NEW YORK — Around the Javits Center in Manhattan on October 10 (local time), the surrounding area was a kaleidoscope of color during the Columbus Day holiday weekend. Characters ranging from Spider-Man and Deadpool to Darth Vader and the anime protagonist from Demon Slayer filled the streets.

Now celebrating its 20th milestone, New York Comic Con (NYCC) stands as the largest pop culture fandom festival on the U.S. East Coast. Despite steep ticket prices—ranging around $100 for a 1-day pass to well over $300 for a 4-day pass—the event draws over 200,000 attendees annually. Comic Con serves as a premier global exhibition where publishers reveal new releases across comic books, animation, movies, TV shows, and video games. It is also a vibrant hub where fans cosplay as their favorite characters and interact directly with creators and actors.

Visitors roaming the four-day convention, which kicked off on October 8, carried shopping bags laden with limited-edition posters, action figures, and merchandise. Particularly prominent among the crowd were large non-woven fabric tote bags boldly featuring illustrations from the Naver Webtoon series Fogland. These bags were handed out to fans who visited the Naver Webtoon booth, downloaded the app, participated in events, or purchased limited-edition merchandise.

Webtoon Entertainment, the parent company of Naver Webtoon, greeted fans this year with two large independent booths—its third consecutive year participating since debuting its first solo booth in 2024.

The booth was themed around Fogland, a Korean webtoon currently servicing the global market. Featuring towering structures over 6 meters high and floor-to-ceiling artwork, the exhibit recreated the massive prison universe of the series. Long queues snaked in front of the character photo zones and a large gachapon machine where fans could win merchandise.

The excitement reached a fever pitch at the solo autograph session for POGO, the creator of Fogland. Driven by an enthusiastic turnout of local fans, the signing session extended to nearly three hours, far exceeding the originally scheduled one-hour timeframe.

Visiting the United States for the first time through this event, author POGO shared, "I was just working hard on my comics in my room when I suddenly got the call to come here. Seeing the massive booth and meeting American fans cosplaying as characters from my work felt surreal and deeply humbling."

POGO added, "While traditional Japanese manga has centered on books and animation, the greatest strength of webtoons is accessibility—the ability to easily view content anywhere, anytime via vertical scrolling on a smartphone."

Comparing the global media landscape, POGO likened K-pop's massive reach to "Venus," nearing the center of the solar system, while describing webtoons as being at the "Saturn" stage with a long journey ahead. Nevertheless, the author emphasized, "People's tastes are universal; what people find fun in Korea, they find fun overseas. I simply focus my work on nailing that core entertainment value."

At Webtoon Entertainment's second booth, the beta version of the newly developed "Marvel Comics" app—created in partnership with Disney—made its worldwide debut.

Slated for an official release on November 16, the new app houses over 35,000 digital comics from Marvel and Star Wars, offering new issues as early as one month after their print publication. It supports both traditional page-turning and vertical-scrolling reading formats, while incorporating reader-optimized technologies such as personalized recommendations and a smart panel mode.

Marvel decided to sunset its legacy digital comic subscription service, Marvel Unlimited, entrusting the development and operation of the new Marvel Comics platform entirely to Webtoon Entertainment. Industry analysts attribute this partnership to Webtoon Entertainment’s robust technological expertise, built over two decades, and its massive global monthly active user (MAU) base of 155 million.

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