Naver Webtoon Proves Webtoon Popularity at France's 'Amazing Festival'

Naver Webtoon is holding a French artist signing event at the 'Amazing Festival' held in Paris, France.

Naver Webtoon announced on the 17th that it participated in the 'Amazing Festival' held in Paris, France, as the representative webtoon platform of France.

The 'Amazing Festival,' held from the 13th to the 16th, is an event that introduces and allows people to experience popular culture attracting global attention. Naver Webtoon participated for the second consecutive year following last year, conducting various experiential events utilizing webtoon IPs.

Unlike last year, when the focus was on promoting the Naver Webtoon brand and the digital comic format of webtoons, this year they prepared various attractions and experiences so that visitors could directly experience diverse webtoon IPs from Korea and France.

Naver Webtoon reported that the 'Tear-off Poster' and 'Toon Filter' experiences were very popular. Approximately 15,000 giveaways, including tarpaulin bags featuring characters from popular webtoons and tote bags printed with the official Naver Webtoon logo, were all quickly gone. The 'Tear-off Poster' is an event where visitors can tear off and take home large posters illustrated with webtoons.

The 'Toon Filter' experience, which allows users to transform into characters from webtoons, also attracted much attention. Developed by Naver Webtoon, the Toon Filter uses deep learning technology to convert a person's image into a webtoon character in real time. At this event, filters featuring characters from four works?'Sasin Sonyeon,' 'Tushinjeonsaenggi,' 'Hwasan Gwihwan,' and 'Because I Can't Love You'?were showcased.

A signing event with a total of 12 local French webtoon artists also drew large crowds. These creators were discovered through Naver Webtoon's amateur creative space 'Canvas' and local contests. Naver Webtoon has been steadily nurturing local creators to expand the French webtoon ecosystem, resulting in the creation of over 70 original French webtoons to date.

They also conducted a special partnership program with France's leading publisher Michel Lafon titled 'Michel Lafon and Webtoon's Special Partnership.' The program covered ▲the history of webtoons starting in Korea ▲introduction of webtoons as digital content ▲characteristics of the French comic market ▲and upcoming webtoon book publications. On the 26th of last month, Naver Webtoon signed a partnership with Michel Lafon, and by 2024, eight webtoons including 'Marry My Husband' and 'Admission Mercenary' will be published as books through Michel Lafon.

Chah Hana, Head of Naver Webtoon Eurasia, said, “At this year’s event, we were able to reaffirm our status as the number one webtoon platform in France by showcasing not only works with strong fandoms but also webtoon technology such as the Toon Filter. As industry expectations for webtoons in Europe, centered on France, continue to rise, we will further solidify our overwhelming leadership through various collaborations with local creators, publishers, and others.”

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