The first World Webtoon Festival is set to take off next week, the Korea Creative Content Agency (KCCA) announced on Thursday.
Offering a slew of webtoon-related activities and merchandise, the festival will run for four days starting Sept. 26 in parts of Seongsu-dong in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul.
A total of 16 local webtoon studios are slated to participate, including “Lookism” studio The Grimm Entertainment; “Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint” company Red Ice Studio; and “Solo Leveling” studio D&C Media. They will be holding pop-ups and exhibitions and selling exclusive webtoon merchandise, said the KCCA.
Naver Webtoon will be running a booth where visitors can have their caricatures drawn in the style of certain webtoon artists. Kakao Entertainment said it has incorporated digital media into its webtoons to provide visitors with a “new webtoon experience.”
There will also be an awards ceremony on the first day of the festival, recognizing local works vetted by a judging panel. Ten have been selected out of over 100 submitted works. The final winner will be presented live during the festival.
On days two and three, the festival will host talk sessions with industry experts including Majyk Studios’ producer Kymber Lim, who will provide insight into Hollywood’s take on K-webtoons, local webtoon artists Shin Hyung-wuk and 1171 and online personality Usona.
Voice actor Nam Doh-hyeong will showcase live dubbing on day four of the festival. There will also be live drawing shows by local webtoon artists, AI caricature drawings and AR photo sessions, said KCCA.
“This festival will be a place where you can enjoy a variety of globally competitive K-webtoons at some of the trendiest spots in Korea,” KCCA’s acting director Yoo Hyun-seok said in Thursday’s press release. “In the future, KCCA will present a new global milestone for K-webtoon IP and we will accelerate support for further expansion of excellent K-webtoons.”
Entry to the World Webtoon Festival is free. Online reservations are available but not required. More information about the event can be found on its official website, wefe.kr, or on the Instagram page (@wefe2024_official).
BY JIAN LEE [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]
