There’s been a flurry of announcements in the digital comics space, and we round them up here.
DSTLRY has launched a beta version of its Marketplace, where digital copies of its comics and collectibles can be bought and sold by collectors, with a royalty on each sale going to the creator. DSTLRY sells digital copies of its comics for one week from release; after that time, copies will only be available from fans who purchased digital copies during that one-week window. Friday Happy Hours with creators, exclusive merch opportunities, and convention engagements tied to digital purchases transfer on resale to new owners. DSTLRY announced its marketplace concept in April 2023 (see “Former comiXology Execs’ New Publisher”); Veve launched its marketplace for Marvel digital comics sold on the platform in March (see “Comics’ Technologies in the News”).
GlobalComix now offers comics from Vault Comics and Magma Comix on its digital comics platform. In conjunction with the Vault launch, GlobalComix announced that it has translated six of Vault’s top titles into vertical scroll episodes: Barbaric, Finger Guns, The Blue Flame, Money Shot, Resonant, and The Rush. The translation is one part of a GlobalComix initiative to reformat comics to the vertical scroll format to make them more accessible to digitally native readers. Magma Comix announced it will give print versions of its comics a two-week exclusive window before releasing them in digital. GlobalComix launched its app last fall (see “GlobalComix Launches App“).
Manga tech startup Orange, Inc., which has developed technology to speed localization of manga into English, has raised a pre-Series A round of $19.5 million, the company announced. Investors in the round include manga powerhouse Shogakukan, Globis Capital Partners, ANRI, SBI Investment, JIC Venture Growth Investments, Miyako Capital, Chiba Dojo Fund, Mizuho Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and GFR Fund. Orange, Inc. has developed a manga localization system which has the capacity to translate 500 manga from Japanese into English per month, which Orange says is 5x more than the entire localization market. The software developed by Orange’s deep learning engineering team uses computer vision and natural language processing technologies. Orange will open a U.S. digital manga store this summer.
Source: ICV2
