Warner Bros. Animation has teamed up with digital comics platform WEBTOON to co-produce a slate of 10 projects based on its popular titles. 

Webtoons (digital comics that are designed for vertical scrolling on phones) have an especially strong following among tweens and teens, and the four adaptations that have been announced so far seem to be aimed squarely at that demo: 

• The Stellar Swordmaster (30 million views, pictured) – a fantasy action-adventure about a knight’s quest.
• Hardcore Leveling Warrior (236 million views) – the world’s best player has to start back at level one when a mysterious figure kills his character. 
• Down to Earth (581 million views) – a romance about a young dude whose average life is disrupted when an alien girl crash-lands in his backyard. 
• Elf & Warrior (29.7 million) – this fantasy adventure revolves around an optimistic young elf and his criminal uncle. 

The rest of the titles are still under wraps for now. The companies are selecting projects to adapt from WEBTOON’s English- and Korean-language platforms. And WEBTOON Entertainment’s US-based WEBTOON Productions and Japanese IP business teams will offer development support. 

Webtoons are having a major moment now as more and more kids & family companies become aware of their popularity. Readers in North America, Korea and Japan spend an average of 30 minutes a day engaged in stories on WEBTOON, the company previously told Kidscreen. 

Netflix has turned the webtoon All of Us Are Dead into a series, and several studios are either starting to create their own webtoons or adapting existing ones—including The Jim Henson Company, which has a project based on WEBTOON’s most popular title, Lore Olympus, in the works. And Disney recently bought a 2% equity stake in WEBTOON, with plans to co-create an app that will host 35,000 Disney-owned titles. 

WBA’s 10-project deal is another major commitment, and it signals that the studio sees a lot of value in the webtoon medium. Sam Register, president of WBA, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios, praised the “vibrant storytelling” in WEBTOON comics in a release about the news. 

This style of comic originated in South Korea in 2000 and is now a global phenomenon. WEBTOON, the market’s main platform, has roughly 160 million active monthly users in more than 150 countries. It hosts upwards of 55 million webtoons, and 900 of them have already been adapted into streamable films and series.