Broken Frontier

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again – the sheer amount of attention and detail webcomic creators can levy onto their creations often rivals anything done by the top comic book companies. Just take Hero By Night for instance. One of the most visible superheroes in webcomics, D.J. Coffman’s Hero By Night tells the story of a Golden Age hero who mysteriously vanished. A good chunk of the story is detailed through the journals left behind by Hero by Night, which the rest of the actual “issues” following the young man who discovers Hero by Night’s equipment, and thus must decide what do with it.

Simply put, Hero By Night is the Dinotopia of webcomics, and perhaps, super-heroes in general. Like James Gurney, Coffman’s Hero By Night is incredibly detailed, including an extensive layout of superhero gear, the origins of his powers and newspaper clippings of his cases, all woven into an engaging and complex memoir of the Hero’s tenure throughout the late 1940s.

The only downside – if this could even be called a downside in the first place – is the sheer enormity of reading material. Before you even reach the first issues of the actual story of Hero By Night, the First button cycles you through the endless journals stretching from 1945 from 1956. However, the website is set up extremely well, and a list of story chapters at the bottom of the main page makes it easy to find your place again and start reading anew.

One of the most successful super-hero webcomics on the Net, Hero By Night is probably another webcomic which invalidates the effectiveness of Top Webcomics, as it ranks at a whopping 3049th place, despite one of the most prolific presences on the Internet. But is there another reason why superheroes seem fare so poorly on such lists? It looks like my quest for answers continues next week.