Super Tuesday No. 5
Hi, Folks:
I meant to talk about superhero movies today, but I’m not going to get my Netflix choices in time (Ghost Rider and Cat Woman), so we’ll have none of that today. Well, there’s always next week. This week, I’m going to focus on something different and yet oh-so-close to my heart–Superheroes in webcomics.
Superheroes have been a print comic mainstay since the beginning, and the dominate majority of comics published by the big two publishers are superhero based. When webcomics became a thing, however, that dynamic did not crossover onto the internet. There are several reasons for that.
One reason is that web comics, by their nature, are very ‘indie’ in their approach, and indie culture often reacts to the mainstream culture by heading in a different direction. In other words, if mainstream print publishers want to fill the world with superheroes, then webcomic creators will focus on anything but superheroes—Gag a day, slice of life, horror, funny animal, and innumerable other genres and wild genre mash-ups.
Another reason that webcartoonists went their own way is that most of them began cartooning in their teens and twenties. Mainstream comics had lost this whole demographic, for the most part; for a long time, the only people who blew into comic specialty shops were white men mostly in their thirties and forties. The mainstream comic publishers weren’t meeting the entertainment needs of younger fans, and the publishers focused on the older, more hard-core superhero fan base.
Gender is another factor, because most women and girls were not reading mainstream superhero comics. At one time, there were lots of comics published aimed at girls, but not-so-much these days. It was Manga and Anime that brought females back to sequential art, not the American comic book industry. On the web, probably half the webcartoonists are female, so it makes sense they would not be producing superhero stories.
So, I’ve established why superheroes aren’t as prevalent on the web as they are in print. This is not to suggest that superheroes don’t exist in webcomics—sure, they are in the minority, but they are out there. Yet, they are rarely presented in the same way as superheroes are in mainstream print comics.
Web superhero comics are most often parodies, such as Evil Inc., Local Heroes, SuperFogeys, Amazing Superteam, and PS238. Some have serious plots but indie art styles, such as Magellan, Dasien, Gaming Guardians, Lightbringer, Mind Mistress, The Vanguard, Point Guardian, Neighborhood Watch, Stealth, Tales of the Zero Men, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Blonde Marvel, Superhero B-Team GO!, and Vigil.
Some super webcomics are nostalgia based, such as the Mega Comics Group and the Order. Some superhero webcomics would seem right at home in print, including our own Johnny Saturn, and others such as Side Chix and Shades.
It’s a mixed bag out there, but some of these strips are well worth checking out and following.
Scott.
Note: I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of fine webcomics for this list, but just finding them all is quite time-consuming. I’ve also left off most webcomics that have been abandoned, or are on hiatus, or have gone the way of all things. I would have loved to include DJ Coffman’s Hero By Night, for example, but I believe that’s probably gone for good.
