Not surprisingly, the success of Marvel and DC movies over the past few years has caused a significant rise in the popularity of comics. Now comes word that independent comic book publisher Valiant Entertainment has received a nine-figure investment from a Chinese company to move into producing its own films, with series such as Archer & Armstrong and Shadowman already in the beginning stages of development.

Valiant Entertainment certainly isn’t a household name, having faced financial woes during most of the last decade, but they turned things around with new comics going into production in 2013. Now the Beijing-based company DMG Entertainment made an investment that will allow Valiant comics to perhaps enter the same echelons currently reserved for DC and Marvel.

The deal will allow movies (and television shows) to be made, but will also open up the New York-based company to the Chinese market, with Chinese language publishing and marketing to be put into the works. Valiant Entertainment also has several Marvel veterans at the helm, including former editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and former chief executive (and now Valiant Entertainment’s current chairman) Peter Cuneo.

As mentioned above, the series Archer & Armstrong is already in development, with a script by BenDavid Grabinski (the upcoming Skiptrace). The series follows a globetrotting buddy duo, with Archer being a young man raised to defeat the “Great Satan” who turns out to be a drunken immortal calling himself Armstrong, who in turn has no interest in starting the apocalypse as Archer has been told. The other two series already becoming movies are Shadowman, with a script by J. Michael Straczynski (Ninja Assassin), and Bloodshot, which is being developed at Sony.