Morally corrupt supermen who enslave humankind: this is Greg Robinson’s idea for an on-line comic book. “It’s about people who are overpowered and outmatched but they still stand up to do the right thing,” he says on the phone of his project, titled Age of Heroes.

Robinson pitched the idea on www.zeros2heroes.com/, a comic-book fan site that launched its Canada: Comic Creation Nation campaign last October in search of the next big comic-book franchise. Age of Heroes struck a chord with the on-line community and won one of several people’s-choice awards that have been acknowledged so far in the campaign. The team at Vancouver-based Zeros 2 Heroes Media has already begun to produce the 22-page e-book, which they’ll post on their Web site for fans to further judge.

“It’s like getting continual feedback from the core fan base of the people you want to meet,” Paul Gertz, executive vice president of Rainmaker Animation and the chair of Zeros 2 Heroes’ board of directors, says in a phone interview. It’s not the first time Gertz has seen an on-line campaign take off on this Web site. Last year, Rainmaker started to revamp their television series Reboot into an on-line comic book using extensive feedback from the Web site’s community. A trilogy of Reboot films is now in the works. “Comic books and that kind of content is so valuable now,” Gertz explains. “That’s why I’m interested in the whole concept.”

Matt Toner, Zeros 2 Heroes president, says he believes that on-line comics are the ultimate source for feature-film content. “They’re very cheap and they’re very high-quality,” he says by phone, “and I think they’re in some ways better than a script might be”¦much more high-impact.” Toner is particularly proud of the way his Web site unifies comic fans from all over the country who might otherwise be cut off from the film and TV industry. According to him, this latest campaign is aimed at people just like the Langley-based Robinson. “They just haven’t had any luck. They’re at the point in their career where they think it’s just not going to happen for them.”

With his sights set on helping one of these Comic Creation Nation projects make it to the silver screen, Toner announces—exclusively to the Georgia Straight—a brand-new partnership with Astral Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund, the private film-funding body that doled out $3,343,488 to experienced producers in Canada last year for script development and production financing. This summer, the fund will award up to $18,000 to one people’s-choice winner from the Comic Creation Nation campaign, money that will help develop an on-line comic book into a first-draft screenplay. Toner says he hopes this initiative will launch a little-known comic-book fan into a successful feature-film writer.

John Galway, the president of the English-language program at the Harold Greenberg Fund, is excited to see new-media outlets contributing to the Canadian feature-film industry. “These guys are breaking new ground, so we’re happy to be associated with them,” Galway says on the line. “The thing that interested us most was the Web site.”¦There is this fan input and instant connection for the writer.”

This new collaboration will encourage the winner to draw on that community support to write a script that Galway hopes to “develop as we normally would”¦to ultimately be produced as a feature film.” A comic book like Robinson’s Age of Heroes would then go head-to-head with other Greenberg-funded projects. But, as Galway notes, these Zeros 2 Heroes properties could have a strong chance of going the distance because they bring with them an existing fan base.

This prospect couldn’t come at a better time for Robinson, who, after five years of retail management, quit his job to take a second crack at becoming a working writer. “I wasn’t happy,” he says. “I wasn’t doing what I wanted to be doing.” Already, being a people’s-choice winner has started to pay off for him. “It’s got me into a couple of conversations with some people that I don’t think would’ve previously given me the time of day.”

The promise of big-time success leads Toner to emphasize that these people’s-choice winners have already won a prize worth savouring. “If people get recognized as a creator by their community, that’s probably more important sometimes than by a critic or some studio in L.A.”¦just knowing that people are listening. Your work has found an audience; you are good enough. That’s often the biggest hit.”

However, with Harold Greenberg Fund support and growing fan bases, Toner suggests these comic-book projects are getting a little closer to becoming the next Superman or Spider-Man franchise. “Film is still the biggest outcome for us, I think.”¦Say, a summer blockbuster. Films everyone’s going to see, with lines around the block. Fan boys dressed up in costume waiting to get in the door.”¦That’s the most natural, desired state for all of these stories.”