Lack of “serious” Superhero Webcomics?
May 23rd, 2009 |
Jack Knapp here with another topic. The lack of superhero webcomics. Now before you drown me with links hear me out… 
Other than Scott’s webcomic Heroes inc I’ve only ran into a few serious superhero webcomics. I’ve seen quite a few “tongue in cheek” webcomics that fall into the superhero genre, but haven’t seen many that have taken the superhero genre seriously.
Here’s the (short ) list of superhero webcomics that I know of.
Johnny Saturn a good one that’s been going for a while. It kind of falls into the DC / image style.
Hero by Night a very cool comic, but isn’t updated any more. Plus D.J. Coffman’s trouble’s with the ownership kind of spoils the fun.
Union of Heroes. A photocomic! Give it a chance. I was surprised how intriguing it turned out to be.
Who is Rain? This is a new one I just recently found. At least the beginning has been promising.
And that’s my list. I asked Scott to send me some of his bookmarks, but he’s been too busy and I don’t want to keep bothering him. I Googled around, but didn’t really find that much…
Why is that? I mean, look at the big publishing houses. What do they put out the most? Superheroes. So what do people read the most? Superheroes. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everything should be superhero stuff. I enjoy a lot of other genres. The internet is FULL of all kinds of goodness.
But superheroes… not so much.
Do creators think of DC, Marvel, Image, etc etc as too much of a competitor? “They’ve been doing it forever so we don’t really have a chance.” kind of mentality?
I know some of you are bound to say that people don’t do superhero webcomics, because no one wants to read them. We want other genres. I believe that’s true a lot of the time, but statistics show differently. Again: who are the top publishers and what do they publish the most?
Image is number 3 right now (if I remember correctly) and they do ALL kinds of stuff, but they too have moved into the superhero genre… so why haven’t webcomics?
I really don’t know. If any of you have links to cool superhero webcomics throw me a link either at my email or in the comments.
In the meanwhile I’ll keep looking.
-Jack-
Serious hero comics? I don’t know if these qualify (this is the only ‘serious’ one I read) but two on my list are:
Special School (Supers in Training)
http://specialschool.spiderforest.com/
and
Side Kick Girl (The ‘Sidekick’ is the star/competent one)
http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/
But yeah, Super heroes are distinctly lacking in Webcomic-dom…Maybe because there’s so many in print. Not that we’re board of them, it’s just that there are others that are accessible else where.
I don’t know.
Been loving Heroes Inc. though…So maybe it’s more of an unexplored area of webcomickery.
I’ve been tempted to try to get a superhero comic going eventually, maybe this summer.
I’ve asked myself this question a million times over the last few years–Why so few superhero webcomics? My best guess (and it’s only a guess) is that the demographic that reads mainstream comics doesn’t really overlap with the demographic of webcomic readers. There’s an age gap, and a gender gap. I’m constantly shocked (and pleased) that 40% of our readers are women on the web, but in print guys in their 30′s are our buyers.
Magellan, which has run for years at Graphic Smash, is a superhero comic, although its art is non-mainstream. There is Mind Mistress. But, that’s about all I know of. At the moment, I consider Union of Heroes and Heroes Inc. my “peers” so to speak on the web. I think very highly of both strips.
At one time I considered starting a portal for supers on the net, but I didn’t follow up because there just wasn’t enough of us.
Here’s five I can think of offhand, Energize http://www.drunkduck.com/Energize/index.php , the “Cabal” segment of GenXorcist http://www.genxorcist.com , Retake http://www.drunkduck.com/Retake/index.php and Metadawn http://www.webcomicsnation.com/PowerfulPress/metadawn/series.php . In fact, there’s a growing roster of superheroes at Drunk Duck, check it out. If you don’t mind a little tongue in cheek there’s also Dasien http://www.dasiencomic.com and Stellar http://www.wlpcomics.com/adult/stellar . Even the funny ones can be very well done.
To be honest, superhero comics have only ever interested me marginally. Idi read one called Ghost Zero though and it’s fantastic.
I second the recommendation of magellan. That one has a pretty good storyline with plenty of interesting characters.
But like I said, I just don’t read them too often.
Ghostzero is a great comic/webcomic, but I don’t consider it a superhero comic. It’s done in the true spirit of pulp and film noir.
Here is one of my favorite webcomics I highly recommend: SHADOWGIRLS (http://www.shadowgirlscomic.com/) It’s like H.P. Lovecraft meets the Gilmore Girls ^^.
Shadowgirls is also a great webcomic, but I don’t think of it as a superhero comic. It’s as you said H.P. Lovecraft meets…. something.
I have discovered Ad Astra recently – due to the fact that he discovered me and linked to my page. Looks like a superhero comic, too.
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/singleton/adastra/series.php
And I really enjoy reading the before mentioned Magellan! His art might not be mainstream, like Scott Story said, but he is creating some really good stories! And his character development is great, too.
Hello, I saw this post concerning superhero webcomics and just wanted to introduce myself. My name is William Satterwhite and Stealth is a superhero webcomic I’ve been working on sporadically for some years now but is now on a regular update schedule. My link should take you the new current series, you can also check out the original archives at http://williamsatterwhite.info/stealth. Thanks!
Always fun to meet other creators. I’ll check it out and give a read over.
I’ve been looking around for some good superhero webcomics, because I like the genre, I want to get into a new hero I’m not familiar with, and I don’t really want to go through racks and racks of indie comics, so the web has just been convenient. Stealth and Johnny Saturn are my two favorites. I have another one that I think is worth looking at. antihero.keenspot.com it’s not as serious as the other two, but it does have a rather good concept and story.
Well, if you like superheroes and space opera mixed together, there’s always my humble webcomic, The Vanguard. I also read Johnny Saturn and Ad Astra and have been meaning to dive into Heroes, Inc’s archives.
Like Scott, I think the reason there aren’t too many superhero webcomics is also because of the demographics-many webcomic readers (and creators!) seem to think superhero webcomics are “uncool”, they think of superheroes as part of the mainstream and they come to the web to “escape” that. Let’s not forget, too, that webcomics are a niche area of the web themselves, and superhero webcomics are a niche of a niche. Few webcomic creators are making a full-time living off their creations, and none of them are doing superheroes.