A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and written narrative, usually, dialogue contained in word balloons emblematic of the comics art form.
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. Peanuts is among the most popular and influential in the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being". At the time of Schulz's death in 2000, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of around 355 million in 75 countries, and was translated into 21 languages. It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States, and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion.
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, widely known for his work on EC Comics's titles such as Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and MAD Magazine from its inception in 1952 until 1964, as well as for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and work for Warren Publishing's Creepy. He drew a few early issues of Marvel's Daredevil and established the title character's distinctive red costume. Wood created and owned the long-running characters Sally Forth and Cannon.
Diane Duane is an American science fiction and fantasy author, long based in Ireland. Her works include the Young Wizards young adult fantasy series and the Rihannsu Star Trek novels.
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the comic book industry rapidly expanded and genres such as horror, crime, science fiction and romance became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television and the impact of the Comics Code Authority. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a superhero revival and superheroes remained the dominant character archetype throughout the late 20th century into the 21st century.
Ivan Brunetti is an Italian and American cartoonist and comics scholar based in Chicago, Illinois.
Valiant Comics is an American comic book publisher. The company was founded in 1989 by former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter along with lawyer and businessman Steven Massarsky. In 1994, the company was sold to Acclaim Entertainment. The company was restarted as part of Valiant Entertainment by entrepreneurs Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari in 2005 after Acclaim declared bankruptcy in 2004.
A 24-hour comic is a 24-page comic book written, drawn, and completed in 24 hours. Cartoonist Scott McCloud came up with the challenge in 1990 as a creative exercise for himself and fellow comics artist Stephen R. Bissette. Beginning in 2004, writer Nat Gertler helped popularize the form by organizing annual 24 Hour Comics Days, which now take place regularly in the United States and many other countries worldwide.
Drawn & Quarterly is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic content, as well as the quality of printing and design. The name of the company is a pun on "drawing", "quarterly", and the practice of hanging, drawing and quartering. Initially it specialized in underground and alternative comics, but has since expanded into classic reprints and translations of foreign works. Drawn & Quarterly was the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s.
STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo is an annual convention in Austin, Texas, United States, for alternative comics, minicomics, webcomics, zines, underground comics, and graphic arts. Chris Nicholas founded the conference as a gathering place for professional artists and amateur creators, "a showcase for the folks who publish comics and zines and possible literary masterworks out of their own apartments."
Nat Gertler is an American writer known for his comic books and his books about comics, including six on Charles Schulz's Peanuts. Gertler is the publisher of About Comics, and founded an annual cartoonists' challenge, 24 Hour Comics Day. He has been nominated for two Eisner Awards.
Young Pillars is a single-panel gag strip written and drawn by Charles M. Schulz from 1956 to 1965 for the Youth Magazine published by the Church of God.
Barack Obama has appeared as a character in comic books published by a number of publishing companies, sometimes appearing as a realistic fictionalized version of himself and sometimes as a spoof.
Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology, is a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics owned by Amazon, with over 200 million comic downloads as of September 2013. It offers a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and manga across Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Windows 10, and the Internet.
Saga is an epic space opera/fantasy comic book series written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples, published monthly by the American company Image Comics. The series is based on ideas Vaughan conceived both as a child and as a parent. It depicts a husband and wife, Alana and Marko, from long-warring extraterrestrial races, fleeing authorities from both sides of a galactic war as they struggle to care for their daughter, Hazel, who is born in the beginning of the series, and who occasionally narrates the series as an unseen adult.
Black Mask Studios is a comic book and graphic novel publishing company formed by Matt Pizzolo, Steve Niles and Brett Gurewitz, designed as a new infrastructure to support comic book creators and a new pipeline for transgressive art.
Since the characters inception in the 1960s Spider-Man has appeared in multiple forms of media, including several novels, short stories, comic strips, graphic novels, light novels and children's books.
Frank Cirocco is an American comics artist and video game designer best known as the co-creator of Alien Legion with Carl Potts and Alan Zelenetz.
Sunday Press Books is an American publisher of comic strip reprint collections founded in 2005 by Peter Maresca. The company is known as a respected reprinter of comic strips and has to date won three Eisner Awards and two Harvey Awards. Since 2022 the company is partnered with Fantagraphics in distribution and marketing.
