Portal:Comics

An ashcan comic is a form of the American comic book originally created solely to establish trademarks on potential titles and not intended for sale. The practice was common in the 1930s and 1940s when the comic book industry was in its infancy, but was phased out after updates to US trademark law. The term was revived in the 1980s by Bob Burden, who applied it to prototypes of his self-published comic book. Since the 1990s, the term has been used to describe promotional materials produced in large print runs and made available for mass consumption. In the film and television industries, the term 'ashcan copy' has been adopted for low-grade material created to preserve a claim to licensed property rights.

• 1843: birth of Angelo Agostini, considered the first Brazilian cartoonist and a pioneer of sequential art
• 1977: death of Jean Cézard, French cartoonist and comic artist best remembered for Arthur le fantôme justicier.
• 1998: death of Lee Elias, American comics artist best known for Beyond Mars
• 2000: death of Alfredo Alcala, Filipino comics artist working at Marvel Comics
• 2000: launch of Wandering Ones, American webcomic by Clint Hollingsworth

• ... that Joye Hummel had never read a comic book before becoming the first woman to write scripts for Wonder Woman?
• ... that while it is now considered a classic work of girls' comics, the 1974 manga series The Heart of Thomas was almost cancelled five weeks into serialization due to poor initial reader response?
• ... that Iván Arias's eccentric but successful 2021 La Paz mayoral campaign involved an action figure, comics, and chocolate kisses named and styled in his likeness?
• ... that while Marvel Comics originally designated the main reality depicted in the MCU multiverse as Earth-199999, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness established it as Earth-616?
• ... that Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany wore comic-book-accurate Scarlet Witch and Vision Halloween costumes in the WandaVision episode "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!"?
• ... that the 1994 video game Kajko i Kokosz, the first based on the Polish comic book series of the same name, was not playtested, and the initial release had to be recalled and replaced?
• ... that Piecemeal, who appeared in The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga, was considered one of the strangest characters to appear in a Marvel video game?
• ... that according to one source, The Embroidered Couch is "most likely China's earliest vernacular pornographic novel"?

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal panel

A panel from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a webcomic by Zach Weiner first published in its current iteration in 2002. This daily comic features no recurring characters or storylines, and has no set format; some strips may be a single panel, while others may go on for ten panels or more. Recurring themes include atheism, God, superheroes, romance, dating, science, research, parenting and the meaning of life.

• ...that the first issue of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comic book had pre-orders exceeding 100,000 copies, making it one of the most successful comics of 2012?

• ...that xkcd creator Randall Munroe recently finished a self-updating webcomic strip that spanned 3,099 frames over 123 days?

• ...that A-Force, the upcoming ongoing comic book series to be published by Marvel Comics, will feature Marvel's first all-female team of Avengers?