One-shot (comics)

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In the comic industry, the term one-shot is used to describe a pilot comic or stand-alone story only designed to last one issue. These single issues are usually emblazoned with a "#1", despite there being no following issues.

In the Japanese manga industry, the same concept is expressed by the term yomikiri (読み切り), which implies that the comic is presented in its entirety, without any continuations. One-shot manga tells its entire story in 15-20 pages, usually written for contests, and sometimes later developed into full-length manga series. One Piece began as a one-shot manga competition entry, and Rising Stars of Manga is an annual competition for original English-language one-shot manga, many of which have gone on to become full-length manga series.

Since the rise in popularity of online posting of prose fiction and poetry, which are often written in short chapters resembling comic book issues, the term "one-shot" has also become popular for describing self-contained works of electronic literature that are only a single chapter in length.