Seongsu-dong, a vibrant cultural hub in Seoul, is currently buzzing with activity as it hosts South Korea's first global webtoon festival and awards ceremony, held as a part of Korea's ambitious initiative to position itself as a leader in the global webtoon industry.

The 2024 World Webtoon Festival, organized by the culture ministry and Korea Creative Content Agency, kicked off its four-day run Thursday with the 2024 World Webtoon Awards, designed to recognize exceptional webtoons that have significantly contributed to the expansion of the K-webtoon industry.

This year, the popular webtoon series "Solo Leveling" won the grand prize among 104 nominated webtoons submitted during an international open call held from June to July.

Yong Ho-seong, the first vice minister of culture, awarded the grand prize to Jang Jeong-sook, CEO of Redice Studio, the production company behind "Solo Leveling," and Choi Won-young, CEO of D&C Media, in place of the series' cartoonist Jang Seong-rak, who passed away in 2022.

"We will work hard to produce an exceptional webtoon with new episodes that continue to capture the affection of global readers and honor the legacy of the late cartoonist Jang," said Jang Jeong-sook during the ceremony.

The festival runs through Sunday at S-Factory, a retail and cultural multiplex in Seongsu-dong. It offers a variety of events for visitors to explore freely, including pop-up shops themed around popular webtoon series such as "Beast Friends," "The Remarried Empress," "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint" and "Study Group."

The pop-ups feature a range of merchandise, from photo cards, dolls and stationery to webtoons and exclusive goods.

"I came to purchase the exclusive edition of merchandise from the webtoon series, 'The Ruler of The Land.' There are also webtoon drawing tools available here at a discounted price, and since I enjoy drawing cartoons as a hobby, I wanted to come and check them out," said Lee, a 26-year-old resident of Gyeonggi Province, on Thursday.

Another visitor expressed excitement about the pop-up store for "Solo Leveling."

"Even though the webtoon is incredibly popular, the 'Solo Leveling' pop-up store has never opened before (anywhere). I came after school to see it in person," said Kim, an 18-year-old student, on Thursday.

The festival also includes an interactive zone showcasing next-generation webtoon technologies, such as Kakao Entertainment's ALIVE technology, which merges motion graphics with two-dimensional webtoons. Visitors can also experience Naver Webtoon’s AI technologies, including "Character Chat," which allows visitors to converse with their favorite webtoon characters via mobile devices, and "Webtoon Caricature," where attendees can take photos on-site and receive caricatures drawn in the style of popular cartoonists such as Cho Seok and Lee Mal-nyeon.

In addition to booths from Kakao Entertainment and Naver Webtoon, 14 other major webtoon-related companies, including YLAB and Contents Lab Blue, are participating in the festival to showcase their hit webtoons.

The festival also hosts talk concerts featuring well-known cartoonists, including Jo Gwang-jin, the creator of "Itaewon Class," on Friday, and Shin Hyung-wook, the cartoonist behind "Study Group," on Saturday.

For detailed information about the festival's schedule, visit the official Instagram account of the 2024 World Webtoon Festival.

This event is part of the culture ministry's initiative to actively promote the country's webtoon industry amidst its growing popularity. In January, Culture Minister Yu In-chon announced that 3.2 billion won ($242,707) has been allocated to support the production of Korean webtoon content that can compete globally. Furthermore, a joint public-private fund of 600 billion won will be established to assist Korean cartoon and webtoon companies in commercializing their intellectual property.