Busan Global Webtoon Festival opens Friday

Busan city will co-host the 10th Busan Global Webtoon Festival with the Busan Information Industry Promotion Agency and the Busan-South Gyeongsang Province Cartoonists Alliance from Friday through Sunday at Museum One and the Busan Culture Content Complex, the city announced Tuesday.

The festival, which launched in 2017 and marks its 10th anniversary this year, will run under the theme "Ten Years, One Story," looking back on a decade of webtoon culture while showcasing more than 800 works by over 190 domestic and international webtoon artists.

This year's program includes business meetings and a global pitching session featuring representatives from two major Japanese manga publishers — Shueisha's TOON FACTORY and Kodansha. Shueisha is the publisher behind globally popular titles including "One Piece," "Naruto" and "Dragon Ball," and puts out Weekly Shonen Jump, Japan's leading manga magazine. Kodansha is a major Japanese general publisher whose catalog includes blockbusters such as "Attack on Titan," "Blue Lock" and "Tokyo Revengers."

A special talk show featuring artists from Belgium and Scotland will be held alongside an international artists' talk show with guests from Taiwan, Japan, the United States and France. An exhibition of winning entries from the inaugural Global Webtoon Short Story Competition — held for the first time this year — will offer a look at creative cultures and storytelling styles from around the world.

The "Webtoon Preview" segment will introduce an AI-driven approach to experiencing webtoon content. Short preview-style clips called "AI Moving Toons" — built from existing webtoon works by adding motion and cinematic direction to key scenes — will be unveiled, exploring the potential of adapting webtoon intellectual property into video formats for promotion.

Alongside this, the festival will feature exhibitions including a retrospective of past event posters, a special Memories exhibition and a 10th-anniversary character illustration show. Programs on offer include the Golden Bridge Webtoon Awards, a drawing talk show, a battle drawing contest, a family comics drawing competition and a webtoon consultation booth. The exhibitions will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. across all three days.