Webtoon Academy Opens in Angoulême

Média-Participations’ subsidiaries Ellipse Studio and ONO have teamed with Korean independent webtoon production company Kenaz to open the Webtoon Academy in Angoulême, France.

The free 13-week training course will offer 12 French-speaking webtoon, comics and animation talents to expand their skills so they can produce the first episodes of their series. At the end of the program, some will be selected by a jury to produce their webtoon series at Ellipse Studio for a release on ONO.

Applications are now open through July 5. Ten French artists and two African talents will be selected. An online introduction course will run in August 2024, and then the in-person program will run for 13 weeks from September to December 2024 at Ellipse Studio in Angoulême and EMCA (École des Métiers du Cinéma d’Animation).

The Webtoon Academy program initially launched in Seoul, Korea, in 2019 and expanded to Tokyo, Japan, in 2023. This marks the first time the program has opened outside of Asia.

The Angoulême Webtoon Academy is supported by EMCA (École des Métiers du Cinéma d’Animation), Wacom and Adobe’s Celsys.

“As the European leader in comic books and manga and a key player in animation, we want to empower a whole new generation of storytellers in the webtoon format,” said Julien Papelier, CEO of Média-Participations. “The Angoulême Webtoon Academy is a new step–and a major one–to encourage the emergence and training of new French-speaking authors in this medium. We are delighted to work on this exclusive free training program with our friends at Kenaz with a shared belief: French webtoons can have a global reach.”

“France holds a central position on the cultural and artistic scene, and is a major influence in the fields of comics and graphic novels,” added Lee Woo-Jae, director of Kenaz. “We couldn’t have wished for a better setting to announce the opening of the Webtoon Academy in France in 2024, in collaboration with ONO and Ellipse Studio.”