Line Webtoon

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Line Webtoon (stylized as LINE WEBTOON) is a webtoon syndicate launched by Naver Corporation in Korea in 2005. The service promotes a distinct infinite canvas layout for webtoons and gained a large amount of traction during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The service first launched in Korea as Naver Webtoon and then globally as Line Webtoon in July 2014 as the Naver brand is not well known outside the country and its services are also not available outside of Korea. In 2016, Naver's webtoon service entered the Chinese market as Dongman Manhua.

Video Line Webtoon

History

Line Webtoon was founded by JunKoo Kim in 2005, under the name "Webtoon", after he watched the manhwa industry crash in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Kim, who grew up reading Japanese manga and Korean superhero comics, was looking for a way to get new comics created because he found that there were very few new comics coming out. Kim theorized that tall, scrollable comics would work well on the World Wide Web, as users were already used to scrolling through web pages. Because of this unusual layout, Kim initially had difficulty finding artist to create webcomics on his service, but he found that cartoonists were willing to do something different because of the poor state of the local manhwa industry.

Though content on Line Webtoon is entirely creator-owned, search engine/web portal Naver Corporation profits from the website through various revenue models, ranging from online advertising to selling intellectual property rights and featuring its characters in other media.

Global launch

On July 2, 2014, the Line Webtoon website and mobile app were launched worldwide; shortly later, international artists became able to upload their own works to the service. Naver Corporation selected 42 webtoons (including Noblesse, Tower of God, and The God of High School) and one new webcomic by an American artist to be available on the service in English at launch. According to 148 Apps, the service offered "plenty of content" at launch, as seven to ten webtoons were updated each day and the webtoons spanned various genres.

Partnerships

In 2015, Naver partnered with US comics veteran Stan Lee, Image Comics founder Marc Silvestri, and make-up artist Michelle Phan in order to promote their service. Silvestri brought his long-running comics series Cyber Force to the platform. Various other established American cartoonists have also partnered with Naver over time, including Dean Haspiel (New Brooklyn), Katie Cook (Nothing Special), Seth Kushner and Shamus Beyale (The Brooklynite), and Tracy J. Butler (Lackadaisy).

In September 2016, Line Webtoon partnered with the Patreon crowdfunding service, incorporating a "Patreon button" in the "Discover" portion of the website. This function creates an easier channel for readers to support webcomics they enjoy. Naver invested US$3.6 million and $1,000 every following month for webcomic creators who reached a certain threshold of activity and popularity with a Patreon page. One month later, Naver signed with the Creative Artists Agency for film and television opportunities in the United States.

Line Webtoon also partnered with DeviantArt in the second half of 2016, in the form of the "Artist Alley Tour". The companies were active at four Comic Cons: Boston Comic Con, Baltimore Comic Con, Rose City Comic Con, and New York Comic Con. Here, Line Webtoon and DeviantArt held discussion panels, "Artist Alley Sponsorships", live draw events, influencer and creator demonstration areas, and on-site contests.

Maps Line Webtoon

Userbase

The userbase of Line Webtoon grew rapidly after the service was released globally, with 10 million people using the website or app each day. In Asia, several webcomics receive 5 million views per week. In 2016, 42% of the webcomic creators on Line Webtoon were female, as were 50% of its 6 million active daily readers.

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Contests

Naver Corporation has held various comics competitions through its Webtoon service. In 2015, Line launched the "Challenge League", a recurring competition where amateur cartoonists have the chance to become an "official LINE webtoon artist", as well as win tens of thousands of US Dollars. Over 19,000 people joined the first English-language Challenge League in February 2015, which was won by Stephen McCranie's Space Boy. Local Challenge Weeks were also held; the first Thai Challenge League was held in April 2015 and had a grand prize of 1 million baht.

In June 2015, Naver Corporation hosted the Science Fiction Comics Contest, a global competition with a grand prize of $30,000 USD. JunKoo Kim called science fiction, the theme of the competition, "both the broadest and fastest-growing area in comics and entertainment, [and thus] a natural fit as the genre for our second comics contest." This contest had over 800 entrants and was won by Srinitybeast's Overdrive.

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Other media

Various movies, Korean dramas, animated series, and video games have been produced based on webtoons released on Naver Corporation's service. According to JunKoo Kim in 2014, "a total of 189 books, videos and games based on Naver webtoons have either been produced or are in the process of being made." However, Line Webtoon's first entry of video content in the United States came in 2016, in the form of an animated film based on Noblesse.

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References

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External links

• Official website
• Naver Webtoon
• Dongman Manhua

Source of the article : Wikipedia