Vertical scrolling comics, or webtoons as you might call them, are quickly becoming more popular among younger comic readers, and now digital comics platform GlobalComix is jumping on the bandwagon with a major partnership with Dark Horse and other publishers.
Billed as a “major expansion,” the GlobalComix Vertical Originals line will feature comics from not only Dark Horse but also AWA, TKO, Top Cow, Vault Comics, Bad Egg, Humanoids, and more, with more publishers on the way.
GC Vertical Originals kicks off with Stranger Things, based on the hit Netflix series, which debuts today in both standard and “Upside-Down” editions. Other vertical titles debuting today include AWA’s Marjorie Finnegan: Temporal Criminal and Casual Fling, Top Cow/Image’s The Darkness, Humanoids’ Urban Legendz, TKO’s The Pull, The Banks, Lonesome Days and Savage Nights, Vault Comics’ Heavy and Bad Egg’s GODSLAP.
The series will continue to be released weekly, with Vault Comics’ Dying Inside, AWA’s Year Zero, and TopCow’s The Darkness due to be released in the coming months. Although the series is called Originals, which refers to comics that have been specially formatted for vertical scrolling, it’s not a new title; GC is working closely with publishers to convert the titles into a format that can be easily read on a smartphone.
The partnership with Dark Horse will bring more than 700 titles to the Scrolls format, including titles like The Witcher and Hellboy.
Vertical scrolling comics/webtoons are extremely popular among young comic readers. At Anime NYC, Tapas Entertainment shared research showing that 80% of users are between 17-25 years old and over 65% are female. This is a readership that prefers reading comics on their mobile phones over buying periodicals. So offering material in this format through GC Originals makes a lot of sense.
“As the graphic fiction industry continues to evolve, GC Vertical Originals is a huge passion project that reflects our team’s desire to bring the best comics selection to readers around the world,” GlobalComix CEO Christopher Carter said in a statement. “We’ve taken great care in translating the series to a vertical scrolling format to ensure every panel retains the original intent, resulting in a more mobile-friendly reading format that will captivate the next generation of comics readers.”
“Webcomics and mobile-enabled platforms are the next frontier in reaching fans wherever they are and whenever they want with comics,” Dark Horse CEO and founder Mike Richardson said in his own statement. “Partnering with Global Comics to bring Dark Horse titles and licensed assets to GC Vertical Originals is another step in our efforts to reach comics readers in new and exciting ways.”
All of these titles can be read on the GlobalComix app for iOS and Google Play, and on the web.
GlobalComix has provided a number of images showing the line, as well as a video below showing how this works.
Stranger Things – Upside Down Edition!
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