At ThinkPub 2026, held during the Brussels Book Fair on 27 March 2026, Pierrick Crosnier compares fifteen years of digital-comics experience at IZNEO with the first three years of the webtoon platform ONO. Both services provide legal alternatives to piracy and maintain direct relationships with publishers, but their audiences, commercial models and patterns of reading are markedly different.
IZNEO combines individual purchases with an unlimited-reading subscription and offers more than 40,000 titles. Its Franco-Belgian comics and graphic-novel audience is predominantly male and aged between 38 and 54, while its manga readers are generally men aged between 21 and 30. Digital reading usually complements rather than replaces print: users discover series, locate unavailable volumes and complete collections at prices averaging approximately 60% of their physical equivalents.
ONO was launched in 2023 and offers more than 400 Korean, Chinese and French webtoon series. Its principal audience is 80% female and between 18 and 35, while male readers tend to concentrate on action-oriented properties resembling shōnen manga. Webtoon consumption is more voracious and open across genres, requiring frequent new episodes and substantial production capacity. Marketing consequently encompasses not only individual titles but also application design, animation, gamification and the broader experience surrounding major intellectual properties.
Piracy remains the central obstacle for both services. Free illegal access has reduced the perceived value of digital content, while global platforms can subsidise extensive free catalogues in ways smaller European companies cannot match. Many readers also remain unaware of the authors, studios, translators and technical teams behind webtoons. Crosnier therefore calls for stronger public action, industry education and communication about creative labour, rights and remuneration so that legal digital-reading services can remain sustainable.
Original French title: La lecture en ligne pour les lecteurs de BD et de webtoon
