"Is there only K-pop in the Korean Wave? Webtoons are also promoting their national prestige with the Korean Wave."
The voice of Dream Communications CEO Yoon Suk-hwan was filled with pride. Dream Communication is a company that supplies webtoons to domestic and foreign paid webtoon platforms such as Kakao, Toptoon, Tencent (China), Piccoma (Japan), and Tapas (USA). Dream Communications' so-called 'King's Daughter' webtoon hit the jackpot. It earned 1 billion won in annual sales as a single work and exceeded 3 billion views.

Dream Communication has also laid the foundation for the first paid webtoon for China's exports.

Yoon said, "When we entered China in 2016, we were mostly free cartoons. In particular, China tried to bring only Japanese cartoons, he said. "I tried Korean webtoons and they did well, so there was an offer, but we said we wouldn't go free." Since then, Korean comics have been paid for. "This is also a time when the paid-in process is settled in China," he said. "We will continue our vitality through prequel and spin-off of the king's daughter's work."

Dream Communication is expanding its businesses, including animation and figure production, as well as webtoons.

"We've started a second business to make webtoons stand out," he said. "We've made a big figure called 'Taekwon V767' for sale as a mania, and it's well received." "I gave it to the insurance seller, and I heard that it was popular as a gift for the opening ceremony instead of a wreath at the customer store," he said. "We believe it will appeal to the public as well as to the mania, so we started the second production."

Yoon's business expansion is an aspect of expanding the channel.

"I think there is a limit to having a single channel for the webtoon intellectual property (IP)," he said. "If you want to go to Big IP, you need to get products. Animation, figures, and goods have to come out and create synergy to be loved by the public and last long.

In fact, the "King's Daughter" webtoon is under discussion in China for animation production, and in Vietnam, drama production proposals have been made. Recently, the company has moved into the "Jaemiroang" Myeongdong building, sold goods and other goods as a professional shopping mall, and is working on creating cultural complexes such as "Meeting with Webtoon Writers." In addition, various popular works such as "The King's Daughter" and "Adonis" will be produced.

It is exporting webtoons to the United States, France, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam and is also discussing further expansion.

"There are many cartoons that will be released in the first half of next year," Yoon said. "The company will grow by a notch as it will release contents that are expected to be adapted to webtoons that everyone knows," he said. "This year, the company has grown by 300% compared to last year, and we are looking forward to it even more because there is a way to go abroad directly from next year."

The original article: https://www.fnnews.com/news/201812091112285015