Hero or villain: you choose the role
Every Hero & Ink comic starts with one choice: what role does your person play? The first step of the order form asks it with two buttons, Hero story and Villain story. Same person, same photos, same city. A different part in the story.
Hero story: they save the day
Our Hero story artwork, from our social posts: they star as the hero.
In a Hero story, the person you are making the book for is the hero. Their face is on the cover, their city is the setting, and the thing they are good at becomes their power. Something stands in the way: a rival, a storm, a broken machine, a cat with other plans. Over 22 story pages they win the way they would, with their people beside them.
It is the usual choice for a partner, and the right one for the tender occasions: an anniversary, a birthday that matters, a thank-you that has waited too long. It is also the only choice for a new-baby book, where nobody plays the villain.
In our example book The Small Signal, Sarah is the hero and her cat Biscuit is the villain, hoarding the small lost things of San Francisco under the bed. That is still a Hero story: it names who the hero is, and you can still bring a villain of your own, the cat, the printer, the January sea.
A real page from The Small Signal: the cat is the villain, Sarah is the hero.
Villain story: they steal the scene
Our Villain story artwork, from our social posts: they star as the magnificent villain.
In a Villain story, the same person is the villain: the mastermind, three moves ahead, with a whole city organized against them and, more often than not, coming out on top anyway. It is glorious mischief, never cruelty. The book laughs with them, not at them.
Our example is The Espresso Empress: Sarra, an office mastermind in Porto who plots a corporate coffee coup, and whose evil plan turns out to be generosity. Nobody gets rescued. The city simply learns who was in charge all along.
A real page from The Espresso Empress: Sarra is the villain.
Which one fits them
- Pick the Hero story when you want them to feel seen: a partner, a parent, a grandparent, a friend who got through a hard year.
- Pick the Villain story when they would enjoy a roast: the partner who plans everything, the coworker who runs the office, the sibling who laughs at themselves first.
- Still unsure? Picture them opening it. If you see them tearing up, it is a Hero story. If you see them laughing out loud and sending it to the group chat, try the Villain story.
The role and the look are separate choices: either story can be drawn in any of the six styles. Everything else is the same either way: 26 pages and 50+ panels, a person checking every page before it is sent, $49 USD, delivered as a high-resolution PDF, typically the same day, always within 24 hours.
Choose the role on the order form. The showcase has example books of both kinds.
