“Lore Olympus”, by an amateur writer, won Digital Book of the Year.
Naver Webtoon announced on October 9th that “Lore Olympus” was selected as the winner of the “Digital Book of the Year” category at the 2022 US Harvey Awards.
“Lower Olympus,” written by Rachel Smythe, has won the Harvey Award for the second year in a row, showing its global influence.
The Harvey Award was established in 1988 to honor the work of American cartoonist and editor Harvey Kurtsman. Together with the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, it is an internationally recognized award given for achievement in comic books.
From August of last year to July of this year, among the works serially and published, six nominees were selected and the final winner was announced by a professional jury at the New York Comic Con.
“Lore Olympus” is a romance fantasy that reinterprets the Greek mythology of the underworld king Hades and the goddess of agriculture Persephone in a modern way. It is an original webtoon of Naver Webtoon English service that has surpassed 1.2 billion global views.
Previously, in July of this year, “Lore Olympus” made history by winning an Eisner Award in the webcomic category for the first time as a vertical scrolling webtoon genre.
This award is even more meaningful because it is a work that Naver Webtoon discovered in the global webtoon ecosystem. Rachel Smythe is a writer from New Zealand who made her debut through Naver Webtoon’s overseas challenge comic system “Canvas”.
Canvas is an amateur creative space that applies the UCC bulletin board “Challenge Cartoon” built by Naver Webtoon to the global market. Currently, 820,000 amateur creators from around the world are gathering to create a large-scale global creative ecosystem.
Writer Rachel Smythe said upon winning, “I am delighted to receive a big award that I’ve never imagined for two consecutive years. I am grateful to Naver Webtoon and fans for helping me challenge a new genre of webtoon. I will do my best to meet your expectations in the future.”
Lee Shin Ok, head of the North American business content for Naver Webtoon, said, “I am happy to be able to share this journey with Rachel Smythe, who wrote a new history. Naver Webtoon has steadily invested to expand the global webtoon base since 2014. We will continue to increase the value of webtoons as the world’s No. 1 webtoon platform.”
Source: Daum
