Decade of DC Digital Comics: 2011

This year have DC digital-firsts 10th year anniversary so I want to write a series of articles about it´s every year since 2011. It will have nine parts as in 2018 DC had only one digital series. I already have one place for presenting old digital series. But in Pearls of Digital Comics I don't want to write all the time about DC, there is plenty of Comixology, Marvel, Archie and other digital series. After every part, I don't want to have in Pearls a DC series older than the presented year. So after this, you will see only DC titles from 2012 and newer there.

 

Year 2011 was big for DC. In comics they had mega-successful initiative New 52, which can be hated by older fans, but new continuity which was established there is canon to this day. They had 9 issues in yearly Top 10, 17 in Top 20. Batman, Justice League, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, but also edge and horor titles such as Swamp Thing, Animal Man and Justice League Dark gave new readers plenty of options on how to start with DC. And the publisher did not suceed only with comics - in games, they published Arkham Ciry, first successor to Arkham Asylum, one of the fastest selling games in history, to huge critical acclaim. They started MMO DC Universe Online, big surprise, which was most played game at Playstation Network in 2011 and which played 18 millions players in 2014. In visual media, they were wrapping Smallville and everything was prepared for the first superhero shared universe in TV at CW - and for the end of Nolan's trilogy in “The Dark Knight Rises”.

In comics, there were new forms trying. Motion comics was after three years in DC and Marvel biggest books seen as dead-end - nor Astonishing X-men, Batgirl: Year One or Black Panther were popular enough with this medium. But traditional comic books in digital form seem to be the way to connect medium with new fors raised with the internet. First was Archie comics - In April 2011 they announced that its entire line will be available digitally on the same day as the print release. At New York Comic Con they announced digital-only imprint Red Circle Comics with superhero titles. (Last year Archie as the first non-manga publisher started to add new issues to subscription service the same day as they were released - in a situation, when Marvel had a six month and DC one year gap between it).

DC didn´t want to be behind so they started their first digital only titles. Ar first (and in huge portions during all decade) they were related to their non-comics releases.

Batman: Arkham City Digital Exclusives

First author of DC digital only comics was Paul Dini, known from Batman: The Animated Series and Arkham Asylum, creator of Harley Quinn. In May 2011 he started printed comics series Batman: Arkham City set six months before Arkham City, describing changes after Arkham Asylum. It was a monthly five issue mini but one week after the first issue DC released an 8 page long Exclusive Digital chapter which explained some things from the printed issue. They released seven such chapters till October when the game was released. First five were printed as Arkham City Special issue and in trade and hardcover collections of Arkham City. Chapters 6 and 7 were printed in the first TPB of Arkham Unhinged. All issues were written by Dini and Derek Fridolfs, prolific DC writer/artist of the 2000´s, who also helped with art. It was released in tablet half-page format as the first series in this format released by Big 2.

Batman: Arkham Unhinged 

In October, when Arkham City was released and the comic series ended, Fridolfs started Batman: Arkham Unhinged. This was the longest digital first series in this time as it had 58 weekly chapters printed in 20 issues and four TPBs. First three chapters in issue #1 served as the prologue to Catwoman DLC of Arkham City. All these were generally short stories set during and behind of Arkham City - until chapter 44. Then was series handed to science fiction author Karen Treviss, known also from Star Wars and Halo novels. She wrote one big story for 15 chapters (five printed issues), collected as Batman: Arkham Unhinged vol. 4.

Fringe: Beyond the Fringe 

Third DC digital series this year, first TV related and first DC digital mini was tie-in to TV series Fringe. The TV series was created by veterans J.J.Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, big at the start, with huge fandom. And Joshua Jacskson who played one of the main characters there, Peter Bishop, wanted to write comics. So DC released Beyond the Fringe, set between seasons 3 and 4, as digital mini series. It has 12 chapters in six printed issues. Chapters were named after issues with A and B after it, so in the first printed issue were digital chapters 1a and 1b. Apart from Jackson writers like Nicole Phillips or Danielle Dispaltro serve the series with art by Jorge Jimenez, Becky Cloonan and others. Series was then collected in TPB.

There was also #0 af Superman Beyond released in 2011 but regular series started only in April 2012 after Batman Beyond vol. 3 and Justice League Beyond debuted. Year 2012 with 12 series in about six universes was the biggest for DC digital. So wait for next month's continuation of this article.