Frankfurt makes comics a priority

Frankfurt Book Fair is treating comics less like a side attraction and more like a rights market. Its 2026 plans put a dedicated Comics Business Centre and a Webtoon Area into the fair’s business machinery, not just its fan programming. (buchmesse.de) That shift matters because Frankfurt is not a comic convention first. It is the world’s biggest book-trade fair, and its own 2026 exhibitor pitch says the event is reorganizing halls around “market trends” and “trade” from 2026 onward. (buchmesse.de, buchmesse.de) Frankfurt’s comics team is saying the quiet part out loud: stories that begin as comics now move into television series, films, and games. The fair is building space around that pipeline because rights deals start long before a camera rolls. (buchmesse.de) The Webtoon Area is the clearest tell. Webtoons are digital comics built for phone screens, usually in a vertical scroll, and Frankfurt says comics now move “quite naturally” between books, webtoons, series and films. (buchmesse.de, giiresearch.com) Publishers are chasing that format because the money is no longer niche. Mordor Intelligence estimates the webtoons market at $14.44 billion in 2026, up from $10.85 billion in 2025. (mordorintelligence.com) Frankfurt did not invent this push in 2026. Its comics page says the Comics Business Centre in Hall 6.1 A62 was already expanded in 2025 to include a webtoon area, and the 2026 plan turns that expansion into a bigger statement about where the fair thinks growth is coming from. (buchmesse.de) The fair is also putting named staff behind the category. Charlotte Boschen has headed the International Comics Business Centre since 2022, which tells publishers this is now a year-round business lane with a person attached, not a temporary theme corner. (buchmesse.de) Trade fairs follow deal flow, and publishing media had already flagged this direction in mid-2025. Publishing Perspectives reported in July 2025 that Hall 6.1 would be Frankfurt’s main gathering point for comics, manga, and webtoons, months before the 2026 messaging sharpened. (publishingperspectives.com) What used to be a format decision now looks like an intellectual-property strategy. A comic can sell in print, a webtoon can build a global phone audience, and both can become the source material for a streaming show or a game if the rights are lined up early. (buchmesse.de) So the real news is not that Frankfurt likes comics more. It is that one of publishing’s biggest deal rooms is redesigning floor space around comics, manga, and webtoons because those formats now feed the wider entertainment business. (buchmesse.de, buchmesse.de)