Tapastic, the first web portal in the US from startup Tapas Media, has taken part in the world’s biggest comic event, Comic-Con. The company attended a panel which covered special comic genres and the rapidly rising webtoon market in the US – featuring comic artists and critics from the US and the UK.
Comic-Con is the biggest comic conference in the world and with more than 130,000 people attending the event, it boosts the local economy by around 180 million dollars each year. Though the event is a “comic convention”, it is really a festival that covers a wide scope of content including movies, dramas, games and animation. Stars from Hollywood blockbusters like “The Avengers” are a given, and leading game companies such as Nintendo have used the event to make major announcements or promote products.
Tapastic was chosen by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in June as a supporting global webtoon platform for part of its “measures to revitalize the comic creation ecosystem”. Currently the Tapastic platform is available in English, French and Korean, and supports some 20 Korean artists with free translation of content to English. Back in March, the startup also showcased 40 of its publications at another major comic event, WonderCon 2013.
“If superhero characters are what represent US comics, Korean webtoons are represented by their colorful and charming stories. Through various comic events in the US, we plan to introduce the charm of Korean comics to readers, as well as the well-known dramatic storytelling which strongly immerses and consumes them.” said Chang Kim, CEO of Tapas Media.
Tapas Media will begin its promotion of Korean webtoons at Comic-Con from July 26 at the Kintoki Convention with its panel, “The World of Korea’s Scrolling Webcomics”. It is there that the unique scrolling style of Korean webtoons and other special characteristics of videos will be officially discussed.
The company also recently took part in ARKO 2013 in Seoul, a seminar covering comic related issues and copyright. There, it discussed the current situation of Korean webtoons in the US market and methods for monetizing them.
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