digital comics have become very popular due to readers mostly reading titles on their smartphones and the lower barrier to create their own comics. In some countries, digital comics have revitalized the industry or even created them where they didn't exist before. In China, digital comics are known as "web manhua" and many of the big internet giants in the country have created platforms for anyone to submit their own works and read many titles for free, "U17" being an example. Thanks in part to free access to these comics and most being in color, the manhua industry has seen a surge in revenue and production in both China and Taiwan. On those platforms, there are comics created by so-called "Platinum Authors" who have over one million "Paid Subscription/Views" and one of the most successful one is "端脑" (the English version is valled "Die Now"). This single comic series has over 2,109,000,000 (2.109 billion) views. The team of authors for this web manhua earned over ten times the US national average salary. In recent years, several web manhua have been adapted into animated series, with some in co-production with the Japanese animation industry. In Japan, web manga have started to pick up steam as many manga artists choose to upload their own original works on image hosting sites and social media forgoing traditional publishers. Many of the big publishers have also launched digital magazines and websites where web manga get released alongside traditional print works. Unlike digital comics in other Asian countries, web manga are almost always released in black-in-white rather than color despite being released digitally in contrast to titles released in nearby countries. The South Korean manhwa industry actually created their own original format for comics called webtoons which helped revitalized the manhwa industry in the country. Before, the industry had difficulty taking off and becoming popular among readers due to the popularity of translated manga and lack of support for local titles. Webtoons have brought in new readers and fans of manhwa, both in South Korea and around the world. The popularity of webtoons has even led to other countries adopting the format to release their own comics. See also Comic Book Archive file, a digital media format used to view archived comics Mobile comic, comics for mobile devices Digital Comic Museum Webcomic Webtoon References Sources Moreno, Pepe & Gold, Mike (Introduction) (1990). Batman: Digital Justice, DC