Global Economic Times

K-Webtoons Emerge as a Mainstream Force in North American Pop Culture: Report from New York Comic Con 2025: Global Economic Times Reporter / Updated : 2025-10-11 09:07:57

At North America's largest pop culture exhibition, 'New York Comic Con (NYCC) 2025,' which opened on the 9th (local time) in New York, it was confirmed that webtoons are rapidly moving beyond the perception of a marginal subculture to become a major content consumption method. The event, held for four days until the 12th at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, New York, is the largest pop culture festival in North America, drawing over 200,000 attendees annually.

Comic Con, which encompasses various content such as comics, games, movies, and animation, was bustling with numerous visitors from the opening day, underscoring its status through the passion of 'otakus' cosplaying as Marvel Comics and Japanese animation characters. The most notable change at this year's event was the prominent leap of webtoons in the North American content market.

Webtoon Entertainment, the global parent company of Naver Webtoon, set up a large exhibition booth near the entrance of the Comic Con venue and presented various programs, attracting significant attention from attendees on the first day. Long queues formed for autograph sessions with North American creators of titles like 'The Death of a Pop Star' and 'Omen Girl.' This demonstrates how quickly the status of webtoons has risen in North America over the past one to two years, especially when compared to the minimal presence of webtoons at last year's Comic Con.

Webtoon Entertainment has accelerated its push into the North American market following its Nasdaq listing in June of last year. Recently, it surprised the content industry by entering into a groundbreaking partnership with Disney in the US. Under this contract, Webtoon Entertainment will develop a new digital comics platform servicing over 35,000 titles from Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar, and will also produce and showcase 100 of Disney's representative works in the vertical-scroll webtoon format. Disney also demonstrated its commitment to building a long-term cooperative relationship by acquiring a 2% stake in Webtoon Entertainment.

In South Korea, the 'home country of webtoons,' webtoons are already the mainstream comic content. However, in North America, they still tend to be perceived as a subculture centered around a young enthusiast base in their teens and twenties. However, the enthusiastic response at this year's Comic Con suggests the possibility that webtoons will soon be incorporated into mainstream North American culture.

Meanwhile, four Korean companies participated in the South Korean joint pavilion, organized under the leadership of the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA): Devsisters of 'Cookie Run,' AB Entertainment, Big House Entertainment, and extended reality (XR) solutions provider SOULX. SOULX's participation, in particular, indicates that the scope of Korean companies is expanding beyond K-Content into content-related technology sectors.

Local attendees expressed high interest in the unique visual art style and stories of Korean webtoons, which cover themes like adventure and revenge, and hoped to access a wider variety of Korean content. Furthermore, North American voice actors for the Netflix animated film 'K-Pop Demon Hunters' (K-DaeHun) held a fan meeting, proving its continued popularity, and confirming the expanding influence of K-Content as a whole.