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DC’s new Webtoon series Batman: Wayne Family Adventures accumulates more readers than Batman, Detective Comics and Urban Legends combined.
Batman: Wayne Family Adventures’ subscriber count has surpassed the monthly sales for Batman’s monthly series.
Batman: Wayne Family Adventures is the first collaboration between DC Comics and Webtoon. It heavily features Batman’s supporting cast and explores the relationships between Gotham’s vigilantes. The series launched with three episodes on September 8 and has since gained over 500k subscribers. The most recent monthly reports for Batman, Detective Comics and Batman: Urban Legends show those books selling roughly 125k, 53k and 44k, respectively. The last time a Batman title sold over 500k units was in 2019, when Detective Comics #1000 sold 574,705 copies.
Despite how those numbers may look on the surface, the growth of the digital market has not stopped print comics from growing. While many creators have decided to create digital-first comics through Substack – including Batman writer James Tynion IV – comic and graphic novel sales continue to grow. In 2020, comics drew in a total of over $1.2 billion. While roughly $160 million of that total came from the digital market, over $1 billion came through comic book stores and physical media channels. Additionally, Manga sales continue to reach record-breaking heights in North America thanks to the success of books like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kingdom and One Piece.
The success of Batman: Wayne Family Adventures is good news for comic book fans. Last month, DC announced a partnership with Webtoon that will see the publisher’s catalog of heroes brought over to the service. With over 72 million active monthly users, Webtoon offers DC an opportunity to expose new readers to their heroes and stories. In a statement, DC General Manager Daniel Cherry III said “Our shared goal is to create fun and compelling DC stories that all readers will enjoy,” before expressing DC’s ambition to “meet fans where ever they are.”
One of the possible keys to Batman: Wayne Family Adventures‘ popularity is that it offers something that traditional Batman comics don’t always feature: An emphasis on the everyday lives of its heroes. The first episode of the series focused on the Signal being invited to live alongside the Batman family in Wayne Manor.
The story is wholesome and family-friendly, making it easy for kids to jump in. This is in sharp contrast to the mainline Batman titles, which regularly feature intense action and often question the ethics behind murder. Ultimately, analyzing the variables behind Batman: Wayne Family Adventures‘ success will require some time, as more characters and concepts from DC’s catalog are brought to Webtoons in the future.
Source: Webtoon
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