s Autograph Event for Webtoon Artists in France Draws Huge Crowds...Proving Global Popularity

Crowds flocking to the Naver Webtoon booth set up at the 'Amazing' Festival held in Paris, France, from July 14 to 17.

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Naver Webtoon has proven the popularity of its global webtoon platform in France.

Naver Webtoon exclusively opened a booth among global webtoon platforms at the 'Amazing' Festival held in Paris, France, from July 14 to July 17, actively promoting webtoons to the local French audience. Naver Webtoon set up a 132㎡ (approximately 40 pyeong) booth at the Amazing Festival, hosting events such as local artist autograph sessions, Korean artist autograph sessions, merchandise giveaways, and quiz games.

In particular, autograph sessions by French local webtoon artists currently serializing on Naver Webtoon's French platform were very popular. Twelve diverse French webtoon artists discovered by Naver Webtoon locally?including artists who transitioned from drawing manga to webtoons, artists who switched from readers to creators, artists who debuted through contests, and influencer-turned-artists?held autograph sessions over four days.

On the weekend, when visitor numbers peaked, autograph sessions were held by Yaongi, the artist of the Korean webtoon 'True Beauty,' which enjoys high popularity in France, as well as YC and Rakhyun, the artists of 'Admission Mercenary.' Fans of these works lined up to receive autographs, making the booth very popular.

The 'Amazing' Festival is an event that introduces and allows people to experience popular culture attracting global attention. It was held for the first time this year as an 'Expo-in-Expo' within the large cultural festival 'Japan Expo,' which has been held annually in Paris since 1999. Unlike Japan Expo, which focuses on Japanese popular culture such as manga, animation, games, and music, the Amazing Festival was newly created to showcase popular culture from countries other than Japan, including Korea, the United States, and Africa.

Naver Webtoon was the first domestic webtoon platform to enter the European market in December 2019, pioneering the early webtoon market and promoting webtoons as a new content form. In addition to translating and introducing various Korean works, it has actively discovered local artists, leading the creation of a global webtoon ecosystem.

According to mobile data and analytics platform Data.ai, Naver Webtoon's European service, the French version of 'WEBTOON,' ranked first in monthly active users (MAU) and revenue among webtoon and comic apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store in France as of July this year.

Chah Hana, Naver Webtoon Eurasia Business Leader, said, “Although Europe is still an early webtoon market, the interest shown by visitors at this event was tremendous,” adding, “We will accelerate the discovery of local creators in France and Europe to further strengthen our competitiveness as the world’s number one story-tech company.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.