Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, kickstarter

Indie Comic Creators Should Do Superheroes…

Published Sat, 13 Jun 2015 13:00:19 -0500

By Chris Hebert

It seems to happen every few months. An article starts making its rounds on social media, or comics news sites about the independent comic creator's place in the comic market. The articles usually vary slightly, but generally deliver the same, or similar, message: Indie creators shouldn't do super heroes. Ever.

Some may claim this isn't a "path to success," that the market for super heroes is "too saturated" or that since "the big two" have essentially cornered the market, the future of Indy creators must lie with some other subject matter. Most baffling to me though has always been the assertion that super heroes have been "done to death."

Being an independent, self publishing creator, that last line of reasoning really hits close to home. In the early 90s, my brother Alan and I had started laying foundation for what would eventually be our own comic offerings, filled with what we loved writing about: Super Heroes. Alan had Lazerman, the "comic geek turned superhero" and I had "Vindication," a team book. As an indy creator, I had to also take on the job of trying to market, and sell our creations. By the time we had something tangible to offer the comic reading world 15 years later, I had come to the conclusion that one would be significantly harder to present than the other.

From a "pitching" standpoint, my brother's book almost sold itself. "A light hearted throwback to the classics" we would say, "the story of a comic geek turned into a real super hero." There was a "hook" built in. But Vindication presented a problem for me, from a marketing perspective: It was, at least on the surface, like almost every other team book I could think of.

Created during a time when X-Men had become hugely popular, team books in that vein started to sprout up all over. Wildcats, Wetworks, Youngblood, Cyberforce, just to name a few. And almost every indy publisher started to present their "team." After a time, they all started to look indistinguishable from each other.

No matter how good we felt Vindication was, you can't "pitch" a book by saying "Ok, this looks like any one of a hundred books just like it, but this one is…really good?" So were those articles true? Has the superhero genre overplayed itself? Are there no unique super hero concepts left? Has it all been done?

My answer is simple: No. Absolutely not. Because "concept" and "story" are two different things, and characters are what drive a story. Vindication would separate itself the only way something truly can: with a focus on character.

A lot of independent super hero comics throw you into a world like Marvel or D.C.s where super powers and heroes and villains are already a part of everyday life, and you sort of have all these new characters and situations thrown at you at once. What we've done differently is started with a world that knows nothing about superheroes. The change that the "real" world is going through as it becomes a "super-hero universe" is central to the series. But the heart of the book is the characters; how they interact, how they each view the tumultuous changes their world is going through, and, most importantly, how people are profoundly affected and change due to the influence of the other people in their lives. The driving force of Vindication is character.

A trade paperback collecting the first three issues of Vindication is running now on Kickstarter, and with three weeks to go, has hit the halfway to our $3000 goal. This trade paperback, called "May You Live In Interesting Times" is written by myself, and features art by Rodney Jacobson, and current series artist D.C. White (no relation to the publisher). If you agree with my point of view go here and back the project:

Readers of this site, comment on the project page that you came from Bleeding Cool and you will get a digital copy of Vindication #4 for FREE with whatever level you back us at!

So go now and cast your vote for independent super hero comics, by backing Vindication: May You Live In Interesting Times.