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Megatokyo is a webcomic created by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston, first released on August 14, 2000, as of July 17, 2002 written and illustrated solely by Gallagher. The style of its writing and illustrations is heavily influenced by Japanese manga. Megatokyo ranks among the most popular webcomics, and is the best selling original English-language manga. Megatokyo's title is derived from the name of its Internet domain, which hosted a short-lived gaming news site maintained by Caston before the comic's creation. The comic's title is rendered as "メガトーキョー" on its website, books, and some merchandise.
Superman is a fictional character and one of the most famous and popular comic book superheroes of all time. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective Comics Inc. the same year Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 (June 1938), the character has since appeared in radio serials, television programs, films, comic books, newspaper strips and video games, contributing to his long-standing ubiquity.
Superman is born Kal-El on an alien planet — later named Krypton — and is rocketed to Earth as an infant by his scientist father moments before the planet's destruction. The rocket lands on Earth, where he is found by passing motorists who adopt him and give him the name Clark Kent. As Clark reaches maturity, he learns he has superhuman abilities which he resolves to use to help others, fighting anything from petty crime to universal threats. After adopting a Kryptonian fabric costume consisting of a blue shirt with a stylized "S" on the chest, a pair of red briefs over blue pants, a pair of red boots, and a red cape, he becomes Earth's champion, with the media giving him several nicknames including "The Man of Steel", "The Man of Tomorrow" and "The Last Son of Krypton". To keep his identity secret when not fighting evil as Superman, Clark lives among humanity as a "mild-mannered" reporter for the Metropolis newspaper The Daily Star (later changed to the Daily Planet). Clark works alongside reporter Lois Lane, with whom he is romantically involved (and married in the mainstream current comics' continuity).Batman (originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still sometimes as the Batman) is a DC Comics fictional superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. He has since become, along with Superman and Spider-Man, one of the world's most recognized superheroes. Batman was co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, although only Kane receives official credit for the character.
Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, billionaire industrialist, playboy, and philanthropist. Witnessing the murder of his parents as a child leads him to train himself to the peak of physical and intellectual perfection, don a costume, and fight crime. Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superhuman powers or abilities; he makes use of intellect, detective skills, technology, and physical prowess in his war on crime.Captain Marvel is a comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and now owned by DC Comics. Created in 1939 by artist C.C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, the character first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (Feb, 1940). With a premise that taps into adolescent fantasy, Captain Marvel is the alter ego of Billy Batson, a youth who works as a radio news reporter and was chosen to be a champion of good by the wizard Shazam. Whenever Billy speaks the wizard's name, he is instantly struck by a magic lightning bolt that transforms him into an adult superhero empowered with the abilities of six mythological figures. Several friends and family members, most notably Marvel Family cohorts Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr., can share Billy's power and become "Marvels" themselves.
Hailed as "The World's Mightiest Mortal" in his adventures (and nicknamed "The Big Red Cheese" by archvillain Doctor Sivana, an epithet adopted by fans as a nickname for their hero), Captain Marvel was, based on sales, the most popular superhero of the 1940s, since the Captain Marvel Adventures comic book series sold more copies than Superman and other competing superhero books during the mid-1940s. Captain Marvel was also the first superhero to be adapted into film in 1941 (The Adventures of Captain Marvel). Fawcett ceased publishing Captain Marvel-related comics in 1953, dure in part to a copyright infringement suit from DC Comics alleging that Captain Marvel was an illegal infringement of Superman.Krazy Kat is a comic strip created by George Herriman that appeared in U.S. newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It was first published in William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal. Set in a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, Krazy Kat's mixture of surrealism, innocent playfulness, and poetic language have made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than eighty years.
The strip focuses on the relationship triangle between its title character, a carefree and innocent cat of indeterminate gender (referred to as both male and female), her antagonist Ignatz Mouse, and the protective police dog, Officer Bull Pupp. Krazy nurses an unrequited love for the mouse, but Ignatz despises her and constantly schemes to throw a brick at her head; for unknown reasons, Krazy takes this as a sign of affection. Officer Pupp, as Coconino County's administrator of law and order, makes it his unwavering mission to interfere with Ignatz's brick-tossing plans and lock the mouse in the county jail.Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Originally published by DC Comics as a monthly limited series from 1986 to 1987, it was later republished as a trade paperback. It was one of the first superhero comics to present itself as serious literature, and it also popularized the "graphic novel" format. Watchmen is the only graphic novel (besides Frank Miller's 300)to win a Hugo Award, and is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time magazine's 2005 list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present."
Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternative history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. In Watchmen, superheroes are depicted as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who have neuroses and failings, and who are largely lacking in superpowers. Watchmen's deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism and multi-layered dialogue, has changed both comics and film.The Adventures of Tintin (Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of comic strip narratives created by Georges Remi under the pseudonym Hergé (a reversal of his initials, R G, as pronounced in French). They first appeared in French in a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle in 1929. Set in a painstakingly researched world closely mirroring our own, The Adventures of Tintin present a number of well realised characters in distinctive settings. The series has continued as a favourite of readers and critics alike for over 70 years.
The hero of the series is the titular character, Tintin, a young reporter and traveller. He is aided in his adventures from the beginning by his faithful dog Snowy (Milou in French). Later, popular additions to the cast included Captain Haddock and other colourful supporting characters.
The success of the series saw the serialised strips collected into a series of albums, spun into a successful magazine and adapted for both film and theatre. The series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in over 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date.Calvin and Hobbes is a daily comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger. The strip was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was carried by over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. To date, more than 30 million copies of the 18 Calvin and Hobbes books have been printed, and popular culture is still replete with references to the strip.
The strip is vaguely set in the contemporary Midwestern United States, on the outskirts of suburbia, a location probably inspired by Watterson's home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Calvin and Hobbes appear in most of the strips, though several focused instead upon Calvin's family. The broad themes of the strip deal with Calvin's flights of fantasy, his friendship with Hobbes, his misadventures, his views on a diverse range of political and cultural issues and his relationships and interactions with his parents, classmates, educators, and other members of society. The dual nature of Hobbes is also a recurring motif. Calvin sees Hobbes a different way (alive), while other characters see him as something else (a stuffed animal).Roy of the Rovers is a British comic strip about the life and exploits of a fictional footballer named Roy Race which has run in various publications since 1954. The strip gave its name to a weekly (and later monthly) comic magazine, published by IPC and Fleetway from 1976 to 1995, in which it was the main feature.
Football-themed stories were a staple of British comics from the 1950s onwards, and Roy of the Rovers was the most popular ever produced, with an estimated one million readers at the height of its popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As such, it holds a unique place in British football folklore, demonstrated most clearly by the stock phrase "real Roy of the Rovers stuff". This is often used by football writers and commentators when describing displays of great skill or results that go against the odds, in reference to the dramatic storylines that became the strip's trademark.
