DUANJU  NEWS

After an initial local screening in November 2024, the evening of June 14, 2025, took on an international dimension. In Montmartre, the Studio Phocéen association brought together a local audience and guests from Europe, America, Asia, and Africa for an evening dedicated to mobile vertical fiction, still little known in France. In a friendly atmosphere, spectators and professionals discussed a format that is gradually establishing itself as a new narrative language. The evening's presentation was provided by Maelle Billant , podcaster and international law expert, who coordinates the events of the Studio Phocéen association, alongside Jean-François Fonlupt , renowned producer and winner of four Palmes d'Or at Cannes with the company Ciby 2000 in the 90s, having collaborated with filmmakers such as David Lynch, Pedro Almodóvar and Emir Kusturica. The animation was also provided by Sylvain Binetti , Parisian actor and cabaret singer. French projections and a global opening The evening began with the screening on the big screen of five French fictions produced by Sanjorge Production : Amber, Bro's Minute, Militia Men, King Gandolfi and Next Door Adventure. These series, for viewing on a phone, illustrate the evolution of a more direct and rhythmic visual writing. Also present at the evening were actors Jean-Louis Barcelona, whose rich filmography includes many popular films, and Magali Semetys, an actress familiar to television series audiences. Actor Michel La Rosa was also in the spotlight with the screening of King Gandolfi. A familiar figure from 1980s television, he now plays this central character in an adaptation of the Duanju format. His presence illustrates the transition of a face from the small screen to the world of digital fiction. Another highlight was the presence of Tony Leva, voice actor and founder of SyncLab Studio, who presented his work in French-language dubbing of mobile series for platforms such as Stardust TV and Netshort. His presentation illustrated how dubbing paves the way for a European appropriation of the format. An international vision of the format Several foreign guests shared their interpretations of the phenomenon. Mexican producer Yamile Vaena emphasized the need for a new narrative language, fast and bold, born from the constraint of writing in a few seconds. Her compatriot Veronica Angeles-Franco compared Duanju to Latin American telenovelas, seeing it as a condensed reinvention of great popular narratives. American screenwriter Jenny Rosen spoke about her transition from web novels to vertical dramas, highlighting the rapid growth of audiences and the inspiration this format draws from online literature. Californian producer Karla M. Rodriguez, who comes from the worlds of fashion and digital media, defended Duanju as a strategic ground for innovation and diversity for the new generation of talent. On the British side, BAFTA and Emmy-winning producer Adam Gee came specially from England to present the Smart Film Fest , an international festival dedicated to films shot on smartphones. For him, vertical storytelling is " the language of this generation " a new wave comparable to the energy of the French New Wave. Journalist Jen Cooper, founder of Vertical Drama Love, recalled how the format had reconciled female audiences with romantic fiction, offering immediate emotional effectiveness. Finally, Chinese producer Wenwen Han, founder of the Short Drama Alliance, placed Duanju within the heritage of online novels distributed in China since the 1990s. She emphasized the importance of screenwriters, who are often invisible, and the need to connect creators from all over the world to build bridges between Asian and European markets. New platforms and perspectives The evening was also an opportunity to discover StoryTV, a Duanju platform presented by Alexandre Perrin and Adrien Cottinaud. This platform offers micro-series of 1 to 3 minutes with a narrative mechanics focused on immediate attention and sharing. For its founders, Europe still represents a “virgin” market, promising for the development of Duanju. A founding step By bringing together local screenings and international interventions, the evening of June 14, 2025, marked a milestone in the establishment of Duanju in France. It demonstrated the richness of a format capable of uniting creators from very diverse backgrounds and laying the foundations for a global dialogue around new forms of storytelling.

If there is one format that uses it, it is the Duanju: a rhythmic milestone and tool for attention, the cliffhanger serves the narrative arc as much as the economic model of duanju, provided it is thought out and used with finesse. Definition and legacy of the soap opera cliffhanger Every viewer has already experienced the "cliffhanger" effect while watching a series: that moment when the story, instead of giving us more to see, suspends. The Anglo-Saxon etymology puts it simply: " cliff" , the cliff; " hang" , to remain hanging. The hero is left at the edge, facing the void, and we with him. The invention is neither new nor confined to the digital format: it developed in the 19th century in newspaper serials, when the episode ends at the exact point that requires buying the next issue. However, the use of the cliffhanger takes on a new dimension within duanju. In the attention economy, the cliffhanger is a driver of viewer loyalty: to come back later but soon, to resolve what was left hanging. Duanju, the art of cutting and breaking The cliffhanger is a narrative device as old as the soap opera and yet as new as our phone screens. If it's making a strong comeback with duanju , it's not simply through mimicry. Indeed, duanju isn't just a new viewing habit. It's a new form of writing. Each ultra - short episode imposes an art of cutting: concluding without finalizing, promising without disappointing, setting the pace without running out of steam. The cliffhanger fits naturally into it, episode after episode, like a sensitive metronome: it punctuates the action, sets a memory marker, plants a promise or an uncertainty that calls for its resolution. In this format, suspense is not a stylistic extra: it is the very backbone of the story. Memory of the Unfinished: The Zeigarnik Effect We know why the cliffhanger works so well. The viewer, carried away by the narrative and emotional tension, returns all the more willingly because there is still something to resolve between him and the story. Psychology has given a name to this memory of the unfinished: the Zeigarnik effect . An interrupted task is better imprinted than a completed task and an unfulfilled desire remains active. In the same way, an episode that stops before the resolution imprints a mnemonic tension: the story remains open and the viewer wants to return to it. The cliffhanger uses this mechanism creatively when it knows how to stop just before the answer, on the threshold of resolution, where the mind remains active. Converting the fear of missing out into action Another explanation. Duanju fits in with our fragmented time, our accelerated pace of life, and our reduced availability, as well as with the search for immediate intensity, surprise, and novelty. This last quest responds to the phenomenon of FOMO (fear of missing out in English), the fear of missing out on something. The cliffhanger crystallizes this dynamic: it materializes the stakes of the story in the form of an acute present tense (“something is happening now”), triggers curiosity, and converts interest into action (watching the next episode). Fiction and its intrusion into reality The cliffhanger technique also engages the digital format specific to duanju. Thanks to mobile devices, tension can escape the diegesis, the time of the story, to extend its effects outside the episode and burst into reality. The notifications inviting the audience to pick up the thread of the interrupted story constitute a piece of extradiegetic writing. This hook, which lights up on the phone between two meetings, recalls the promise awaiting resolution and resituates the stakes of this story that had been put on hold. A notification no longer simply encourages the viewer to immerse themselves in the story again, it relaunches the fiction with a short sentence in the form of a promise: "You'll never guess who's back in the next episode..." The cliffhanger transforms attention into gesture, passivity into action: watch the next episode, like, share, comment. The cliffhanger then becomes a temporal signal as much as a narrative figure: it seeks out the viewer within their everyday reality to bring them back to the fiction. Done well, this back-and-forth between fiction and everyday life reinforces engagement. Done poorly, it becomes a crude "push" and damages trust. One tool, two possible effects. The cliffhanger put to the paywall: conversion and economic tipping point Economically, the cliffhanger also has a performative function and accelerates the shift: closing access to the first free episodes, it precedes the paywall and the promise of resolution becomes a promise of conversion. Does the cliffhanger then become a simple economic tool? Or can it also constitute a possible alignment between the narrative gesture (promising a sequel) and the product gesture (offering to continue now for a fee)? This seems possible to the extent that the first gesture remains coherent and convincing, not subject to the financial model. The paywall should not be a guillotine that cuts in the middle of a sentence: it works when it is inserted after a clear promise and before a short resolution, fitting into the very logic of the story and its progression. The wear and tear of suspense: excess and caricature Another trap: overkill or caricature. A promise, repeated too often, wears thin. We end up recognizing the seams, anticipating the false alarm, and growing tired of an intensity that's always at the same level. The misunderstood cliffhanger becomes an old refrain added at the end of the verse by reflex, or an editing trick that artificially concludes the scene without it carrying any stakes. This potential dramatic inflation then works at the cost of credibility. The characters stop learning or choosing: they only serve as vectors for yet another twist. The promise becomes disappointing, and the bond of trust with the viewer withers away. We return by reflex, not by desire. Towards mastering tension This is why the cliffhanger must be used not as an automatic narrative instrument but as an ecology of tension: a way of managing, saving, surprising, alternating. Every promise requires preparation, clear formulation, and resolution. The ideal cliffhanger is not one that contradicts the narrative thread, it is one that is inevitable: unpredictable in its form, necessary in its meaning. In duanju , this discipline of the cliffhanger is accompanied by a good evaluation of the frequency, rhythm, and delay between promise and resolution. It is up to the screenwriter or director to orchestrate: end-of-sequence questions, suspended lines, interrupted actions (micro-cliffhangers), end-of-episode suspensions (macro-cliffhangers). Without forgetting, between two episodes with strong cliffhangers, breathing spaces, partial resolutions, humor, moments of intimacy, so that the frustration attached to the cliffhangers remains positive and the progression of the story remains fluid. The example of the series “ Next Door Adventure ” (Sanjorge Production) We observe this fine orchestration in the mini-series Next Door Adventures, produced by Sanjorge Production , which masters its narrative. In this fiction, the cliffhangers truly shift the story, which begins as the encounter between a candid young man and his overly charming neighbor, with a clumsy game of seduction on the part of the former. Then, a castle appears and with it, a change of scale and setting. The appearance of this surprising castle opens a new space for play and mystery. A butler then enters the scene. A disruptive character, he upsets the emerging dynamic between the young man and his neighbor: the duo becomes a trio. The dance of seduction is interrupted just as it was taking shape. The emotional tension gains in density because a third party redistributes forces and complicates rapprochements. Further on, the fantastical erupts: mischievous gnomes shake up realism, add the unexpected and adventures, forcing the heroes to reveal themselves through trials. This new genre enriches the series' register. And the viewer shares the characters' surprise: a suitcase shelters the improbable, the butler mysteriously disappears. The audience is attached because the obstacle is not artificial: it tests the romance, forces it to redefine itself. Here, each cliffhanger serves to advance the story (new location, new stakes), a transformation of the relationship between the two main characters (complicity, admiration), a renewed emotion (desire, expectation, fear), or a revelation. The tension of the cliffhanger becomes both an emotional and narrative springboard. Vary the suspense and pleasures The open question ("how will the romance evolve?") does not have the same music as the suspended decision (continue the adventure as a couple or as a threesome), which does not have the same effect as the deferred revelation (the butler's disappearance), as the countdown that shrinks time, as the reversal that reverses a certainty, as the dramatic irony that delivers to the audience what the hero still does not know, or as the dilemma that promises meaning more than action. Should we abandon codes? Rather, we should work on them as families of effects to be varied rather than repeated. We can call upon them all, but not together, not all the time, not without progression or coherence with the story. With each cliffhanger, the key question remains: what is its impact on a character's arc? If there is none, we have probably hung a decorative effect. Use cliffhangers sparingly Why shouldn't we overuse cliffhangers? Because rhythm isn't just about endings: it's born from the density of scenes, the intensity of looks, gestures, and silences. Because promise without resolution is just disappointment. Because variety in tone, intensity, or genre protects against weariness. Because emotion matters as much as plot: what we're following isn't a well-oiled technique that works every time; it's above all an evolution of the story and the characters. Measure to tell a better story Because duanju offers precise metrics, it allows us to observe the effectiveness of a cliffhanger: viewing time, series continuation rate, abandonment after cliffhanger, and comments. If a type of cliffhanger leads to abandonment or rejection by the audience, this data is above all an opportunity to rewrite the balance. The challenge is to build long-term viewer loyalty. In conclusion... Duanju thus reinvents the structure of the soap opera, and the cliffhanger is one of its key tools. Used well, carefully prepared, and meaningful for the story and the characters, it accelerates the narrative while respecting the viewer. The cliffhanger, in duanju , must once again become a consequence of the story, not its condition. Otherwise, it exhausts and impoverishes. Balance is the key: alternating promise and resolution, tension and breathing space, surprise and fluidity. It is on this condition that duanju , a new narrative form as much as a new consumption format, will continue to bring the word "soap opera" up to date. Article written by Maëlle Billant #MaelleBillant Sources: Webmd , July 12, 2024 Thinking about changing , February 28, 2021

Since 2023, the bistro Le Sap'Heure, located on Place Jacques Froment near Montmartre, has established itself as a must-visit location for the French-style Duanju format. Between filming, screenings, and neighborhood life, it combines conviviality, gastronomy, and audiovisual creation. This new mobile fiction format has found one of its Parisian anchors here. From plate to fiction In November 2023, Le Sap'Heure served as the setting for a scene from the series Next Door Adventure, directed by Jérémy Haeffele and broadcast on Stardust TV. In this scene, the hero, played by Guillaume Sanjorge, confides his wildest dreams to his neighbor, played by Lana Sfera, during a meeting full of humor and poetry in the intimate atmosphere of the bistro. A fraternal comedy on a large counter In 2024 and 2025, the bistro hosted the entire filming of La Minute des Frangins, a contemporary comedy in Duanju format produced by Sanjorge Production. Between complicity and brotherly bickering, the characters found a natural playground in this setting. The actors Sylvain Binetti, Guillaume SanJorge, Chloé Borivage, Claudia Notte, Claire Butard and Anaïs Petit played colorful roles there. An international projection On June 14, 2025, the Sap'Heure was transformed into a screening room during an evening organized by the Studio Phocéen association. In front of a local audience and guests connected from around the world, five Duanju fictions produced by Sanjorge Production were presented: Amber, Bro's Minute, Militia Men, King Gandolfi and Next Door Adventure. The screening ended with a session of dynamic exchanges between international professionals and French teams. A literary and cultural breath More than just a film set, Sap'Heure is also a space for creation and inspiration. It was here that part of Kamel Daoud 's book Houris was written, which won the Prix Goncourt, one of France's highest literary awards. A restaurateur's passion At the origin of this artistic and culinary dynamic is Benor Attouche, a passionate entrepreneur proud of his Kabyle roots and deeply in love with France. With his team, he offers simple and refined French cuisine during the week, before giving way to oriental flavors on the weekend. Thanks to his affordable prices and his sense of hospitality, he has transformed Le Sap'Heure into a true rallying point for locals as well as travelers and various personalities. A Parisian anchor for Duanju Through its filming and events, Sap'Heure illustrates Duanju's deep roots in Parisian life. Blending art, gastronomy, and fiction, this bar-restaurant proves that a convivial space can also become a stage where the future of digital creation is written. Sap'Heure could well become for Duanju what Café des Deux Moulins is for Amélie, or what Central Perk is for the cult series Friends .

Before joining the international platform Stardust TV in 2025, the soap opera miniseries " Next Door Adventure " had already achieved viral success on Facebook, racking up nearly 700,000 views. Two initial excerpts released in spring 2023 revealed the potential of this format, which is still new in France. In 2023, no French-language platform yet existed, even though the format was already booming abroad. In China, 2023 marks the explosion of mini-vertical soap operas. In this landscape, Next Door Adventure is a French pioneer, taking part in a global trend. On April 12, 2023, the first episode reached 400,000 views, along with more than a thousand likes and numerous shares. Two months later, on June 22, another episode confirmed the craze with more than 300,000 views and a new wave of enthusiastic reactions. The audience praised the light tone, the beauty of actress Lana Sfera and the endearing character played by Guillaume Sanjorge : "It's really good, I love it, bravo you're the best," wrote one spectator. "You have the soul of an actor and a unifier ," added another. Some were amused by the situations: "So we have to give sugar instead of salt, is that it?" or "Holy salt!" From Facebook to Stardust TV The project was then shortened to fit Duanju standards, with a faster pace and condensed episodes. In April 2025, the series joined Stardust TV 's international catalog, becoming the first original French production available in eight languages (French, English, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish and German). Mobile fiction platforms offer a more suitable environment than social networks for this type of format: they allow the viewer to follow the story episode by episode, with an experience designed for serialization and viewing on smartphones. Thus, the adventures born on social networks found a second wind on an international platform, confirming the format's ability to cross borders. Source : Facebook - Guillaume Sanjorge , June 23, 2025 Morandini Blog , April 13, 2025

The evolution of framing and formats in painting. Since the art of caves, humans have had to delimit what they wanted to reproduce. But each figure from this distant era seems to us today to be placed without order among others. With the birth of agriculture and therefore the organization of cultivated fields, the drawn or sculpted surface began to respect a certain geometry. As for painting, the first ancient traces that remain are frescoes applied to walls or tombs, sometimes on scrolls, then later to the walls of churches or on wooden panels intended to decorate the altars of these places of worship. This of course implied that the format did not come from an artistic decision but simply conformed to the surface allocated to it. We also saw the first manifestations of small formats, as decoration, often admirable, of the pages of religious books. After the Middle Ages, formats began to become more precise and the frame began to be distinguished from the painting itself. It should be noted that easel painting allowed for the generalization of small or medium sizes, while the arrival of canvas, which lightened the overall weight, encouraged the mobility of works. The development of art academies and the circulation of works led to the definition of more precise dimensions, according to genre. "Modernity", from the 20th century onwards, was based on the idea of constantly questioning what has been acquired and on the need for constant innovation, hence the disappearance - for better or for worse - of all rules, and therefore the possibility of practicing all sizes or even irregularities of format! In the article "From the widescreen to the pocket screen " , we study, using the example of cinema, that contemporary production of images, in all its forms, is also the heir to what we have just described. Article written by Jean-Marie Sanjorge #JeanMarieSanjorge

Cinematographic framing, formats and innovations. The connection is easy with our previous reflection on the history of painting : we mentioned the "frame," first fixed and then detachable, as the outer limit of the painting. With cinema, the "frame" became in some way the container of the filmed image. But in our time, this notion has taken on a strong technical dimension because it is inevitably linked to the idea of format: in the same width of film, it has been possible to integrate images of several dimensions. As the widths of films have been numerous, the possible combinations have been considerable! But, artistically, framing has never been neutral: beyond the technical constraints, it remains a tool aimed at focusing the viewer's attention or arousing their emotion. Supported moreover by screens of various dimensions: from the "standard" to the vast "cinemascope", spectacular in theaters but which during multiple rebroadcasts is difficult to fit into the space offered, for example, on a television screen... Digital cinema, a new major step, is based, as we know, on the use of computer programs at all stages of production and then distribution: the notion of "virtual framing" or now the use of artificial intelligence. Finally, the mobile phone is proving to be a tool for disseminating constructed images, but which had to be filmed beforehand, taking into account the constraint of vertical reading. Hence the name "vertical fictions". With, here again, new necessities having to take into consideration human attention spans when faced with a very small image. And, for "vertical fiction", the birth of a new challenge: to go beyond its own limits and the risk of oversimplification, to seek, or even create, a new type of quality! How long should a film be? This is obviously a fundamental notion, linked to technical developments but also having to remain mindful of the audience's attention span! We have all had the opportunity to see the "silent films" of the first part of the 20th century, often humorous (but not always) and generally quite short (but not always). Also including their share of masterpieces, sometimes of long duration. It was with the birth of talking cinema, with which the "7th art" would then literally identify, that the average duration lengthened to generally reach an hour and a half to two hours. With some "classics", very appreciated by the spectators, approaching four hours of projection. Even some non-standard, more "elitist" films, with exceptionally long durations. At the same time, the "short film" developed: originally conceived as a tool for experimenting with new techniques at low cost, it gradually acquired the status of a "genre" in its own right, giving rise to innovations and appreciated festivals, but unfortunately still remaining at a distance from the general public. It is often only a step towards the feature film, even though one could consider it to have value in itself. Through the qualities it implements (concentration of emotion, use of a limited time, essential creativity) it can become a source of reference and enrichment for even shorter forms linked to current developments: vertical fictions! With this new genre, born of new technologies, the duration becomes so short (1 minute 30 seconds!) that it is an extreme challenge, which can appear contrary to the necessities of the most basic quality. This is where we have to create! The field of beauty is open to us... Article written by Jean-Marie Sanjorge #JeanMarieSanjorge

In an interview with WenWen Han on the YouTube channel Short Drama Decode , American producer Chris Wicke looks back on his career and his immersion in the world of duanju, these short vertical fictions born in China. Long confined to Asia, the format is now attracting professionals from around the world. In Los Angeles, Chris Wicke, a former reality TV specialist, is one of the first Americans to embark on the adventure. With his company Ember Entertainment , he develops his own vertical series while co-producing fiction for Flex TV , Dreamy Short and Salty TV . His first project, Mr. Williams, Madame is Dying , shot on a shoestring budget, became a phenomenon: it generated more than $10 million, won an international award, and was a revelation for his entire team. " We discovered a very codified, very melodramatic genre. We decided to fully embrace that tone. And in the end, it worked." Since then, Chris Wicke has been interested in the deeper mechanisms of the format. "It's not at all a shortened version of a film or a series. You have to rethink everything: the rhythm, the emotions, the narrative structure. Traditional scripts don't work. I showed 25 American scripts to Flex, none of them were suitable." The question of cultural adaptation is at the heart of his work. While some plots from the Chinese web find their audience in the United States, others are met with incomprehension. " The vengeful mother character in Evil Bride vs. CEO's Secret Mom was too much for me. But at the same time, I wanted to see how it would end," he confides, amused. With Ember, Chris Wicke now wants to go further. He's preparing the launch of a 100% American app, focused on romance, the genre that works best, but with the ambition to explore other territories: horror, science fiction, comedy. "The vertical is the new Wild West. Everything remains to be invented." But the stakes are also industrial. For Wicke, failures like Quibi's are due to a misdiagnosis: "They wanted to impose Hollywood grammar on a format that came from elsewhere, with totally different usage logic. They invested millions in stars. It didn't work. Here, everything is based on immediate emotion." We wish Chris Wicke the best of luck in his ambition to expand the boundaries of duanju and contribute to its development on an international scale. If needed, activate subtitles in your language. #WenwenHan

Over the past decade, the way we watch series has changed profoundly. With the rise of streaming, binge-watching, watching episodes one after the other without a break, has become almost the norm. Netflix, almost in spite of itself, has imposed this model by making all seasons available as soon as they are released. Added to this is another phenomenon, already noted in 2017 by France Inter : "speed-watching." More and more viewers are speeding up their series, watching them at 1.25x or 1.5x, to save time without sacrificing content. In his column, the journalist explicitly notes: "It's the length of the episodes that will have to be shortened." This reflex illustrates a contemporary paradox: wanting to see everything, consume everything, without having the time. It also reveals a need among some users: that of brevity. In an article published in 2017, Alexandre Foatelli (INA) discusses the effects of binge-watching and speed-watching, which weaken silences, glances and breathing, discreet but essential elements of narration. In 2020, Olivier Joyard, in Les Inrockuptibles, took a critical look at this practice. Beyond saving time, he denounced a utilitarian consumption of the story: accelerated viewing transforms series into anecdotal objects, emptied of their tension and emotional charge. In 2023, Valérie Parlan, in Ouest-France, noted the anchoring of " speed-watching " in usage: almost a third of viewers would now resort to it, seeking to optimize their time. Finally, in 2025, Katia De la Ballina observed in Le Point a general exhaustion: overwhelmed by the offer, a majority of viewers admit to being tired of the inflation of content and the implicit obligation to follow everything. These findings reveal the lack of a truly suitable soap opera format. Already busy with busy days, viewers struggle to devote several hours to a series without feeling a kind of bitterness: that of having sacrificed too much of their lives to entertainment. Look better, look short: Asian responsiveness. Chinese producers and platforms have developed a new format: duanju. Driven by an already profitable economy, it is gaining popularity and is beginning to be exported. It offers episodes of 1 to 3 minutes. Whereas a classic series lasts ten hours in total, duanju condenses the entire plot into one hour. His challenge now will be to attract the most ambitious creators and artists of the genre. Article written by Guillaume Sanjorge #GuillaumeSanjorge Sources: • France Inter , January 3, 2017 • INA – The Media Review , September 25, 2017 • Les Inrocks , August 17, 2020 • Ouest-France , February 1, 2023 • Le Point , July 1, 2025

We're in London, and a new generation of creators is taking on the Duanju format. Among them, Onset Octopus is emerging as a key player in this transition to mobile drama. Already more than 15 series produced. Founded by producer Ben Pengilly , the studio is churning out vertical dramas delivered to platforms like DramaBox and ReelShort. Its team is cosmopolitan, experienced, and built for the vertical format. Samantha has produced six series since 2024, including My Serial Killer Lover . Award-winning director Dan Löwenstein blends dramatic tension with social issues. Hui Zhang, trained in China and at the London Film School, masters the codes of mobile storytelling. The studio also collaborates with Andrea Catinella, Jenn Ravenna Tran, and Henk Pretorius, from Italy, the United States, and South Africa, all specialists in short, visual, and effective storytelling. Onset Octopus aims to make the United Kingdom a new creative hub for vertical drama. Located in the heart of a pool of English-speaking actors, Pengilly benefits from a strategic advantage: offering content in English, the genre's main export language. Sources: • The Times , July 22, 2025

In the article " When Comics Created Weekly Suspense " I said, but without elaborating, that the arrival of digital had transformed the economic model of comics (although classic albums remain very numerous on the shelves of our bookstores!). This deserves to be addressed here. So let's go! This is direct online publication, which does not only mean a change of medium: these creations, from the end of the 90s of the 20th century, would influence major elements, such as graphic style or fragmented narration. And this for the better (rich and unforeseen innovations) or for the worse (facilities, inconsistencies, immediate correspondences with advertising concerns). See Maliki, XKCD or The Oatmeal. The link with the reader was also disrupted: possibilities of immediate reactions generating a new form of interaction. Apparent distancing of publishers in the usual sense of the term, although traditional publishing houses are also evolving by offering digital versions of their collections... While conversely, digital comics can give rise to... Paper editions! Applications were going to correspond to these new trends: Izneo, Tapas or Webtoon. We talk about scrolling format, namely the fact of scrolling content on a computer screen (scroller), including vertical reading (we know!). It is difficult to fully describe a fluid universe, by nature unstable, capable of doing without the famous text bubbles or of suddenly integrating elements of augmented reality, hyperlinks or even video games! Note, financially, for the actors, the new role of participatory financing ! What conclusion should we draw? But... should we draw a conclusion? This is a new stage still in progress: I have already mentioned, in my opinion, what are its clearly visible characteristics. Here at our Duanju site, we'll be keeping an eye out! As always... Article written by Jean-Marie Sanjorge #JeanMarieSanjorge