“Night Knight” has concluded its run in the pages of the Lincoln Journal Star, wrapping up on Friday, May 20. The series ran Monday – Friday for five weeks, telling the story of Lincoln’s first superhero and first supervillain.

The Journal Star solicited reader response to the series, and here are a few of the comments they received:

“I really never saw much sense to it, but I suppose some may have.” (name illegible)

“We can only hope that we have seen the final episode of this awful waste of space…” – William Kuester

“Although I like the comics…I didn’t stay with it. I guess I just didn’t find it interesting or clever enough for me.” – Prof. Robert Stock

“I think it is one of the dumbest things your paper has ever done.” – Bev Brittenham

“I am SO glad this boring waste of newspaper space has ended. Its stupidity and snide backhanded political commentary are just incredible. I frankly cannot even imagine why you would have entertained the thought of using this drivel…” – Richard Ingraham

“I read every word of Night Knight…as an admirer of rapid-response political cartoonists with zip and humor and a considerable ability to draw who show real promise of rapidly outgrowing Lincoln, Nebraska.” – Audrey Greve

“I think you should stop Night Knight. No one I know can understand anything about it.” – Roger Larson

“I just wanted to let you know that I think Night Knight is the best thing ever to happen to the Journal Star and I will be very angry if the series ends…” – Thaddaeus Harrington

“…I can only think that some editor must have lost a bet for it to be in the paper in the first place…” – Gary Gerkin

“Our whole family enjoyed it. We felt like it was just getting started.” – Emily Svendgard

“For several years now I’ve thought Mary Worth was perhaps the biggest waste of printer’s ink in the business but the Lincoln Journal Star proved me wrong once again…one of my neighbors even claims his canary scratched the paper out of his cage when he saw Night Knight was covering the bottom of it…please fill the void left by Night Knight with something more interesting such as the minutes from the local garden club’s monthly meetings or obituaries from the Pandhandle…” – Howard McNiff

“I think Night Knight is awesome and you should definitely continue to print it…it’s the only reason that I get [the paper].” – Jahan Claes

“Just adding (I hope) to the many calls for the return of Night Knight. Neal did a nice job of making each day’s installment amusing enough to stand on its own, while developing a continuing storyline. It was great the LJS gave him enough space to do that. I enjoyed turning to it 1st every morning and miss it…” – Dan Claes

I thought I’d end those on a high note. Anyway, here’s a little look at the evolution of the cover / promotional poster:

the initial sketch of the splash page

the full-sized pencils of the splash page. this was originally going to run on day 1 of the series, and sections of negative space were going to be filled with text introducing the premise of the coming episodes.

and here is the final inked version, which ended up without any text.
we ended up being fond enough of this art on its own that we used it for full-page advertisements.
this thankfully opened up another day in the story, which was used to fill in more details about II.