Global content business people that participated in the International Content Conference (DICON) 2014 which opened on Nov. 18 at Seoul's COEX convention center, highly appraised the growth potential of the South Korean content industry.
In particular, a nine-tailed fox from Korean mythology is going to appear in the Avengers cartoon, which is globally popular.
C.B. Cebulski, vice president of Marvel Entertainment, who visited Korea to attend DICON 2014, said at the meeting with reporters before the conference, “A hero called White Fox, which is based on the Korean mythological nine-tailed fox, appeared in Marvel's first webcomic, and it is quite popular,” adding, “This character is also going to show up in the U.S. Avengers.”
Marvel is publishing the first official webcomic called “Avengers: Electric Rain” on the webtoon page of Daum Communications, holding hands with Daum Kakao from Oct. 10. The webcomic is created by Korean webcomic artist Ko Young-hun, in which the Avengers appear in Seoul. Artist Ko added a Korean nine-tailed fox character to the webcomic. According to Marvel, the webcomic ranked second in downloads on the Daum Webtoon site, following a webcomic called Misaeng.
Cebulski said, “Marvel uses characters, yet has a principle to localize content. In terms of that, we are using Korean artists in this time’s publishing the webcomic. Korea is the first country for foreign artists to make artwork based on Marvel characters.” He added, “We are going to expand the webcomic in the Asia region such as Taiwan and China, and it will be released as a webtoon in the U.S. after translation into English.”
Asia-Pacific Regional General Manager of Youtube David Powell also said, “Korean artists are leading new trends amid a variety of demands from consumers. Korean original content created by innovative creators has been seeing success, and Youtube is going to continuously connect content with an audience.”