Founded in 1999 by Frank Fradella under the name Cyber Age Adventures, iHero Entertainment was among the best and the brightest in the electronic publishing medium. For six years, the Cyber Age Adventures ezine produced the most ground-breaking, thought-provoking fiction in the world, and did it all in the midst of a unique, shared superhero Universe.
In 2001, Cyber Age Adventures won the coveted Writer’s Digest Grand Prize for their Zine Publishing Awards, and invited company founder, Frank Fradella, to serve as a founding member of their Zine Advisory Board, helping to shape the future of electronic publishing.
With the industry’s highest accolade under our belt, we decided to take our magazine into print. With just one spectacular issue under our belt, the magazine folded due to financial issues and the creators each took some time off to pursue individual efforts. In 2010, all of the original creators agreed to reform in order to deliver an all-new superhero magazine. That magazine is "I, Hero."
The iHero Universe, or iHeroverse, is a world very similar to our own. It is identical to our world and our history save for the fact that there are people among us with capes and cowls and fantastic powers who exist to help others, or help themselves.
We use the terms "heroes" and "villains" only in the loosest sense. These are people. Some of them are selfish. Some of them are good samaratins. But very few of them are pure evil or saintly good. They have the same motivations as anybody else.
While there had been costumed vigilantes prior to 1944, it was The Minuteman who introduced our world's first superhuman. A product of the infamous Manhattan Project, Corporal George Gordon was hand-picked by his superiors to undergo a process that would make him a living weapon against the Axis forces, capable of responding to a threat anywhere on the planet in under a minute.
The war was all but over by the time Gordon entered the scene and he quickly found that the Nazis had developed their own übermensch, a charmingly evil powerhouse called Master Blitzkrieg.
With the introduction of atomic testing, super powers began to manifest naturally in a small percentage of the world's population. Some of those people donned masks and became heroes. Some of them simply kept it to themselves and went on with their lives. Others, who had no powers at all, were inspired by the rising tide of costumes adventurers and joined the fray. While not technically "super" heroes, these costumed crimefighters play an important part in keeping the peace on a local level.
Since the Minuteman's first flight, the world has became almost overrun with superhumans. In addition to their "normal" appearance on the street and in the skies, some of them are celebrities, doing endorsement deals, their faces on billboards. Others have found a way to make their compulsion a career, joining their local police forces or being part of the U.N. Peacekeepers, a group of superpowered agents tasked with policing the global community from non-conventional threats.
Costumed villains sprang up, too, finding that the costumes not only protected their identity, but that bystanders were less likely to get involved.
Supergroups cropped up, many of them retreating to hidden headquarters in their off-duty time, choosing to share their true identities with a hand-picked few. Others, like the Crusaders, went to work for the government.
Of all this, perhaps the most important thing to note is that the iHero Universe exists in real time. Our characters age at the same rate you do. They get hurt, they fall in love, they even die. "Legacy" heroes often take the place of the fallen, adopting their costumes and fighting styles so that the world at large continues to believe that the legend lives on.
With the constant escalation of superhumans, the world is a pressure cooker, slowing reaching critical mass.
There's an axiom that says in order to succeed, one must either compete or differentiate. When people wonder why we don't do more comics, this is the reason.
There are no shortage of comics out there, but for the level and depth of the stories we want to create, we believed that prose was the only medium. That's why our magazines have always contained the most ground-breaking, thought-provoking fiction you can find in a superhero setting.
We've also been proud to collect those stories into several anthologies, as well as a full-length novel, Swan Song.
Finally, we're very proud to have partnered with U.S. Games Systems to deliver the world first complete superhero tarot deck, The Fradella Adventure Tarot, featuring the heroes and villains of the iHero Universe.
Seeking: Ground-breaking, thought-provoking fiction in a superhero setting. Stories may not exceed 3000 words and must be delivered in the body of an e-mail to iHeroLLC@gmail.com with the word “Submission” in the title. No attachments, please. Also, each story should be self-contained. All serials are staff-written. Sorry.
Reprints: We do not accept reprints.
Rights: iHero Entertainment buys non-exclusive worldwide electronic rights. Your story will appear in the iHero magazine for one issue, and may be reprinted at a later date in a print-on-demand anthology or PDF Archive.
Payment: iHero pays $.05 per word within 90 days of publication. You will be paid via PayPal. On very rare occasion, we will publish a story that slightly exceeds the 3000-word limit, however we only offer payment up to the 3000-word mark.
Okay. That was the easy part. Now let’s get down to business.
If you’ve never read our magazine before, do so before submitting. We recommend these anthologies to get you up to speed: A Private Little Corner of the Universe and The Timelessness of Ghosts. We especially recommend our full-length novel, Swan Song. You’ve got a better chance of landing a guest spot here if you have a good grasp of what we do. Because what we do is pretty darn special.
The iHero Universe is a cooperative universe. Everybody who works here has their own little corner of the cosmos. Sometimes those boundaries blur, and we play in each other’s sandbox, but for the most part we keep to ourselves. To that end, if you decide you want to have a guest appearance by one of our characters, prepare to lose all rights to that story if we buy it. We have to protect our intellectual property. We certainly can’t have you selling that story elsewhere with our characters in it.
But that’s getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. The first, and biggest, mistake that writers make in the stories they submit to us is that they try to tell us a superhero story. And that’s impossible. You know why? Because there’s no such thing. Superheroes aren’t a genre. They’re a setting, like deep space or underwater. As long as you obey the conventions of that setting, you can tell any kind of story you want. Mystery. Adventure. Horror. Suspense. Romance. Anything at all.
So stop thinking you know what kind of story we publish. The only thing these stories have in common is that they all involve superheroes in one respect or another. Stop thinking that the only way to catch our attention is to knock the bad guy’s teeth down his throat. This is not the home of clichés and adolescent male fantasies. You’ve got to know how to write.
And don’t blow up Cleveland. Somebody’s going to need that later on.
Oh, and please don’t send us your character’s origin story. Really. We get enough of those to fill an industrial-sized dumpster.
Every story told assumes a contract between the author and the reader. You tell them a good story and they’ll suspend their disbelief. But our universe happens in real time. We don’t delve into the past and we don’t speculate on the future. So if you blow up Cleveland, you’ve just jarred the reader out of the story because they’re probably reasonably sure that Cleveland is still out there somewhere. Confine your story to your little corner of the universe and you’ll do fine.
We don’t do parody here, and we don’t poke fun at the setting. Yes, there are clichés in superheroes. But instead of pointing them out with your tongue planted firmly in your cheek, find a way to make it fresh. Turn it on its ear. Stir someone’s imagination. Above all, you must take this seriously. Our audience is a discriminating group of people who have had their fill of cookie cutter entertainment. We have the reputation we do because we understand that people never outgrow their love of superheroes, even if they drift away from the comic book medium.
Last, but by no means least, if you want to see your story appear in our magazine, there are two essential things that you must do.
First: Be a professional. Spell check your submission. Follow the guidelines. Don’t waste our time and we’ll be equally respectful of yours. You should hear back from us within four weeks.
Second, and last: Write a damned good story. Good luck!
Seeking: Top notch art skills with professionalism to match. If you cannot meet a deadline, do not apply. We include at least one spot illustration (usually about the size of a single comic book panel) with every story, and we’re looking for people who can pencil, ink and color their own work. We do have room for non-comic style illustrations, as well. If you paint digitally, do watercolor, Sumi-e… this is the place for you to shine. We’re also looking for artist who are great storytellers for the 6-12 page sequential art stories we feature in every issue.
Rights: iHero Entertainment buys exclusive worldwide electronic rights. Your story will appear in the iHero magazine for one issue, and may be reprinted at a later date in a print-on-demand anthology or PDF Archive. You are free to sell copies of the work at conventions, as well as the original art itself.
Payment: Negotiable. Pays within 90 days of publication. You will be paid via PayPal.
Style & Substance: As mentioned, while we’re certainly happy to publish comic-style illustration, our magazine has always broken away from what people expect out of a superhero magazine. We adore fine pencil work, we go gaga over watercolors and oils. We realize that at the rates we’re offering, not everyone can break out the easel and spend a day painting, but do consider that you’ll be creating a work of art that will provide income for you for years to come. The Artist Alley at every convention is full of people who sell prints of their previous work and they make a killing doing it. You’re also doing work for people who can give you better paying work if we like what we see.
To submit yourself for consideration, send us an e-mail at iHeroLLC@gmail.com and include the word “Submission” in the subject line. Include a link to your online portfolio and we’ll take it from there.
Thanks very much for your interest and good luck!
