Portal:Comics

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Introduction

Comics are a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically takes the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus among theorists and historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or the use of recurring characters. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in comics; Photo comics is a form that uses photographic images. Common forms include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels, comic albums, and tankōbon have become increasingly common, along with webcomics as well as scientific/medical comics.

The English term comics is used as a singular noun when it refers to the medium itself (e.g. "Comics is a visual art form."), but becomes plural when referring to works collectively (e.g. "Comics are popular reading material."). (Full article...)

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Eagle was a seminal British children's comic, first published in April 1950. It was founded by Marcus Morris, an Anglican vicar, who felt that the church was not communicating its message effectively. Simultaneously disillusioned with contemporary children's literature, he and artist Frank Hampson created a dummy comic based on Christian values. Morris hawked the idea to several publishers, with little success, until Hulton Press decided to take it on. Following a huge publicity campaign, the first issue sold about 900,000 copies. Featured in colour on the front cover was the comic's most recognisable story, Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future (pictured). Other popular stories included Riders of the Range and P.C. 49. Eagle also contained news and sport sections, and educational cutaway diagrams of sophisticated machinery. Amidst a takeover of the comic's publisher and a series of acrimonious disputes, Morris left in 1959; Hampson followed shortly thereafter. Although Eagle continued in various forms, a perceived lowering of editorial standards preceded plummeting sales, and it was eventually subsumed by its rival, Lion, in 1969. A relaunched Eagle ran for over 500 issues between 1982 and 1994.

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Anniversaries for May 17

1890: debut of Comic Cuts, British comic magazine and first weekly comic paper
1928: birth of George Kashdan, American comic book writer and editor, primarily for DC Comics, who co-created such characters as Tommy Tomorrow, Mysto the Magician Detective, and others.
1929: birth of Piet Wijn, Dutch comics writer and artist best known for Aram and Douwe Dabbert
1956: birth of Dave Sim, Canadian comic book writer and artist best known for Cerebus the Aardvark
1962: birth of Steve Geiger, American comic book artist
1964: birth of Linda Medley, American comic book author and illustrator
1969: death of Arthur "Bugs" Baer, American cartoonist known as ghostwriter of Mutt and Jeff
2000: death of Dick Sprang, American comic book artist best known for his work on Batman
2002: death of Dave Berg, American comics artist known for the Lighter Side in Mad magazine

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General images

The following are images from various comics-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Comic Con crowds in 2011 as seen from a helicopter (from San Diego Comic-Con)
Image 2A page by Rodolphe Töpffer, whose work is considered influential in shaping the comics form. (from History of comics)
Image 3Hokusai Manga (early 19th century) (from History of manga)
Image 4
Comics artist Mœbius (2008), who achieved international renown through Métal Hurlant
(from Bande dessinée)
Image 5Chōjū-giga (12th century), traditionally attributed to a monk-artist Kakuyū (Toba Sōjo) (from History of manga)
Image 6Cover to 27 December 1884 edition of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday. (from British comics)
Image 7Close Hergé collaborator and magazine contributor Bob de Moor (from Bande dessinée)
Image 8Sequential depictions on Trajan's Column in Rome, Italy (from History of comics)
Image 9During panels at comic book conventions, the audience is sometimes invited to line up and ask questions using a dedicated microphone. (from Comic book convention)
Image 10Convention crowd outside of Golden Hall in 1982 (from San Diego Comic-Con)
Image 11The San Diego Convention Center during Comic-Con in 2013 (from San Diego Comic-Con)
Image 12The French comic Les Pieds Nickelés (1954 book cover): an early 20th-century forerunner of the modern Franco-Belgian comic (from Bande dessinée)
Image 13Comic-Con crowd inside the second floor of the convention center in 2011 waiting for the exhibition hall to open (from San Diego Comic-Con)
Image 14Image of bathers from the Hokusai manga (from History of manga)
Image 15A Fallout Cosplayer photographed at a Comic Con in a Fallout Themed area (from Comic book convention)
Image 16Japanese wood block illustration from 19th century (from History of manga)
Image 17Phoenix Fan Fusion's 2017 convention in Phoenix, Arizona (from Comic book convention)
Image 18Cover of Illustrated Chips in 1896 featuring the first appearance of the long-running comic strip of the tramps Weary Willie and Tired Tim. (from British comics)

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Kamome Shirahama, in addition to writing and illustrating her best-selling Witch Hat Atelier manga series, has created variant covers for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and the Star Wars franchise?
... that Arnie Roth debuted as a gay Marvel Comics character at a time when the publisher maintained a "No Gays in the Marvel Universe" policy?
... that the writer of the 2022 comic book miniseries Poison Ivy, starring the eponymous Batman villain, described it as a "love story" that features "plant-based body horror"?
... that circulation numbers for early comic books featuring Captain America remained close to a million copies per month, outstripping news magazines such as Time?
... that otomechikku, a subgenre of Japanese girls' comics focusing on stories about ordinary teenaged protagonists, has been compared to monogatari and the genre of Bildungsroman?
... that comic book artist Barry Windsor-Smith wrote, drew, inked, and lettered every page of his graphic novel Monsters by himself?
... that the comic book Nietzsche, se créer liberté tries to express Friedrich Nietzsche's personality visually?
... that Kake has been described as "a sort of Johnny Appleseed ... spreading the seeds of liberated, mutually satisfying, ecstatically explicit gay sex"?

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Credit: Greg Williams

The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The term has evolved over time. The original meaning was in fine art of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, where it referred to a preparatory drawing for a piece of art, such as a painting or tapestry.

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More did you know...

...that the planned Marvel Comics superhero film, X-Men: First Class is intended to take place during the 1960s and will parallel the history of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X?

...that T-Mobile myTouch 4G spokesperson Carly Foulkes has been cast in the FX Network television series Powers?

...that 24-hour comics have become so popular that there's now a holiday for it on April 24?

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The comics medium is a very specialized area of the Arts, home to many rare and talented blooms and flowering imaginations and it breaks my heart to see so many of our best and brightest bowing down to the same market pressures which drive lowest-common-denominator blockbuster movies and television cop shows. Let's see if we can call time on this trend by demanding and creating big, wild comics which stretch our imaginations. Let's make living breathing, sprawling adventures filled with mind-blowing images of things unseen on Earth. Let's make artefacts that are not faux-games or movies but something other, something so rare and strange it might as well be a window into another universe because that's what it is.

— Grant Morrison

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This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Comics}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.