Batman Franchise

I am researching into transmedia storytelling and how that has been done with many different stories that we read or watch. The book by Tyler Weaver, Comics for Film, Games & Animation and Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture have been the main sources for my information in the blogposts and my essay. The case studies I am researching into will be stories that I have experienced in some way whether through films, games or comics.
The research I find will coincide with my Context of Practice essay.
Batman, the superhero character first appeared in the series 'Detective Comics' in 1939, then later on in a comic mainly based on him in spring 1940.

Since then, with a massive amount of adventures his encountered, his world has developed with new characters and villains to conquer. The world has been developed and expanded into video-games, films, merchandise and television series.
A cartoon animated series later on was created to entertain children, it ran from the September 1992 until 1995. It inspired other series to be created to such as Superman and other DC character from the Justice League.
The animations  in the beginning were structured similarly to the comics, the stories were the same, they were not developed or added on so in the early stages the animated did lack direction.

There have been many different stories such as The New Batman Adventures  and Batman Beyond. told of Batman's adventures with new characters such as his famous sidekick Robin.
This is an example of the convergence of comics and animation, the Batman animation series were capable of standing on their own without some audiences needing to buy the comics to understand the stories.
One of the characters, Harley Quinn, from the world of Batman had a short story to explain how she evolved. It was titled, Mad Love, it explained how her character descended ''into madness and a warped version of coupledom with the Joker, Mad Love deepened the psycho-sexual undertones only hinted at in The Animated Series (TAS).'' (Weaver,2012, 234)

For the world of Batman, Gotham City has been re-created in many different mediums such as films and games.

Videogames are considered the ''most immersive form of entertainment available. ....the players form a deep connection to the universe and the characters that populate the world.'' (Weaver, 2012, 240) 

There have been various Batman games created, the most popular are Batman: Arkham City and Arkham Asylum.

Arkham City game was written by Paul Dini and containing character designs done by Carlos D'Anda.

Paul Dini

This is were a 'place' or 'environment' from a story can have important backstories or events that have happened that can be explored. There are separate comics series that present readers to the Arkham version containing the characters Catwoman, Robin & Two-Face.

There are merchandises that increase the knowledge of the character Batman from t-shirts to shoes to costumes.

http://horrorwarehouse.com/images/playartskaiarkhamasylumbatmanactionfigure.jpg

The recent Batman films, that I have watched have been Batman Begins, The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises. These films have grossed in million dollars of money and made Batman popular again among the general public. The films were taken down a dark route so are to give a different visual representation from Tim Burton's early films of Batman.
The films explored Batman's alter ego character Bruce Wayne more, the first film explains his journey to why he wants to watch over Gotham City and protect the civilians. Each movie brought a new villain as it the structure with each new superhero movie. The films did not require the audiences that were not fans of the comics or know about its existence to have to go digging for information, instead the film completed its purpose which was to entertain but still be faithful to the fans of the character.
Here, is where transmedia can get tricky because the story needs to be told well and not every story should be developed in multiple mediums because it would get confusing.