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112-430: Rog-2000 (pronounced "Rahj-two-thousand", and sometimes spelled "ROG 2000") is a fictional robot that was the first professional creation of comic book artist-writer John Byrne . Rog-2000 serves as the mascot of Byrne Robotics. The character began life during Byrne's fan-artist days in the 1970s, as a spot illustration for Roger Stern and Bob Layton 's fanzine CPL ( Contemporary Pictorial Literature ) . Layton gave

224-660: A tabloid form. Underground comics and "small press" titles have also appeared in the UK, notably Oz and Escape Magazine . The content of Action , another title aimed at children and launched in the mid-1970s, became the subject of discussion in the House of Commons . Although on a smaller scale than similar investigations in the US, such concerns led to a moderation of content published within British comics. Such moderation never became formalized to

336-631: A black artist or writer allowed in a major comics company." Asian characters within comic books encountered similar prejudiced treatment as black characters did. They were subjected to dehumanizing depictions, with narratives often portraying them as "incompetent and subhuman." In a 1944 edition of the publication United States Marines , there was a story titled The Smell of the Monkeymen . This narrative portrayed Japanese soldiers as brutish simians, and it depicted their concealed positions being betrayed by their repugnant body odor. Chinese characters received

448-498: A bubble or just floating above the character's head as a modified 'cloudy' thought bubble, depicts anger, not always verbally expressed. Light bulbs are sometimes used when the character thinks of an idea or solution to a problem. In the Western world, it is common to replace profanity with a string of nonsense symbols (&%$ @*$ #), sometimes termed grawlixes . In comics that are usually addressed to children or teenagers, bad language

560-552: A character in their Josie and the Pussycats comic, has musical notes drawn into her word balloons at all times, to convey that she speaks in a sing-song voice. The above-mentioned Albert Uderzo in the Asterix series decorates speech bubbles with beautiful flowers depicting an extremely soft, sweet voice (usually preceding a violent outburst by the same character). A stormy cloud with a rough lightning shape sticking out of it, either in

672-433: A character is gagged or otherwise unable to speak. Another, less conventional thought bubble has emerged: the "fuzzy" thought bubble. Used in manga (by such artists as Ken Akamatsu ), the fuzzy bubble is roughly circular in shape (generally), but the edge of the bubble is not a line but a collection of spikes close to each other, creating the impression of fuzziness. Fuzzy thought bubbles do not use tails, and are placed near

784-473: A company named Comics Guaranty (CGC) initiated the practice of "slabbing" comics, which involves encasing them within thick plastic cases and assigning them a numerical grade. This approach inspired the emergence of Comic Book Certification Service . Given the significance of condition in determining the value of rare comics, the concept of grading by an impartial company, one that does not engage in buying or selling comics, seemed promising. Nevertheless, there

896-417: A cover. But Charlton was not interested, and Marvel was beckoning rather relentlessly at that point. I'm not sure anymore who owns Rog. I had a handshake from [Charlton managing editor] George Wildman to the effect that Rog would always be mine, but we all know what Samuel Goldwyn said about verbal agreements! In any case, it has been so long since I did anything with Rog, I would not be at all surprised if

1008-450: A different language which Asterix may not understand; Goths speak in blackletter , Greeks in angular lettering (though always understood by the Gaulish main characters, so it is more of an accent than a language), Norse with "Nørdic åccents", Egyptians in faux hieroglyphs (depictive illustrations and rebuses), etc. Another experiment with speech bubbles was exclusive to one book, Asterix and

1120-452: A famous example of the British comic annual. DC Thomson also repackages The Broons and Oor Wullie strips in softcover A4-size books for the holiday season. On 19 March 2012, the British postal service, the Royal Mail , released a set of stamps depicting British comic book characters and series. The collection featured The Beano , The Dandy , Eagle , The Topper , Roy of

1232-577: A five chapter spy genre tale written by Otto Binder and drawn by Al Carreno. It is readable online in the Digital Comic Museum . The magazine never reached a second issue. In 1950, St. John Publications produced the digest-sized , adult-oriented "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust , a 128-page digest by pseudonymous writer "Drake Waller" ( Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller ), penciler Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin , touted as "an original full-length novel" on its cover. "It Rhymes with Lust"

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1344-638: A font that is exclusive to them. For examples, the main character, the gloomy Dream , speaks in wavy-edged bubbles, completely black, with similarly wavy white lettering. His sister, the scatterbrained and whimsical Delirium speaks in bubbles in a many-colored explosive background with uneven lettering, and the irreverent raven Matthew speaks in a shaky angular kind of bubble with scratchy lettering. Other characters, such as John Dee, have special shapes of bubbles for their own. For Mad magazine's recurring comic strip Monroe , certain words are written larger or in unusual fonts for emphasis. In manga , there

1456-623: A government ran program, the Writers' War Board, became heavily involved in what would be published in comics. "The Writers' War Board used comic books to shape popular perceptions of race and ethnicity..." Not only were they using comic books as a means of recruiting all Americans, they were also using it as propaganda to "[construct] a justification for race-based hatred of America's foreign enemies." The Writers' War Board created comics books that were meant to "[promote] domestic racial harmony". However, "these pro-tolerance narratives struggled to overcome

1568-461: A humorous tone; however, this practice was replaced by featuring stories of all genres, usually not humorous in tone. The largest comic book market is Japan. By 1995, the manga market in Japan was valued at ¥ 586.4 billion ( $ 6–7 billion ), with annual sales of 1.9   billion manga books ( tankōbon volumes and manga magazines ) in Japan, equivalent to 15   issues per person. In 2020

1680-427: A less superior race and cannot believe they bested his men."The Tuskegee Airmen, and images of black aviators appear in just three of the fifty three panels... the pilots of the 99th Squadron have no dialogue and interact with neither Hop Harrigan nor his Nazi captive." During this time, they also used black characters in comic books as a means to invalidate the militant black groups that were fighting for equality within

1792-412: A lifelong passion for the stories within comics, often focusing on specific superheroes and striving to gather a complete collection of a particular series. Comics are assigned sequential numbers, and the initial issue of a long-lasting comic book series tends to be both the scarcest and the most coveted among collectors. The introduction of a new character might occur within an existing title. For instance,

1904-488: A sound effect for "deafening silence", shiin ( シーン ) . In many comic books, words that would be foreign to the narration but are displayed in translation for the reader are surrounded by brackets or chevrons ⟨like this⟩ . Gilbert Hernandez 's series about Palomar is written in English, but supposed to take place mainly in a Hispanic country. Thus, what is supposed to be representations of Spanish speech

2016-635: A speech bubble with this letter standing all alone means the character is sleeping in most humorous comics. This can be seen, for instance, in Charles Schulz 's Peanuts comic strips. The resemblance between the 'z' sound and that of a snore is a frequent feature in other countries. However, in Japanese manga the common symbol for sleep is a large bubble of snot coming out of a character's nose. Singing characters usually have musical notes drawn into their word balloons. Archie Comics ' Melody Valentine ,

2128-452: A stunned silence or when a sarcastic comment is expected by the reader. The ellipsis, along with the big drop of sweat on the character's temple – usually depicting shame, confusion, or embarrassment caused by other people's actions – is one of the Japanese graphic symbols that have become used by other comics around the world, although they are still rare in Western tradition. Japanese even has

2240-497: A surge of creativity emerged in what became known as underground comix . Published and distributed independently of the established comics industry, most of such comics reflected the youth counterculture and drug culture of the time. Underground comix "reflected and commented on the social divisions and tensions of American society". Many had an uninhibited, often irreverent style; their frank depictions of nudity, sex, profanity, and politics had no parallel outside their precursors,

2352-490: A tail; this usage, equivalent to voice-over for movies, is not uncommon in American comics for dramatic contrast. In contrast to captions, the corners of such balloons never coincide with those of the panel; for further distinction, they often have a double outline, a different background color, or quotation marks . Thought bubbles are used in two forms, the chain thought bubble and the "fuzzy" bubble. The chain thought bubble

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2464-458: A thought bubble proved puzzling to Iraqi soldiers: according to one PSYOP specialist this was because the technique was not known in Iraq, and readers "had no idea why Saddam's head was floating in the air." The most common is the speech bubble. It is used in two forms for two circumstances: an in-panel character and an off-panel character. An in-panel character (one who is fully or mostly visible in

2576-514: Is Alan Moore and David Lloyd 's V for Vendetta , wherein during one chapter, a monologue expressed in captions serves not only to express the thoughts of a character but also the mood, status and actions of three others. The shape of a speech balloon can be used to convey further information. Common ones include the following: Captions are generally used for narration purposes, such as showing location and time, or conveying editorial commentary. They are generally rectangular and positioned near

2688-465: Is censored by replacing it with more or less elaborate drawings and expressionistic symbols. For example, instead of calling someone a swine, a pig is drawn in the speech bubble. One example is the Spanish Mortadelo series, created by Francisco Ibáñez . Although not specifically addressed to children, Mortadelo was initiated during Francisco Franco 's dictatorship , when censorship

2800-402: Is a standard speech bubble with a tail pointing toward the speaker's position (sometimes seen with a symbol at the end to represent specific characters). The second option, which originated in manga , has the tail pointing into the bubble, instead of out. (This tail is still pointing towards the speaker.) The third option replaces the tail with a sort of bottleneck that connects with the side of

2912-469: Is a tendency to include the speech necessary for the storyline in balloons, while small scribbles outside the balloons add side comments, often used for irony or to show that they are said in a much smaller voice. Satsuki Yotsuba in the manga series Negima is notable because she speaks almost entirely in side scribble. Speech bubbles are used not only to include a character's words, but also emotions, voice inflections and unspecified language. One of

3024-493: Is also available to read online in the Digital Comic Museum. In 1971, writer-artist Gil Kane and collaborators applied a paperback format to their "comics novel" Blackmark . Will Eisner popularized the term "graphic novel" when he used it on the cover of the paperback edition of his work A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories in 1978 and, subsequently, the usage of the term began to increase. In 2017,

3136-458: Is an ongoing debate regarding whether the relatively high cost of this grading service is justified and whether it serves the interests of collectors or mainly caters to speculators seeking rapid profits, akin to trading in stocks or fine art. Comic grading has played a role in establishing standards for valuation, which online price guides such as GoCollect and GPAnalysis utilize to provide real-time market value information. Collectors also seek out

3248-653: Is generally considered the beginning of the modern comic book as it is known today. The Silver Age of Comic Books is generally considered to date from the first successful revival of the then-dormant superhero form, with the debut of the Flash in Showcase #4 (Oct. 1956). The Silver Age lasted through the late 1960s or early 1970s, during which time Marvel Comics revolutionized the medium with such naturalistic superheroes as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby 's Fantastic Four and Lee and Steve Ditko 's Spider-Man . The demarcation between

3360-617: Is largely set in Britain and starring the magician John Constantine , paved the way for British writers such as Jamie Delano . The English musician Peter Gabriel issued in 2000 The Story of OVO which was released in a CD-booklet-shaped comic book as part of the CD edition with the title " OVO The Millennium Show ". The 2000 Millennium Dome Show based on it. At Christmas, publishers repackage and commission material for comic annuals , printed and bound as hardcover A4 -size books; "Rupert" supplies

3472-422: Is the almost universal symbol for thinking in cartoons. It consists of a large, cloud -like bubble containing the text of the thought, with a chain of increasingly smaller circular bubbles leading to the character. Some artists use an elliptical bubble instead of a cloud-shaped one. Often, non-human characters such as Snoopy and Garfield "talk" using thought bubbles. They may also be used in circumstances when

Rog-2000 - Misplaced Pages Continue

3584-420: Is the traditional direction; and horizontal, as most other languages), manga has a convention of representing translated foreign speech as horizontal text. It is a convention for American comics that the sound of a snore is represented as a series of Z's, dating back at least to Rudolph Dirks ' early 20th-century strip The Katzenjammer Kids . This practice has even been reduced to a single letter Z, so that

3696-448: Is to letter with computer programs. The fonts used usually emulate the style of hand-lettering. Traditionally, most mainstream comic books are lettered entirely in upper-case , with a few exceptions: When hand-lettering, upper-case lettering saves time and effort because it requires drawing only three guidelines, while mixed-case lettering requires five. For a few comics, uppercase and lowercase are used as in ordinary writing. Since

3808-591: Is used in South Korea to refer to both comics and cartooning in general. Outside South Korea, the term usually refers to comics originally published in the country. Manhwa is greatly influenced by Japanese Manga comics though it differs from manga and manhua with its own distinct features. Webtoons have become popular in South Korea as a new way to read comics. Thanks in part to different censorship rules, color and unique visual effects, and optimization for easier reading on smartphones and computers. More manhwa have made

3920-507: Is written without brackets, but occasional actual English speech is written within brackets, to indicate that it is unintelligible to the main Hispanophone characters in the series. Some comics will have the actual foreign language in the speech balloon, with the translation as a footnote; this is done with Latin aphorisms in Asterix . In the webcomic Stand Still, Stay Silent , in which characters may speak up to five different languages in

4032-873: The 2nd century , found in Capitolias , today in Jordan . In Western graphic art, labels that reveal what a pictured figure is saying have appeared since at least the 13th century. These were in common European use by the early 16th century. Word balloons (also known as " banderoles ") began appearing in 18th-century printed broadsides, and political cartoons from the American Revolution (including some published by Benjamin Franklin ) often used them—as did cartoonist James Gillray in Britain. They later became disused, but by 1904 had regained their popularity, although they were still considered novel enough to require explanation. With

4144-523: The archetype of the superhero . According to historian Michael A. Amundson , appealing comic-book characters helped ease young readers' fear of nuclear war and neutralize anxiety about the questions posed by atomic power. Historians generally divide the timeline of the American comic book into eras. The Golden Age of Comic Books began in 1938, with the debut of Superman in Action Comics #1, published by Detective Comics (predecessor of DC Comics), which

4256-543: The 1930s – and through really to the 1950s and 60s – these comics were almost the only entertainment available to children." Dennis the Menace was created in the 1950s, which saw sales for The Beano soar. He features in the cover of The Beano , with the BBC referring to him as the "definitive naughty boy of the comic world." In 1954, Tiger comics introduced Roy of the Rovers ,

4368-422: The 1940s there was a change in portrayal of black characters. "A cursory glance...might give the impression that situations had improved for African Americans in comics." In many comics being produced in this time there was a major push for tolerance between races. "These equality minded heroes began to spring to action just as African Americans were being asked to participate in the war effort." During this time,

4480-560: The 1990s, changed the format and distribution of their comics to more closely resemble non-comics publishing. The " minicomics " form, an extremely informal version of self-publishing , arose in the 1980s and became increasingly popular among artists in the 1990s, despite reaching an even more limited audience than the small press. Small publishers regularly releasing titles include Avatar Press , Hyperwerks , Raytoons, and Terminal Press , buoyed by such advances in printing technology as digital print-on-demand . In 1964, Richard Kyle coined

4592-399: The 20th century, with the first comic standard-sized comic being Funnies on Parade . Funnies on Parades was the first book that established the size, duration, and format of the modern comic book. Following this was, Dell Publishing 's 36-page Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics as the first true newsstand American comic book; Goulart, for example, calls it "the cornerstone for one of

Rog-2000 - Misplaced Pages Continue

4704-459: The 21st century and which Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini adapted into a 2003 film . Some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics. While their content generally remained less explicit, others resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned companies or by single artists. A few (notably RAW ) represented experimental attempts to bring comics closer to

4816-458: The Belgian artist Hergé 's The Adventures of Tintin series being a good example. Sometimes, the punctuation marks stand alone above the character's head, with no bubble needed. In manga , the ellipsis (i.e. three dots) is also used to express silence in a much more significant way than the mere absence of bubbles. This is specially seen when a character is supposed to say something, to indicate

4928-587: The Charlton stories were reprinted in Pacific Comics ' ROG 2000 #1 (June 1982), as well as in A-Plus Comics ' Hot 'N Cold Heroes #1 (1990) and Herbie #4-4 (1991). In a 2000 interview, Byrne recalled that: We talked about a Rog book, and I even came up with a full-length story idea, a sequel to the sewer-monster story that was, if memory serves, the last published Rog story at Charlton. I think I even laid out

5040-659: The Comics Magazine Association of America. The CMAA instilled the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and drafted the self-censorship Comics Code that year, which required all comic books to go through a process of approval. It was not until the 1970s that comic books could be published without passing through the inspection of the CMAA. The Code was made formally defunct in November 2011. In the late 1960s and early 1970s,

5152-647: The Incredible Hulk and the X-Men . The best-selling comic book categories in the US as of 2019 are juvenile children's fiction at 41%, manga at 28% and superhero comics at 10% of the market. Another major comic book market is France , where Franco-Belgian comics and Japanese manga each represent 40% of the market, followed by American comics at 10% market share. Comic books heavily rely on their organization and visual presentation. Authors dedicate significant attention to aspects like page layout, size, orientation, and

5264-548: The Innocent (1954). This critique led to the involvement of the American Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency , which launched an investigation into comic books. Wertham argued that comic books were accountable for a surge in juvenile delinquency and posed a potential impact on a child's sexuality and moral values. In response to attention from the government and from the media, the US comic book industry set up

5376-651: The Magician , and the Phantom . Several reprint companies became involved in repackaging American material for the British market, notably the importer and distributor Thorpe & Porter . Marvel Comics established a UK office in 1972. DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics also opened offices in the 1990s. The repackaging of European material has occurred less frequently, although The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix serials have been successfully translated and repackaged in softcover books. The number of European comics available in

5488-501: The Roman Agent . The agent in question is a vile manipulator who creates discord in a group of people with a single innocent-sounding comment. His victims start quarreling and ultimately fighting each other while speaking in green-colored speech bubbles. Font variation is a common tactic in comics. The Sandman series, written by Neil Gaiman and lettered by Todd Klein , features many characters whose speech bubbles are written with

5600-593: The Rovers , Bunty , Buster , Valiant , Twinkle and 2000 AD . Word balloon One of the earliest antecedents to the modern speech bubble were the " speech scrolls ", wispy lines that connected first-person speech to the mouths of the speakers in Mesoamerican art between 600 and 900 AD. Earlier, paintings, depicting stories in subsequent frames, using descriptive text resembling bubbles-text, were used in murals, one such example written in Greek , dating to

5712-579: The Silver Age and the following era, the Bronze Age of Comic Books , is less well-defined, with the Bronze Age running from the very early 1970s through the mid-1980s. The Modern Age of Comic Books runs from the mid-1980s to the present day. A significant event in the timeline of American comic books occurred when psychiatrist Fredric Wertham voiced his criticisms of the medium through his book Seduction of

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5824-426: The U.S. "Spider-Man 'made it clear that militant black power was not the remedy for racial injustice'." "The Falcon openly criticized black behavior stating' maybe it's important fo [ sic ] us to cool things down-so we can protect the rights we been fightin' for'." This portrayal and character development of black characters can be partially blamed on the fact that, during this time, "there had rarely been

5936-507: The UK has increased in the last two decades. The British company Cinebook , founded in 2005, has released English translated versions of many European series. In the 1980s, a resurgence of British writers and artists gained prominence in mainstream comic books, which was dubbed the " British Invasion " in comic book history. These writers and artists brought with them their own mature themes and philosophy such as anarchy, controversy and politics common in British media. These elements would pave

6048-499: The United States. They were the ones painted as intolerant and disrespectful of the dominant concerns of white America". Manga (漫画) are comic books or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, though the art form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art . The term manga is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning in general. Outside Japan,

6160-540: The bubbles are read from left to right in a panel, while in Japanese , it is the other way around. Sometimes the bubbles are "stacked", with two characters having multiple bubbles, one above the other. Such stacks are read from the top down. Traditionally, a cartoonist or occupational letterer would draw in all the individual letters in the balloons and sound effects by hand. A modern alternative, used by most comics presently and universal in English-translated manga,

6272-597: The character a name (riffing on the amount of "Rogers" – specifically Roger Stern and Roger Slifer – who contributed to CPL ), and he and Stern began using him as a magazine mascot, with Byrne supplying additional art. A Rog-2000 story, "The Coming of the Gang", appeared in CPL #11 (1974), written by Stern with art by Byrne and Layton, and featuring caricatures of "the CPL Gang ", including Byrne and fellow CPL contributor Duffy Vohland. On

6384-432: The character who is thinking. Thought bubbles are sometimes seen as an inefficient method of expressing thought because they are attached directly to the head of the thinker, unlike methods such as caption boxes, which can be used both as an expression of thought and narration while existing in an entirely different panel from the character thinking. However, they are restricted to the current viewpoint character. An example

6496-478: The character's origin in a 2000 interview: I was doing a lot of spot illos [illustrations] for 'zines, mostly for Stern's and Layton's CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature ). One of the doodles I sent in was a robot with his arm blown off. Layton and Stern turned this into an editorial gag illo, and, since there were several Rogers involved in CPL at the time, Layton named him ROG-2000. Then they asked for more drawings of

6608-687: The comic book market size for North America was just over $ 1 billion with digital sales being flat, book stores having a 1 percent decline, and comic book stores having a 10 percent decline over 2016. The global comic book market saw a substantial 12% growth in 2020, reaching a total worth of US$ 8.49 billion. This positive trajectory continued in 2021, with the market's annual valuation surging to US$ 9.21 billion. The rising popularity of comic books can be attributed to heightened global interest, driven significantly by collaborative efforts among diverse brands. These collaborations are geared towards producing more engaging and appealing comic content, contributing to

6720-463: The comic book market. The rarest modern comic books include the original press run of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #5, which DC executive Paul Levitz recalled and pulped due to the appearance of a vintage Victorian era advertisement for "Marvel Douche ", which the publisher considered offensive; only 100 copies exist, most of which have been CGC graded. (See Recalled comics for more pulped, recalled, and erroneous comics.) In 2000,

6832-534: The comics all together. There was a comic created about the 99th Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen , an all-black air force unit. Instead of making the comic about their story, the comic was about Hop Harrigan. A white pilot who captures a Nazi, shows him videos of the 99th Squadron defeating his men and then reveals to the Nazi that his men were defeated by African Americans which infuriated him as he sees them as

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6944-415: The comics art form. Comic Cuts was a British comic published from 1890 to 1953. It was preceded by Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884), which is notable for its use of sequential cartoons to unfold narrative. These British comics existed alongside the popular lurid " penny dreadfuls " (such as Spring-heeled Jack ), boys' " story papers " and the humorous Punch magazine, which was the first to use

7056-467: The comics. Fesser claimed: "When you see a bubble speech containing a lightning falling on a pig, what do you imagine the character's saying?" In order for comic strip and graphic novel dialogue to make sense, it has to be read in order. Thus, conventions have evolved in the order in which the communication bubbles are read. The individual bubbles are read in the order of the language. For example, in English ,

7168-433: The coon stereotype but had some subtle differences. They are both a derogatory way of portraying black characters. "The name itself, an abbreviation of raccoon, is dehumanizing. As with Sambo, the coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon." This portrayal "was of course another attempt to solidify the intellectual inferiority of the black race through popular culture." However, in

7280-516: The copyright has lapsed. Stern was reunited with Rog-2000 when Charlton accepted two of his scripts for the feature, but the company then canceled E-Man the following workday. Comic book A comic book , 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

7392-618: The debut appearances of iconic characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman , the Flash , Captain Marvel , Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk , Iron Man , Captain America and the Mighty Thor are regarded as priceless treasures within the comic book world. Many early iterations of black characters in comics "became variations on the 'single stereotypical image of Sambo'." Sambo was closely related to

7504-441: The development of the comics industry during the 20th century, the appearance of speech balloons has become increasingly standardized, though the formal conventions that have evolved in different cultures (USA as opposed to Japan, for example) can be quite distinct. In the UK in 1825 The Glasgow Looking Glass , regarded as the world's first comics magazine , was created by English satirical cartoonist William Heath . Containing

7616-557: The early Tarzan comic strip during the 1930s. In Europe, where text comics were more common, the adoption of speech balloons was slower, with well-known examples being Alain Saint-Ogan 's Zig et Puce (1925), Hergé 's The Adventures of Tintin (1929), and Rob-Vel 's Spirou (1938). Speech balloons are not necessarily popular or well-known in all parts of the world. During the Gulf War , an American propaganda leaflet that used

7728-515: The edge of the panel. Often they are also colored to indicate the difference between themselves and the word balloons used by the characters, which are almost always white. Increasingly in modern comics, captions are frequently used to convey an internal monologue or typical speech. Some characters and strips use unconventional methods of communication. Perhaps the most notable is the Yellow Kid , an early American comic strip character. His (but not

7840-400: The eight-page "That Was No Lady" in issue #6 (Jan. 1975). This marked the color-comics debut of future industry star Byrne, who'd previously drawn a two-page story for Skywald Publications ' black-and-white horror -comics magazine Nightmare #20 (Aug. 1974). The character also appeared the same month in the small-press hobbyist magazine The Comic Reader #44 (Jan. 1975). As Byrne recalled

7952-420: The eradication of Asian invaders." There was "a constant relay race in which one Asian culture merely handed off the baton of hatred to another with no perceptible changes in the manner in which the characters would be portrayed." "The only specific depiction of a Hispanic superhero did not end well. In 1975, Marvel gave us Hector Ayala (a.k.a. The White Tiger)." "Although he fought for several years alongside

8064-413: The extent of promulgating a code, nor did it last long. The UK has also established a healthy market in the reprinting and repackaging of material, notably material originating in the US. The lack of reliable supplies of American comic books led to a variety of black-and-white reprints, including Marvel's monster comics of the 1950s, Fawcett's Captain Marvel , and other characters such as Sheena , Mandrake

8176-494: The first appearance of Spider-Man took place in Amazing Fantasy #15. New characters were frequently introduced in this manner, waiting for an established audience before launching their own titles. Consequently, comics featuring the debut appearance of a significant character can sometimes be even more challenging to locate than the inaugural issue of that character's standalone series. Some rare comic books include copies of

8288-508: The first appearance of Superman , both sold privately through online dealer ComicConnect.com in 2010, and Detective Comics #27, the first appearance of Batman , via public auction. Updating the above price obtained for Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman , the highest sale on record for this book is $ 3.2 million, for a 9.0 copy. Misprints, promotional comic-dealer incentive printings, and issues with exceptionally low distribution tend to possess scarcity value in

8400-590: The hugely popular football based strip recounting the life of Roy Race and the team he played for, Melchester Rovers . The stock media phrase "real 'Roy of the Rovers' stuff" is often used by football writers, commentators and fans when describing displays of great skill, or surprising results that go against the odds, in reference to the dramatic storylines that were the strip's trademark. Other comic books such as Eagle , Valiant , Warrior , Viz and 2000 AD also flourished. Some comics, such as Judge Dredd and other 2000 AD titles, have been published in

8512-426: The industry's continued growth. The 1970s saw the advent of specialty comic book stores . Initially, comic books were marketed by publishers to children because comic books were perceived as children's entertainment. However, with increasing recognition of comics as an art form and the growing pop culture presence of comic book conventions , they are now embraced by many adults. Comic book collectors often exhibit

8624-465: The influence of the Francophone "Franco-Belgian" comics but have their own distinct style. Although Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884) was aimed at an adult market, publishers quickly targeted a younger demographic, which has led to most publications being for children and has created an association in the public's mind of comics as somewhat juvenile. The Guardian refers to Ally Sloper as "one of

8736-479: The lettering is entirely in capital letters, serif versions of "I" are used exclusively where a capital I would appear in normal print text, and a sans-serif (i.e., a simple vertical line) is used in all other places. This reduces confusion with the number one, and also serves to indicate when the personal pronoun "I" is meant. This lettering convention can be seen in computer fonts designed for comic book lettering, which use OpenType contextual alternates to replace

8848-437: The likes of much more popular heroes such as Spider-Man and Daredevil, he only lasted six years before sales of comics featuring him got so bad that Marvel had him retire. The most famous Hispanic character is Bane, a villain from Batman." The Native American representation in comic books "can be summed up in the noble savage stereotype" " a recurring theme...urged American indians to abandon their traditional hostility towards

8960-553: The manga market in Japan reached a new record value of ¥612.5 billion due to a fast growth of digital manga sales as well as an increase in print sales. The comic book market in the United States and Canada was valued at $ 1.09 billion in 2016. As of 2017 , the largest comic book publisher in the United States is manga distributor Viz Media , followed by DC Comics and Marvel Comics featuring superhero comics franchises such as Superman , Batman , Wonder Woman , Spider-Man ,

9072-538: The mid-1980s, mixed case lettering has gradually become more widely used in mainstream comic books. Some comics, such as Pearls Before Swine , also use lowercase speech to mark a distinctive accent (in this case, the male crocodiles' accented speech, opposed to all other characters who use standard uppercase speech). From 2002 to 2004, Marvel Comics experimented with mixed-case lettering for all its comic books. Most mainstream titles have since returned to traditional all upper-case lettering. For many comics, although

9184-495: The most lucrative branches of magazine publishing". In 1905 G.W. Dillingham Company published 24 select strips by the cartoonist Gustave Verbeek in an anthology book called 'The Incredible Upside-Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo'. The introduction of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster 's Superman in 1938 turned comic books into a major industry and ushered in the Golden Age of Comic Books . The Golden Age originated

9296-556: The name Foolbert Sturgeon, has been credited as the first underground comix; while R. Crumb and the crew of cartoonists who worked on Zap Comix popularized the form. The rise of comic book specialty stores in the late 1970s created and paralleled a dedicated market for "independent" or " alternative comics " in the US. The first such comics included the anthology series Star Reach , published by comic book writer Mike Friedrich from 1974 to 1979, and Harvey Pekar 's American Splendor , which continued sporadic publication into

9408-408: The original artwork pages from comic books, which are perhaps the most rarefied items in the realm of comic book collecting. These pages hold unparalleled scarcity due to the fact that there exists only one unique page of artwork for every page that was printed and published. The creation of these original artwork pages involves a collaborative effort: a writer crafts the story, a pencil artist designs

9520-474: The other characters') words would appear on his large, smock-like shirt. Shirt Tales , a short-run American animated TV series of the early 1980s used this same concept, but with changing phrases on the "T-shirts" worn by the animal-based characters, depending on the characters' thoughts. Also noteworthy are the many variations of the form created by Dave Sim for his comic Cerebus the Aardvark . Depending on

9632-618: The panel of the strip of comic that the reader is viewing) uses a bubble with a pointer, termed a tail, directed towards the speaker. When one character has multiple balloons within a panel, often only the balloon nearest to the speaker's head has a tail, and the others are connected to it in sequence by narrow bands. This style is often used in Mad Magazine , due to its " call-and-response " dialogue-based humor. An off-panel character (the comic book equivalent of being "off screen") has several options, some of them rather unconventional. The first

9744-401: The panel. It can be seen in the works of Marjane Satrapi (author of Persepolis ). In comics, a bubble without a tail means that the speaker is not merely outside the reader's field of view, but also invisible to the viewpoint character , often as an unspecified member of a crowd. Characters distant (in space or time) from the scene of the panel can still speak, in squared bubbles without

9856-491: The popular and widely understood negative tropes used for decades in American mass culture...". However, they were not accomplishing this agenda within all of their comics. In the comic series Captain Marvel Adventures , there was a character named Steamboat who embodied a collection of highly negative stereotypes prevalent during that period. The Writers' War Board did not request any alterations to this character despite

9968-428: The pornographic and even more obscure " Tijuana bibles ". Underground comics were almost never sold at newsstands, but rather in such youth-oriented outlets as head shops and record stores, as well as by mail order . The underground comics encouraged creators to publish their work independently so that they would have full ownership rights to their characters. Frank Stack 's The Adventures of Jesus , published under

10080-736: The positioning of panels. These characteristics are crucial for effectively conveying the content and messages within the comic book. Key components of comic books encompass panels, speech bubbles (also known as balloons), text lines, and characters. Speech balloons generally take the form of convex containers that hold character dialogue and are connected to the character via a tail element. The tail comprises an origin, path, tip, and directional point. The creation of comic books involves several essential steps: writing, drawing, and coloring. Various technological tools and methods are employed to craft comic books, incorporating concepts such as directions, axes, data, and metrics. Following these formatting guidelines,

10192-606: The problematic portrayal. The removal of Steamboat from the series only came about due to the persistent advocacy of a black youth group based in New York City." Originally their request was refused by individuals working on the comic stating, " Captain Marvel Adventures included many kinds of caricatures 'for the sake of humor'." The black youth group responded with "this is not the Negro race, but your one-and-a-half millions readers will think it so." Afterwards, Steamboat disappeared from

10304-488: The process unfolds with writing, drawing, and coloring. In the United States, the term "comic book", is generally used for comics periodicals and trade paperbacks while " graphic novel " is the term used for standalone books. Comics as a print medium have existed in the United States since the printing of The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck in 1842 in hardcover, making it the first known American prototype comic book. Proto-comics periodicals began appearing early in

10416-452: The same for Asian people. However, "Japanese and Filipino characters were visually indistinguishable. Both groups have grotesque buckteeth, tattered clothing, and bright yellow skin." "Publishers depicted America's Asian allies through derogatory images and language honed over the preceding decades." Asian characters were previously portrayed as, "ghastly yellow demons". During WWII, "[every] major superhero worth his spandex devoted himself to

10528-615: The same robot. Since I had no access to a Xerox machine, I did not have a copy of the original drawing, so I recreated the character as best I could from memory. Later, Stern wrote a ROG-2000 story for CPL, which I illustrated. It was on the strength of this that Nick Cuti asked if I would like to do ROG for a backup feature in E-Man , which he would write. Three additional, seven-page "Rog-2000" stories – "Withering Heights", "The Wish", and "Rog. vs. The Sog", all by Cuti & Byrne – appeared in E-Man #7, 9–10 (March, July–Sept. 1975), respectively. All

10640-410: The same scene, most dialogue is unmarked (languages mostly being inferred by who is speaking and to whom), but miniature flags indicate the language being spoken where this is relevant. Another convention is to put the foreign speech in a distinctive lettering style; for example, Asterix 's Goths speak in blackletter . Since the Japanese language uses two writing directionalities (vertical, which

10752-399: The same treatment. "By the time the United States entered WWII, negative perceptions of Chinese were an established part of mass culture...." However, concerned that the Japanese could use America's anti-Chinese material as propaganda they began "to present a more positive image of America's Chinese allies..." Just as they tried to show better representation for Black people in comics they did

10864-551: The sequential panels on the page, an ink artist goes over the pencil with pen and ink, a letterer provides the dialogue and narration through hand-lettering, and finally, a colorist adds color as the final touch before the pages are sent to the printer. When the printer returns the original artwork pages, they are typically returned to the artists themselves. These artists sometimes opt to sell these pages at comic book conventions, in galleries, and at art shows centered around comic book art. The original pages from DC and Marvel, featuring

10976-453: The shape, size, and position of the bubble, as well as the texture and shape of the letters within it, Sim could convey large amounts of information about the speaker. This included separate bubbles for different states of mind (drunkenness, etc.), for echoes, and a special class of bubbles for one single floating apparition. An early pioneer in experimenting with many different types of speech balloons and lettering for different types of speech

11088-452: The status of fine art . During the 1970s the " small press " culture grew and diversified. By the 1980s, several independent publishers – such as Pacific , Eclipse , First , Comico , and Fantagraphics – had started releasing a wide range of styles and formats—from color-superhero, detective , and science-fiction comic books to black-and-white magazine-format stories of Latin American magical realism . A number of small publishers in

11200-458: The strength of that fan piece, Charlton Comics writer Nicola Cuti contacted Byrne about drawing the character for professional comic books. During this same period, the CPL Gang was producing the officially sanctioned fanzine Charlton Bullseye . Written by Cuti, "Rog-2000" became one of several alternating backup features in the Charlton Comics superhero series E-Man , starting with

11312-738: The switch from traditional print manhwa to online webtoons thanks to better pay and more freedom than traditional print manhwa. The webtoon format has also expanded to other countries outside of Korea like China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Western countries. Major webtoon distributors include Lezhin , Naver , and Kakao . France and Belgium have a long tradition in comics and comic books, often called BDs (an abbreviation of bandes dessinées , meaning literally "drawn strips") in French, and strips in Dutch or Flemish . Belgian comic books originally written in Dutch show

11424-406: The term " graphic novel ". Precursors of the form existed by the 1920s, which saw a revival of the medieval woodcut tradition by Belgian Frans Masereel , American Lynd Ward and others, including Stan Lee. In 1947, Fawcett Publications published "Comics Novel No. 1", as the first in an intended series of these "comics novels". The story in the first issue was "Anarcho, Dictator of Death",

11536-423: The term "cartoon" in its modern sense of a humorous drawing. The first modern American-style comic book , Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics , was released in the U.S. in 1933 and was a reprinting of earlier newspaper humor comic strips , which had established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term comic book derives from American comic books once being a compilation of comic strips of

11648-477: The universal emblems of the art of comics is the use of a single punctuation mark to depict a character's emotions, much more efficiently than any possible sentence. A speech bubble with a single big question mark (?) (often drawn by hand, not counted as part of the lettering) denotes confusion or ignorance. An exclamation mark (!) indicates surprise or terror. This device is used much in the European comic tradition,

11760-496: The unreleased Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 from 1939. Eight copies, plus one without a cover, emerged in the estate of the deceased publisher in 1974. The "Pay Copy" of this book sold for $ 43,125 in a 2005 Heritage auction. The most valuable American comics have combined rarity and quality with the first appearances of popular and enduring characters. Four comic books have sold for over US$ 1 million as of December 2010 , including two examples of Action Comics #1,

11872-578: The way for mature and "darker and edgier" comic books and jump start the Modern Age of Comics . Writers included Alan Moore , famous for his V for Vendetta , From Hell , Watchmen , Marvelman , and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ; Neil Gaiman with The Sandman mythos and Books of Magic ; Warren Ellis , creator of Transmetropolitan and Planetary ; and others such as Mark Millar , creator of Wanted and Kick-Ass . The comic book series John Constantine, Hellblazer , which

11984-417: The word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in the country. Dōjinshi ( 同人誌 , fan magazine ) , fan-made Japanese comics, operate in a far larger market in Japan than the American "underground comix" market; the largest dōjinshi fair, Comiket , attracts 500,000 visitors twice a year. Manhwa (만화) are comic books or graphic novels originating from South Korea . The term manhwa

12096-534: The world's first comic strip, it also made it the first to use speech bubbles. Richard F. Outcault 's Yellow Kid is generally credited as the first American comic strip character. His words initially appeared on his yellow shirt, but word balloons very much like those used presently were added almost immediately, as early as 1896. By the start of the 20th century, word balloons were ubiquitous; since that time, few American comic strips and comic books have relied on captions, notably Hal Foster 's Prince Valiant and

12208-591: The world's first iconic cartoon characters", and "as famous in Victorian Britain as Dennis the Menace would be a century later." British comics in the early 20th century typically evolved from illustrated penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era (featuring Sweeney Todd , Dick Turpin and Varney the Vampire ). First published in the 1830s, penny dreadfuls were "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for

12320-453: The young." The two most popular British comic books, The Beano and The Dandy , were first published by DC Thomson in the 1930s. By 1950 the weekly circulation of both reached two million. Explaining the enormous popularity of comics in the UK during this period, Anita O'Brien, director curator at London's Cartoon Museum, states: "When comics like the Beano and Dandy were invented back in

12432-531: Was Walt Kelly , for his Pogo strip. Deacon Mushrat speaks with blackletter words, P.T. Bridgeport speaks in circus posters, Sarcophagus MacAbre speaks in condolence cards, "Mr. Pig" (a take on Nikita Khrushchev ) speaks in faux Cyrillic , etc. In the famous French comic series Asterix , Goscinny and Uderzo use bubbles without tails to indicate a distant or unseen speaker. They have also experimented with using different types of lettering for characters of different nationalities to indicate that they speak

12544-412: Was common and rough language was prohibited. When Ibáñez's characters are angry, donkey heads, lightning, lavatories, billy goats and even faux Japanese characters are often seen in their bubbles. When Mortadelo was portrayed in a movie by Spanish director Javier Fesser in 2003, one of the critiques made to his otherwise successful adaptation was the character's use of words that never appeared in

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