Ellipse Animation pushes further into digital comics with webtoons arm

Paris-based Ellipse Animation is setting up a production arm for animated series based on digital comics (webtoons) as it looks to capitalise on strong demand for the format in the coming years.

Vertu de St-Cyr is from writer Rutile and animator/illustrator Yllogique

The fledgling webtoons arm will sit within Ellipse Studio Angoulême, the company’s animation studio in the south-west of France, and is about to start work on writer Rutile and animator/illustrator Yllogique’s series Vertu de Saint-Cyr.

Ellipse is a subsidiary of France’s Média-Participations, which also owns Belgian animation studios Belvision and Dreamwall, as well as publishing companies such as Dupuis and Dargaud. Dupuis has been creating webtoons with European and African authors since 2019, under the Webtoon Factory label.

In March last year, Média-Participations launched its webtoon platform Ono, managed by Ainara Ipas, with a selection of 300 series. The Ono app has been downloaded more than 350,000 times since its launch, according to Média-Participations.

Webtoons originated in South Korea in the late 1990s and have become a popular source of IP for live-action and animated series. France is the number one webtoon market in Europe, and fourth in the world, after Korea, Japan and the US, according to The Korea Creative Content Agency.

“Gen Z’s keen interest in webtoons is a planetary phenomenon. The market is anticipating strong demand by 2030 and Ellipse Animation, within the virtuous ecosystem of the Média-Participations group, wants to invest in this promising field,” said Ellipse Animation MD Caroline Audebert.

As well as adapt titles from Ono, Ellipse Animation is looking to create its own original webtoons, working with creative talent from its Angoulême studio and adapting animated films and series from its catalogue to the webtoons format.

“This new activity will allow us both to retain talents and to attract new ones. Webtoons are also major strategic assets for creating tomorrow’s transmedia IPs. The idea is to develop original titles with a global reach and adapt them in several formats, including animation, thanks to the different entities in the group,” added Audebert.

Ellipse, meanwhile, recently acquired a majority stake in Italian prodco Studio Campedelli.

Founded in 2008 by Pietro Campedelli and run by Anne-Sophie Vanhollebeke and Valeria Brambilla, the Milan- and Turin-based studio specialises in the creation and production of animated audiovisual content, including kids’ series Calimero.

Ellipse and Studio Campedelli are already working together on series Versailles Unleashed, which is currently in production for France Télévisions, and on feature film Prendiluna, currently in development.