Kakao Entertainment Announces Winners of the 'Super Challenge Webtoon Contest'

14 University Industry-Academic Cooperation Projects
A Total Prize of 55 Million KRW Awarded to 7 Winning Works
Kakao Webtoon and Kakao Page Debut Opportunities Provided

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao Entertainment announced the results of the industry-academia cooperation project “2022 Super Challenge Webtoon Contest,” conducted with 14 universities to revitalize the domestic creative ecosystem, on the 28th.

The seven selected award-winning authors will receive a total prize of 55 million KRW, and their debut on Kakao Webtoon or Kakao Page is guaranteed. Kakao Entertainment aims to continuously discover and nurture talented new writers by holding the Super Challenge Webtoon Contest annually.

The “2022 Super Challenge Webtoon Contest,” held twice this year in May and November for the first and second semesters, targeted university students majoring in comics, animation, and webtoons from 14 universities.

In May, recruitment for the “Noble Comics category,” which Kakao Entertainment first established in the industry, took place. Noble Comics, which produces popular web novels into webtoons, is recognized as a system that roots the collaboration system in the domestic creative ecosystem and significantly extends the lifespan of works and creators’ earnings.

The contest required participants to produce webtoons based on popular web novels from Kakao Entertainment. Three authors?Sim Ye-eun, Kwon Nari, and Jung Garyeong?were finally selected as winners. They received high praise not only for vivid artwork that matched the novel’s characters and atmosphere but also for their adaptation skills in concisely expressing the vast worldviews written in prose into webtoons.

The November contest was held in the “Original category,” which invited webtoon creations reflecting applicants’ planning and creativity regardless of subject, genre, or format. In this category, four authors?Kim Minseo of “I Will Take Her Away!”, Kim Sanghyun of “Love Blockbuster,” Choi Yeonwoo of “Genre Girl,” and Ham Yonggyun of “Jjin”?were honored as winners. The prize money per winner was 5 million KRW for the Noble Comics category and 10 million KRW for the Original category. The winners from May and November are scheduled to debut as Kakao Entertainment authors with serializations starting next year.

Kakao Entertainment has carried out various projects to discover new creators and revitalize the domestic creative ecosystem. A representative example is the “Online Creative Academy,” conducted as the first project after establishing the “Kakao Creative Foundation” to support domestic cultural content creators. Many creators have also emerged on Kakao Page Stage, a free web novel open serialization platform. Since its launch in September last year, about 140 authors have debuted or received support for writing works, and among them, approximately 50 have debuted as official serial authors on Kakao Page.

Hwang Hyunsoo, head of Kakao Entertainment’s Story Division, said, “Kakao Entertainment has supported aspiring student writers’ dreams through industry-academia cooperation projects in the past. Starting this year, the ‘Super Challenge Webtoon Contest,’ which is being expanded to more target schools, is hoped to become a meaningful opportunity for more students.” He added, “We will continue our efforts to discover and nurture new writers through various means such as contests, industry-academia cooperation, Kakao Page Stage, and the Kakao Creative Foundation.”

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