Heroic Publishing

Hero Comics In 1986, comics writer Dennis Mallonee licensed characters from the tabletop superhero role-playing game Champions for a comic book limited series he wrote, which was published by Eclipse Comics. That same year, he co-created (with artist Rick Hoberg) and wrote the series Eternity Smith for Renegade Press. Eclipse Comics were uninterested in Mallonee's ambition to make Champions an ongoing series, and Renegade Press asked Mallonee to release them from the last issue of their six-issue contract because they no longer felt Eternity Smith fit in with the Renegade lineup, so founding Hero Comics, Mallonee struck out on his own. Other staff at Hero Comics included vice president David Berge, who remains with the company as of 2025, and secretary Gavin Claypool. Hero Comics' first titles were an ongoing Champions series, The Marksman, Eternity Smith (restarting the numbering to #1, despite the first issue being the conclusion to a story arc begun with Renegade), and Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt, written by Marvel Comics veterans Roy and Dann Thomas. All four titles debuted with September 1987 cover dates, except for The Marksman, which was held off four months to allow readers to vote for which Champion would get a solo series. Mallonee later admitted that four months was not nearly enough lead time to develop, produce, and publish the first issue of a new series, and that in fact the hands-down winner of the poll was Flare, not the Marksman. Hero Comics launched a Flare series in 1988. Flare was an immediate big seller, but by the time its first issue hit stands Hero Comics had had to cancel all of its series except Flare and Champions, a turn of events which Mallonee has attributed to his inexperience as a publisher at the time. Despite the success of Flare, for distribution reasons it was not viable for a publisher to put out just one comic book, so with Champions struggling, Hero Comics had no choice but to close its doors by the end of 1988. Partnership with Innovation Comics After taking a short break from publishing, Mallonee, Berge, and Claypool re-entered the marketplace in 1990 as Hero Graphics, co-publishing a handful of issues of Flare, The League of Champions (a retitled Champions), and a new series, The Adventures of Chrissie Claus, with David Campiti's Innovation Comics, which also served as the company's distributor. During this period every issue was in a deluxe 52-page format, and most included multiple stories. Hero Graphics planned to continue all three series themselves following the conclusion of their contract with Innovation, but again, only Flare had the sales to merit continued publication. Hero put out three more issues of Flare before they were again forced to end operations in 1991. Black-and-white era This time Hero was on hiatus for less than a year, as the black-and-white comics boom provided a new path for the company to remain financially viable. Hero Graphics resumed publication of all three titles from the Innovation era, revived Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt, and introduced a number of new series, most of them featuring characters associated with Champions, and all of them published in black-and-white. As Mallonee's company evolved, it became more centered on depicting attractive pinups. The company effectively suspended publishing in late 1993/early 1994. 2004 return Heroic returned to publishing again in 2004, starting off with just one comic book a month: a new semi-monthly Flare series and a quarterly The Black Enchantress to fill in the remaining months. Both were in full color, and aside from the original edition of the one-shot Heather Reilly, Heroic Publishing has never gone back to black-and-white comics, with even reprints of stories from the black-and-white era having color added. The new Flare was a critical and commercial success, encouraging Heroic Publishing to resume a number of series from its earlier eras, including Champions, Murcielaga She-Bat, and Tigress. It also introduced a number of new series, including Liberty Girl, which in addition to having strong sales enticed a number of star creators to contribute stories from the title character's World War II-era past. In 2007 financial difficulties forced Heroic Publishing to end regular publication of all of their series. With severely limited funds with which to pay creators, issues have been published only sporadically, and many of these issues are simply reprinted material pushed out in order to maintain trademarks on the characters. For instance, among Champions #43-67, issues #43, 47-50, 52, 56, and 65 all consist entirely of reprints, and only issues 53, 63, and 64 consist solely of new material. Liberty Girl continued to use only new stories, but is also a particularly strong example of the sporadic publication of Heroic comics since 2007: Issue #3 was published in 2007, #4 in 2012, #5 in 2020, and #6 in 2025. Even during this uncertain period, however, Heroic introduced a new and relatively popular series, The Sensational G-Girl. The company moved on to publishing print-on-demand, distributing both physical copies and electronic editions. In 2024 Heroic Publishing launched a YouTube channel called The Heroic Voice, on which Mallonee conducts interviews with comics creators he has worked with, other figures in the comics industry, and occasionally people outside the comics industry. The channel also includes "Flip-Thru!" episodes in which vice president David Berge shows the contents of Heroic Publishing's latest comics. == Titles (selected) ==