Broken Frontier

Looking over Top Webcomcs, it is seriously easy to forget super-heroes and comic books are – at least in the context of the mainstream – one and the same. But Top Webcomics represents a different kind of mainstream – one born in the web through counter-culture and other culture, including Asian, Europe and many other subgroups. Like Al Schroeder told me in our interview, “Also, it's a more international audience. The European comic community was never enslaved to the super-hero model, nor was the Japanese manga community. Actually, the diversity of webcomics is MUCH more healthy than the current American comic scene, reminding one of the diversity in manga.”

But even though, Top Webcomics takes the ball and runs as far away from super-heroes as possible – the now-defunct Hero By Night’s current rating alone is 975th place. And though many successful creators contend that super-heroes could conquer Top Webcomics if they put serious effort towards attaining top slots on TWC instead of marketing independently of the webcomic ranking site, it’s difficult to imagine exactly how a super-hero webcomic would fare in atmosphere so supersaturated in slice-of-life, manga and video games.

Where are the super-heroes? Well, they tend to fly in flocks actually. Webcomic super-heroes are following the example of their print counterparts by participating in crossovers – and doing a much better job at it in webcomics like Crossoverlord. Ironically, webcomics may present the last frontier for super-hero submissions, with Marvel, DC and many others closing their doors to unsolicited scripts across the board. Schroeder’s own initial ideas for Mindmistress were shot down by both Marvel and DC, probably in a time when both companies were substantially more open to newcomers. So despite a mainstream of seemingly super-hero-less accord, webcomics might be the perfect place for new creators looking to give their capes a launch pad.

So in closing, superheroes are in the webcomics. You only have to know where to look. As I learnt ad nauseum, Google is highly recommended...