Comics that 'make the world feel happy, moved'

Chen said, "Generation Z consumers pay more attention to content consumption and they are more willing to create their own content."

Data from the Beijing-based market research company Guduo Media showed 80 percent of high-quality original Chinese cartoon and comics in China are posted on Kuaikan, judging from the users' interactions, and comments.

Kuaikan hopes to maintain the young-people-first strategy in overseas markets where DC Comics, a division of WarnerMedia, announced a deal in August with Webtoon, a South Korean mobile comics platform, to distribute new stories of DC characters in the vertically scrolling mobile app. The move is seen by many as an attempt to grow the audience for superheroes among younger readers.

Ren Hongli, managing director of CCB International (Shenzhen) Investment Co Ltd, said as a very young and energetic platform, Kuaikan represents the future of Chinese comics and it has already achieved excellent results in exporting Chinese comics.

DC Comics made an interesting try with its new Chinese superhero Monkey Prince. As a spinoff of Wu Cheng'en's 16th-century epic Journey to the West, Monkey Prince was created by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang.

Monkey Prince was launched in the anthology DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration (2021) in May, which generated an immediate buzz among comic fans.

Edward Cheng, vice-president of Tencent, said, "The prerequisite for China's cultural works to reach a broader foreign audience, especially younger generations, is to have excellent China stories well told."

Driven by that realization, Tencent decided to adopt three approaches: exploring the full potential of theatrical topics based on daily lives; developing intellectual property derived from quality internet novels, cartoons and comics; and fostering an ecosystem of content creativity and industrialized production.

For instance, Super Cube is a Kuaikan comic series about an ordinary boy who provokes underworld gangsters, accidentally receives goddesses' boon, and obtains a mysterious cube that brings him superpowers.

Super Cube became popular on Japanese platform Piccoma, according to Kuaikan. "We are using digitization to create an innovative mode of creation, distribution, and commercialization of comics. We want to create works that can make the world feel happy and moved," Chen said.