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Retcon

Retcon

Retroactive continuity – commonly contracted to the portmanteau word retcon – refers to adding new information to "historical" material, or deliberately changing previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change itself is referred to as a retcon, and the act of writing and publishing a retcon is called "retconning". Retcons are common in comic books, especially those of large publishing houses such as Marvel Comics and DC Comics, due to the lengthy history of many series and the number of independent authors contributing to their development. Retconning also occurs in TV shows, movies sequels, video games, radio series, series of novels, and can be done in any other type of episodic fiction. It is also used in roleplaying, when the game master feels it is needed to maintain consistency in the story or to fix significant mistakes that were missed during play.

Origins

The term "retroactive continuity" was popularized by comic book writer Roy Thomas in his 1980s series All-Star Squadron, which featured the DC Comics superheroes of the 1940s. The earliest known use of the term is from Thomas's letter column in All-Star Squadron #20 (April 1983), where Thomas wrote that he heard it at a convention. The term was shortened to "retcon" by Damian Cugley in 1988 on USENET to describe a development in the comic book Swamp Thing, in which Alan Moore reinterpreted the events of the title character's origin. (See "Examples", below.)

Kinds

Although there is considerable ambiguity and overlap between different kinds of retcons, there are some distinctions that can be made between them, depending on whether they add to, alter, or remove material from past continuity.

Addition

Some retcons do not directly contradict previously established facts, but "fill in" missing background details necessary for current plot points. This was the sense in which Thomas used "retroactive continuity", as a purely additive process that did not "undo" any previous work. Kurt Busiek took a similar approach with Untold Tales of Spider-Man, a series which told stories that fit between issues of the original Amazing Spider-Man series – sometimes explaining discontinuities between those earlier stories. Related to this is the concept of shadow history or secret history, in which the events of a story occur within the bounds of already-established (especially real-world historical) events, but have been hitherto unrevealed. Alan Moore's additional information about the Swamp Thing's origins didn't contradict or change any of the events depicted in the character's previous appearances, but changed the underlying interpretation of them. This verges on making alterations to past continuity.

Alteration

Retcons often add information that effectively states "what you saw isn't what really happened" and then introduces a different version. This is usually interpreted by the audience as an overt change rather than a mere addition. The most common form this takes is when a character shown to have died (sometimes explicitly) is later revealed to have survived somehow. This is well known in horror films, which may end with the death of the monster, but when the film becomes successful, the studio plans a sequel, revealing that the monster survived after all. This has been done many times in superhero comics, so frequently that the term comic book death has been coined for it. The first famous example in popular culture is the return of Sherlock Holmes. It is commonplace for characters to remain the same age, or to age out of synch with real time; this can be considered an ongoing implicit retcon of their birthdate. When historical events are involved in their biography, overt retcons may be used to accommodate this; a character who served in the army during World War 2 might have his service record retconned to place him in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, etc. This is similar to a problem faced by many works of future history: the events they describe happening in years after the initial publication do not conform to history as it actually happens. To accommodate such discrepancies, retcons may be used in later stories, altering dates or other details. (See Star Trek examples, below.) While retconning is usually done without comment by the creators, DC Comics has on rare occasions promoted special events dedicated to revising the history of the DC Comics universe. The most important and well known such event was the mini-series Crisis on Infinite Earths; this allowed for wholesale revisions of their entire multiverse of characters. It has been argued that these were not true retcons, however, because the cause of the changes to their universe actually appeared within the story, similar to stories in which a time traveler to the past changes history from how he remembered it.

Subtraction

Sometimes retconned alterations are so drastic as to render prior stories untenable. Many of the retcons introduced in Crisis on Infinite Earths and DC's later Zero Hour were specifically intended to wipe the slate clean, and permit an entirely new history to be written for the characters. This is commonly referred to as a reboot. This is often unpopular, upsetting fans of the material that has been removed from continuity. Unpopular or embarrassing stories are sometimes later ignored by publishers, never referred to again, and effectively erased from a series' continuity. They may publish stories that contradict or explicitly establish that the previous story "never happened". An unpopular retcon may even be re-retconned away. Fans may use Krypto-revisionism to ignore a particular retcon, itself a form of meta-retcon stating that "it was never published". Similarly, fans may invent unofficial explanations for inconsistencies, the challenge itself becoming a source of entertainment. (See Fanon (fiction), Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.)

Related

Retroactive continuity is similar to, but not the same as, plot inconsistencies introduced accidentally or through lack of concern for continuity; retconning is done deliberately. However, retcons are sometimes created after the fact to explain such mistakes. It is also generally distinct from replacing the actor who plays a part in an ongoing series, which is more properly an example of loose continuity (i.e. the different appearance of the character is ignored), rather than retroactively changing past continuity. Retconning is also distinct from direct revision; when George Lucas re-edited the original Star Wars trilogy, he made changes directly to the source material, rather than introducing new source material that contradicted the contents of previous material. However, the later series of Star Wars prequels did qualify as "new source material", and many fans have pointed out instances that apparently retcon elements of the original trilogy. (See below.) The "clean slate" reinterpretation of characters - as in movie and television adaptations of books, or the reintroduction of many superheroes in the Silver Age of Comics - is similar to a reboot retcon, except that the previous versions are not explicitly or implicitly eliminated in the process. They are merely alternate or parallel reinterpretations.

Notable examples

The following examples are not comprehensive. For the sake of brevity, neutrality, and factuality, they don't attempt to explain or justify alteration-type retcons in the context of their respective continuities (a popular activity among some fans), nor do they address the real-world reasons for them.

Comics


- When Alan Moore took over writing Swamp Thing, he wrote a story revealing that the title character was not Alec Holland transformed into a monster, but - to the surprise of both the readers and the character - was instead a monster that had grown from plant material infected with the memories and personality of the deceased Alec Holland.
- The deceased Phoenix was revealed to be not Jean Grey but an alien force masquerading as her, thus allowing other superheroes to discover Grey's body and resuscitate her. Other popular comic book characters whose deaths were retconned away include Green Goblin, Nick Fury, The Punisher, Green Arrow, Colossus and Spider-Man's Aunt May.
- Prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics featured characters who lived on a variety of alternate versions of Earth; afterward, these characters were said to have always lived together on the same Earth. Many characters' origins or back-stories were altered, and Superman, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and other characters were fully rebooted. A second major set of retcons in DC Comics was in a similar event called Zero Hour, which rebooted the Legion of Super-Heroes.
- In the original Spider-Man story, Peter Parker only wore glasses at the insistence of his Aunt May, to protect his eyes from his constant reading, and he stopped wearing them because they had been broken. In retellings of his origin, Peter's eyesight really was poor, but improved after he gained his powers. Before the 1980s, Spider-Man writers stated that his love interest Mary Jane Watson did not know he was Spider-Man. It was later retconned that she had known of his dual life since it began. J. Michael Straczynski's run on Amazing Spider-Man has included several retcons, ranging from the mild (raising the possibility of a mystical/totemic origin for Spider-Man's powers) to the drastic (revealing that Gwen Stacy had given birth to Norman Osborn's children).
- The symbiote Venom was originally said to have merged with Eddie Brock because he was suicidally despondent and resentful of Spider-Man. However, it was later presented that Eddie had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the symbiote had chosen him as a host because the cancer caused him to produce more of the adrenaline that it "feeds" on.
- The Batman origin story Batman: Year One stated that Police Commissioner James Gordon was the father of a boy named James, contradicting stories set in the present involving his daughter Barbara (Batgirl). It was then retconned that Gordon was the uncle and adoptive father of Barbara.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, it is explained by Sugoroku Mutou in the first chapter that a team of British archaeologists took the Millennium Puzzle out of a pharaoh's crypt in the Valley of the Kings, and that they all died afterwards. In a later chapter, it is revealed that Sugoroku Mutou discovered the puzzle in a tomb that had not been successfully breached by anyone else.
- The 2004 series Identity Crisis included a retcon involving the rape of Sue Dibny (wife of the Elongated Man) and the brainwashing of several other characters, notably Batman.
- In the final issue of X-O Manowar, it was revealed that the entire series up to that point (and perhaps the entire Valiant Universe as a whole) was a prophetic vision of a possible future. The final panel of X-O Manowar #68 features a slightly modified version of the first panel of X-O Manowar #1.
- The first issue of Marvel's original Transformers comic begins by explaining the history of sentient mechanical life on Cybertron as a natural evolution process. This was later retconned in issues #60-#61 with the introduction of Primus, a god-like being dating back to the creation of the universe itself, who created the Transformers as a "last line of defense" against Unicron.
- In 2005, the webcomic Melonpool was rebooted. Creator Steve Troop also removes the original material from the strip's online archives, including the storyline in which the reboot took place.

Radio


- In the 1940s radio serial The Green Hornet, the crime-fighting hero's faithful manservant Kato was originally described as Japanese. In 1941, in anticipation of hostilities between the United States and Japan, his ethnicity was changed to Filipino.

Television


- In the sitcom Cheers, Frasier Crane said that his father was a deceased research scientist. However, the spin-off Frasier featured Frasier's father Martin as an ex-cop living in Seattle. Frasier later explained that he had lied to his friends in Boston after having a bitter argument with his father.
- An entire season of the soap opera Dallas was later dismissed as Pam Ewing's dream, including the death of her ex-husband Bobby, who famously emerges from a shower as if it nothing had happened. The spin-off series, Knots Landing continued as though the events of this season had occurred, and the two series never crossed paths again.
- The final episode of Newhart revealed that the entire series had been a dream of Bob Newhart's character from the earlier series The Bob Newhart Show, by showing him wake up in bed with his former co-star Suzanne Pleshette, briefly reprising her role as his fictional wife Emily. Unlike most other examples, this was done for comedic effect.
- A similar plot device was used in the final season of Roseanne, stating that Roseanne's husband had died of a heart attack at the end of the previous season, and the entire series had been a book she was writing.
- At the beginning of Happy Days the Howard and Marion Cunningham have an oldest son Chuck who is never seen after the first season, and Richie and Joanie are frequently referred to as the couple's only children. (See Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.)
- In the pilot episode of The Cosby Show, an exasperated Clair Huxtable says to her husband, Cliff, "Why do we have four children?" He replies, "Because we do not want to have five." However, later that season, the Huxtables refer to having five children, with an oldest daughter away at Princeton.
- In the popular children's TV show Captain Planet and the Planeteers, the character Linka was originally referred to being "from the Soviet Union" in the opening credits. When the Soviet Union collapsed on December 25, 1991 she became "from Eastern Europe" instead.
- In the sci-fi series Lexx, the key to the Lexx spacecraft is stored in the hand of the captain (episode 1.02, "Supernova") and is released as the captain dies (episode 1.01, "I Worship His Shadow"). In later seasons, the key is stored in the captain's brain (episode 3.08, "The Key") and can be released even when the captain's life is merely threatened (episode 4.01, "Little Blue Planet").
- In the 1970s TV series Wonder Woman, the character's backstory was altered during the second season. During the first year, it was established that Wonder Woman had never left Paradise Island nor encountered men prior to travelling to the US to help fight World War II. In the second season, the character dropped numerous hints that not only did she encounter various men previously (e.g. a Chinese acupressure specialist she had met "centuries ago", and references to historical figures she had met) but that she may have been active as either Wonder Woman or in some other crime-fighting guise as early as the 19th century.
- In the soap opera One Life to Live, Dorian Lord originally tried to pass off her adopted grandson's girlfriend Adriana as her long-lost daughter. Later it was stated that Adriana is in fact her daughter.
- In the soap opera Days of our Lives, an amnesiac newcomer named John Black was revealed in 1986 to be the believed-dead policeman/ex-secret agent Roman Brady, who had been given plastic surgery and brainwashed to believe he was an assassin in Stefano DiMera's criminal organization. This explanation was further verified in 1988 with a story arc that involved flashbacks to his brainwashing and "training" by Stefano. However, in 1991 it was revealed that the real Roman Brady was still being held captive by DiMera and the man known as John Black was in fact a DiMera mercenary with no memory of his true past.
- In the soap opera Passions, Sheridan Crane originally believed she had killed her lover Luis' father Martin when she was a child. In 2004, it was revealed that Martin (and Sheridan's supposedly dead mother) were alive. Then it was revealed that Sheridan had stabbed Martin in the back. In 2005, the story was changed to say that Sheridan killed her aunt Rachel.
- In the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer the character of Angel was not originally penned as a vampire with a soul, though this retconning later in the series did not actively contradict previous episodes.
- Retcons abound in the British TV series Red Dwarf - such matters as what century the characters originated from, how many people were on the ship and many others have been changed. Series co-creator Doug Naylor has gone on record saying that they have always had a very relaxed attitude to continuity, and if something could be changed for the better then they would change it.
- The Odd Couple had three episodes presenting different versions of how Oscar Madison and Felix Unger first met: in the Army, on jury duty, or as children.
- Near the end of the Frieza Saga in Dragon Ball Z, it is revealed that Goku is the Super Saiyan, fulfulling a legend that there would be one born every thousand years. However, as the story continues, every other Saiyan character in the story eventually attains the state of Super Saiyan.
- In South Park, Kenny dies in almost every episode, yet is alive to die in the next, as a running gag. This phenomenon was itself satirically retconned in an episode that "revealed" that after every time Kenny died, his parents had a new baby and named him "Kenny".
- In WWE, the biography of the character Kane has been repeatedly revised.
- On Columbo, the title detective (Peter Falk) frequently mentions his wife, who is never seen. In 1979, NBC's Fred Silverman produced Mrs. Columbo, a television series starring Kate Mulgrew, initially as Lt. Columbo's wife Kate. The character's last name was changed to Callahan after an off-screen divorce, the series was renamed Kate Loves a Mystery, and the character was established as not the woman to whom the lieutenant frequently referred.
- On the 35th anniversary special of Sesame Street in 2005, Ernie took Elmo on a trip through time, showing him scenes he would not remember, since they were (supposedly) before he was born (the character often said to be about three and a half years old). These included many events that the character - who debuted in 1979 and has been a featured character since 1985 - was in fact present for, and was even visible in some of the scenes depicted.
- The Simpsons is known for having very casual continuity, with events in any given episode routinely contradicted in later episodes.
- The 2005 "Divided We Fall" episode of Justice League Unlimited retcons a scene from the 1997 Superman: The Animated Series episode "Ghost in the Machine", stating that a laser shot at Lex Luthor contained a nanotech payload which enabled the artificial intelligence Brainiac to inhabit his body.
- In the television series Futurama, there are numerous facts which are retconned. Among them are the revelation that Turanga Leela is a mutant and not an alien in "Leela's Homeworld," the revelation that Fry was forced into the cryogenic chamber by a time-traveling alien (Nibbler) in "The Why of Fry," and the revelation that Fry is his own grandfather in "Roswell That Ends Well." These mostly serve to clarify or expand upon the initially stated histories of these characters and not to supercede them.

Film


- Notable examples of movies in which the monster or villain is revived in sequels include James Whale's Frankenstein, the original 1954 Godzilla movie, the Friday the 13th series, and the revival of the seemingly-vaporized Chief Inspector Dreyfus in Revenge of the Pink Panther.
- By their very nature, the Star Wars prequels are loaded with retcons in the broader sense of the term, such as a previously unmentioned relationship between Yoda and Chewbacca introduced in Revenge of the Sith. The prequels also contain some overt revisions of history, as in The Phantom Menace, where it is revealed that Anakin Skywalker built C-3PO, and in Episode III, where we find that C-3PO and R2-D2 knew Owen Lars and his wife, Beru, despite their apparent unfamiliarity with Luke's family and Tatooine itself at the beginning of A New Hope (partially explained by C-3PO's memory wipe at the end of Revenge of the Sith, coupled with the ambiguity of R2-D2's unintelligible dialogue, though this does not explain why Owen and Beru do not recognize their former droid).
- In the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a machine is sent from the future to kill John Connor, who is established as being ten years old during the film's events. The opening narration of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines changes this, stating that the machine tried to strike when John was thirteen.
- The film Clue was originally shown in theatres with one randomly chosen ending from a pool of three; the VHS release and subsequent television airings included all three endings. Each ending had at least one discontinuity that was retconned within the context of the film's story itself.

Literature


- In art based on mythology, the opening of a poem or play is often based on an assumption which explicitly changes the source material. A famous example from Greek drama is the premise of Euripides play Helen, which explains its premise early in the work. The play recounts that Helen of Troy did not run off with Paris (thereby inciting the Trojan War), but was whisked away to Egypt by Hera.
- Sherlock Holmes reappears in The Adventure of the Empty House following Watson's report of his death in Arthur Conan Doyle's "last" Holmes story The Adventure of the Final Problem.
- J.R.R. Tolkien rewrote the way Bilbo Baggins acquired his Ring in The Hobbit, to better suit the story he wanted to tell in The Lord of the Rings. Narratively this was explained by depicting the original version as a misrepresentation perpetuated by Bilbo – already under the Ring's influence – and only later corrected.
- In his sequels to the novel version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke made slight alterations to background history in order to keep each novel consistent with progressing developments in the real world. He also changed the location of the third monolith from Iapetus to the Jupiter system, to conform with the movie version of 2001 by Stanley Kubrick. Clarke has stated that each sequel to 2001 exists in its own continuity and follows the film rather than the book.
- In the book Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm is said to have died at the end. However, in its sequel, The Lost World, Ian Malcolm's death turns out to be a misreporting of the incident, bringing the books into line with the movies, in which he did not die. Additionally, characters who survived in the book but were killed in the film (such as the lawyer Gennaro and the gamekeeper Muldoon), are mentioned in The Lost World novel as having died shortly after the park incident (e.g. from illness or a plane crash).
- So Long and Thanks for All the Fish from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is set in a parallel universe where the destruction of planet earth never took place, and Arthur Dent returns home, telling his friends he had "a marvellous time in California" and has had a "face-drop" to look substantially older than he should be.

Star Trek in various media


- The 1967 Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "Space Seed" referred to the Eugenics Wars as a conflict taking place in the 1990s. A 1996 episode of Star Trek: Voyager ("Future's End") was set in a year when the wars should have been a current or recent event, yet no mention of them was made. A 1998 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ("Dr. Bashir I Presume?") contained a statement that suggested the wars took place in the 22nd Century (later said to be an error). Greg Cox's series of The Eugenics Wars novels, published in the early 2000s, retconned the wars into shadow affairs hidden by real-life major conflicts, but the producers of the TV series don't consider the novels to be canon. A 2004 episode of Star Trek: Enterprise stated that the Eugenics Wars were a wide conflict in which 30 million people died, but without identifying the timeframe; the producer of the series, however, stated that the Eugenics Wars as referenced in the episode still occurred in the 1990s.
- When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979, Gene Roddenberry claimed that the radically different appearance of the Klingons in the film was how they were always supposed to have looked, but they didn't have the budget for it in the 1960s. In the 1990s, an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featured three Klingon characters from the original series, made up to fit the new look. However, the later episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", used footage from the original series with old-look Klingons; Commander Worf acknowledged their different appearance, adding that it was "a long story" that Klingons "do not discuss with outsiders." A two episode arc of Star Trek: Enterprise ("Affliction"/"Divergence") in 2005 indicated that Klingons resembling the 1960s portrayal were the product of genetic engineering using augmented human genes, essentially retconning the retcon.
- The character of Zefram Cochrane was presented in the original Star Trek episode "Metamorphosis" as a dignified humanoid research scientist from Alpha Centauri. When he appeared in Star Trek: First Contact, the character's place of origin had been retconned to Montana (implying that he would later become a resident of Alpha Centauri), and he was an eccentric alcoholic who invented warp drive working independently with equipment salvaged from an abandoned missile launching facility.

Video games


- In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Snake confronts and kills Big Boss, but nothing is mentioned about the two being related. However, in the sequel Metal Gear Solid, it is revealed that not only did Snake learned that he was Big Boss' son during the events of Metal Gear 2, but that he is also a clone of him.
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which is set in 1964, follows the exploits of Big Boss and Ocelot, adding many details about their past and motivations, and details about the story in general. A few minor details from the previous games were retconned, such as the loss of Big Boss' right eye (originally established to have been lost during the 1980s) and Ocelot's age during the events of Metal Gear Solid (originally established to be in his fifties).
- The Mortal Kombat character Kano was originally an American born in Japan. Following Trevor Goddard's portrayal of Kano as an Australian in the movie adaptation, the character was rectonned to be Australian in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
- In Myst, the brothers Sirrus and Achenar were trapped in Trap Books, in the void between the Ages. If the player frees them, he is trapped himself. Originally, Atrus presumably burned the books, thus trapping or killing his sons forever. This was revised to say that the brothers were not trapped in the void, but in desolate Ages.
- Similar to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Kilrathi of the Wing Commander movie were different in appearance to those in the Wing Commander games. Chris Roberts claimed that this was how they were supposed to have looked, but they didn't come up with their definite appearance while making the games.
- In the original English-language version of Street Fighter II, Guile seeks revenge against M. Bison for killing his best friend, Charlie in the Vietnam War, over 20 years before. However, this is revised in each game that Charlie has appeared in. The final canon version, as depicted in Guile's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3, has Charlie dying while working with Guile and Chun-Li to destroy Bison's Psycho Drive.
- Squaresoft re-released the Super Nintendo video game Chrono Trigger for the Playstation prior to the release of its sequel, Chrono Cross. The updated version featured a brand new ending which tied the two games together, most notably a scene where Lucca finds a young infant wearing a pendant. The infant would later turn out to be Kid from Chrono Cross.

Ignored sequels in various media


- The 88MPH Studios series Ghostbusters takes place in the same continuity as the first film, but retconned out the sequel, Ghostbusters II. Rather than facing massive debt and going out of business like in the second movie, the Ghostbusters became a global organization.
- The film Superman Returns is a direct sequel to Superman: The Movie and Superman II. It disregards the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.
- The film Halloween H20: 20 Years Later is a direct sequel to Halloween and Halloween II, dismissing the events that take place in the sequels Halloween 4, Halloween 5, and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. (Halloween III was an unrelated story unaffected by the retcon.) The subsequent film Halloween: Resurrection follows the new continuity of Halloween H20.
- In the second Highlander film it is revealed that the Immortals are aliens from the Planet Zeist, although no mention of this is made in the first film, and exposition as to the nature of "The Game" is inconsistent with the implications of the first film. These developments are largely ignored in the subsequent films, as well as the television series, which also retcon Connor's triumph in the original Highlander as merely a major victory, rather than the final battle of "The Game."
- In the Mortal Kombat movie series, the upcoming third film, Mortal Kombat: Devastation is reportedly going to retcon the second movie Annihilation out of existence, making it the official sequel to the first movie.
- Ian Fleming was unhappy with his James Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me, and subsequent stories ignored and even directly contradicted the events of the book.
- After developing Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2, SingleTrac left Sony. Twisted Metal 3 and Twisted Metal 4 were developed by Sony's 989 Studios. The original developer later returned and created Twisted Metal: Head-On, a direct sequel to Twisted Metal 2 which disgarded the events of Twisted Metal 3 and Twisted Metal 4.
- A sequel to Metal Gear titled Snake's Revenge was produced for the North American and European markets without the involvement of Hideo Kojima or any of the original game's development team. When Kojima later designed Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the events of Snake's Revenge were disregarded and the game has been removed from the series' canon.
- The Game Boy game Castlevania Legends featured the story of Sonia Belmont, and was originally set as the official beginning of the series timeline. However, Konami eventually produced Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, which has been firmly established as the official beginning. Castlevania Legends was subsequently dropped from continuity altogether.

See also


- back-story
- canon (fiction)
- prequel
- reboot
- fanon
- fanwankery Category:Continuity (fiction) Category:Portmanteaus

Portmanteau

:For other uses, see (disambiguation). A portmanteau (plural: portmanteaus or portmanteaux) is a term in linguistics that refers to a word or morpheme that fuses two or more grammatical functions. A folk usage of portmanteau refers to a word that is formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words. In linguistics, these false portmanteaux are called blends.

Etymology

This word was coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, in which it is likened to the French word "porte-manteaux" for a type of travelling case or suitcase. Carroll has Humpty Dumpty say, "Well, slithy means lithe and slimy... You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word." Carroll used such words to humorous effect in his poems, especially Jabberwocky, which Humpty Dumpty is explaining to Alice. "Portmanteau word" was the original phrase used to describe such words (as listed in dictionaries published as late as the early 1990s), but this has since been abbreviated to simply "portmanteau" as the term (and the type of words it describes) gained popularity. "Portmanteau" is rarely used for its original meaning in current English, that type of travelling case having fallen into disuse. In Queensland, Australia, it is shortened to 'Port', and used as slang for a schoolbag.

Portmanteau morphemes

A portmanteau morpheme is a morpheme that fuses two grammatical categories (see Fusional language). The classical example of such a morpheme in English is the verbal suffix -s. This particular suffix carries (i.e., ports) at least four distinct inflectional meanings and imparts each of these onto the verb's meaning:
- Singular (number)
- Third-person (person)
- Present (tense)
- Indicative (mood) Spanish verb suffixes are also exceptionally fusional, with very many portmanteaux in the Spanish inflectional system.

Portmanteau words

A portmanteau word is a word that fuses two function words. This use overlaps a bit with the folk term contraction, but linguists tend to avoid using the latter.

Folk usage

Outside linguistics, the words that are called blends are popularly labeled portmanteaux. The term portmanteau is used in a different, yet still not clearly defined sense, to refer to a blending of the parts of two or more words (generally the first part of one word and the ending of a second word) to combine their meanings into a single neologism.

See also


- List of portmanteaus
- Neologism, word, term, or phrase which has been recently created
- Contraction (grammar)
- Corruption (grammar)
- Morphology (linguistics)
- Rhyme

External links


- [http://creativityforyou.com/portman.html Portmanteau Words]
- Category:Linguistics ja:%E3%81%8B%E3%81%B0%E3%82%93%E8%AA%9E

Comic book

A comic book is a magazine or book containing the sequential art in the form of a narrative. Comic books are often called comics for short. Although the term implies otherwise, the subject matter in comic books is not necessarily humorous, and in fact its dramatic seriousness varies widely. The term "comics" in this context does not refer to comic strips (such as Peanuts or Dilbert). In the last quarter of the 20th century, greater acceptance of the comics form among the general reading populace coincided with a greater usage of the term graphic novel, often meant to differentiate a book of comics with a spine from its stapled, pamphlet form, but the difference between the terms seems fuzzy at best as comics become more widespread in libraries, mainstream bookstores and other places. The earliest comic books were simply collections of comic strips that had originally been printed in newspapers. The commercial success of these collections led to work being created specifically for the comic-book form, which fostered specific conventions such as splash pages. Long-form comic books, generally with hardcover or trade-paper binding came to be known as graphic novels, but as noted above, the term's definition is especially fluid. Like jazz and a handful of other cultural artifacts, comic books are a rare indigenous American art form, [http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=004133] [http://www.disinfotainmenttoday.com/darenet/comicbook.htm] though prototypical examples of the form exist. American comic books have become closely associated with the superhero sub-genre. In the U.K., the term comic book is used to refer to American comic books by their readers and collectors, while the general populace would mainly consider a comic book a hardcover book collecting comics stories. The analogous term in the United Kingdom is a comic, short for comic paper or comic magazine.

The comic book in the United States

Since the invention of the comic book format in the 1930s, the United States has been the leading producer, with only the British comic (during the inter-war period through the 1970s) and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles (although, Japan outweighs America currently in overall sales by a vast margin). The majority of all comic books in the U.S. are marketed at younger teenagers, though the market also produces work for general as well as more mature audiences. The history of the comic book in the United States is split into several ages or historical eras: The Platinum Age, The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, and The Modern Age. The exact boundaries of these eras, the terms for which originated in fandom press, is a debatable point among comic book historians. The Golden Age is generally thought as lasting from 1938's introduction of Superman until the early 1950s, during which comic books enjoyed a surge of popularity, the archetype of the superhero was invented and defined, and many of comic books' most popular superheroes debuted. The Platinum Age refers to any material produced prior to this. While comics as an artform could arguably extend as far back as sequential cave paintings from thousands of years ago, comic books are dependent on printing, and the starting point for them in book form is generally considered to be the tabloid-sized The Funnies begun in 1929, or the more traditional sized Funnies on Parade from 1933. Both of these were simply reprints of newspaper strips. The Silver Age of Comic Books is generally considered to date from the first successful revival of the dormant superhero form — the debut of the Barry Allen Flash in Showcase #4 (Sept.-Oct. 1956) — and last through the early 1970s, during which time Marvel Comics revolutionized the medium with such naturalistic superheroes as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. The beginings of the Bronze and Modern ages are far more disputable. Indeed, some suggest that we are still in the Bronze Age. Starting points that have been suggested for the Bronze Age of comics are Conan #1 (Oct. 1970), Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (Apr. 1970) or Amazing Spider-Man #96 (May 1971) (the non-Comics Code issue). The start of the Modern Age has even more potential starting points, but is most likely the publication of Alan Moore's Watchmen in 1986. Notable events in the history of the American comic book include the psychiatrist Frederic Wertham's criticisms of the medium in his book Seduction of the Innocent, which saw the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency investigate comic books. In response to this attention from government and the media, the U.S. comic book industry created the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and drafted the Comics Code, a move which saw the particularly targeted EC change its satirical comic book Mad from comic book to magazine format in order to circumvent the Code.

Underground comics

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a surge of underground comics occurred. These comics were published and distributed independently of the established mainstream, and most reflected the youth counterculture and drug culture of the time. Many were notable for their uninhibited, irreverent style; their frankness in graphic sex, nudity, language and overt politics hadn't been seen in comics outside of their precursors, the pornographic and even more underground "Tijuana bibles". Underground comics were virtually never sold on newsstands but in such youth-oriented outlets as head shops and record stores, and by mail order. The underground-comics movement is often considered to have started with Zap Comix #1 (1968) by Canadian cartoonist Robert Crumb, a former Cleveland greeting-card artist living in San Francisco. Crumb later created the popular characters Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, and published Gilbert Shelton's The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

Independent and alternative comics

The rise of comic-book specialty stores in the late 1970s created a dedicated market for "independent" or "alternative comics"; two of the first were the anthology series Star Reach, published by comic-book writer Mike Friedrich from 1974-1979, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, published from the 1970s through the present day. Some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics, though were generally less overtly graphic, and others resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned ventures or by a single artists. A few (notably RAW) were experimental attempts to bring comics closer to the world of fine art. The "small press" scene continued to grow and diversify. By the 1980s, several such independent publishers as Eclipse Comics, First Comics, and Fantagraphics were 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 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.

Decline of serial comic-book format

In the early 2000s, sales of standard monthly comic books declined while graphic novels made increasing headway at retail bookstores. Along with the shift toward graphic novels among comics publishers, traditional book publishers such as Pantheon have released several dozen graphic novels, including works originally released by comics publishers with much less publicity.

The comic of Europe

Franco-Belgian comics

Franco-Belgian comics are comics written in Belgium and France. These two countries have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are called BDs (from Bande Dessinée) in French. Belgian comic books originally written in Dutch are influenced by the francophone "Franco-Belgian" comics, but have a different feel. La bande dessinée is derived from the original description of the artform as "drawn strips". It is not insignificant that the French term contains no indication of subject matter, unlike the American terms "comics" and "funnies," which imply an art form not to be taken seriously. Indeed, the distinction of comics as the "ninth art" is prevalent in Francophone scholarship on the form (le neuvième art), as is the concept of comics criticism and scholarship itself. Relative to the respective size of their countries, the innumerable authors in the region publish huge numbers of comic books. In North America, the more serious, Franco-Belgian comics are often seen as equivalent to graphic novels, for various reasons, but whether they are long or short, bound or in magazine format, in Europe there is no need for a more sophisticated term, as the art's name does not itself imply something frivolous. In France, most comics are published at the behest of the author, who will work within his self-appointed time frame, so a wait from six months to two years between installments is common. Most books are first published as a hard cover oversized book, usually 48 or 64 pages, with later re-releases in soft cover.

The British comic

Originally the same size as the comic book in the United States, although lacking the glossy cover, the British comic has adopted a magazine size, with The Beano and The Dandy the last to adopt this size in the 1980s. Although generally referred to as a comic, it can also be referred to as a comic magazine, and has also been known historically as a comic paper. Although Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884), the first comic published in Britain, was marketed at adults, publishers quickly targeted a younger market, which has led to most publications being for children and created an association in the public's mind of comics being somewhat juvenile. Popular titles within the United Kingdom have included The Beano, The Dandy, The Eagle, 2000 AD and Viz. Underground comics and "small press" titles have also been published within the United Kingdom, 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, and although this was on a smaller scale to such similar investigations in the United States, it also led to a moderation of content published within comics, although such moderatiuon was never formalised to the extent of a creation of any code, and nor was it particularly lasting. The United Kingdom has also established a healthy market in the reprinting and repackaging of material, notably material originated within the United States. The lack of reliable supplies of American comic books led to a variety of black and white reprints, including Marvel's 1950s monster comics, Fawcett's Captain Marvel, and some other characters such as Sheena, Mandrake the Magician and the Phantom. Several reprint companies were involved in repackaging American material for the British market, notably the importer and distributor Thorpe & Porter. Marvel eventually established a UK office, with DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics also opening offices for periods in the the 1990s. The repackaging of European material has been less frequent, although the Tintin and Asterix serials have been succesfully translated and repackaged in soft cover books.

The comic annual

At Christmas time publishers will repackage and commision material for comic annuals, hardback A4 books. DC Thomson also repackage The Broons and Oor Wullie strips in softcover A4 books for the festive season.

Italian comics

In Italy, comics (known as fumetti) made their debut as humouristic strips at the end of the 19th century, and later evolved in adventure stories inspired to those coming from the U.S. After World War II, however, artists like Hugo Pratt and Guido Crepax imposed Italian comics to an international audience. "Author" comics contain often strong erotic contents. Best sellers remain popular comic books Diabolik or the Bonelli line, namely Tex Willer or Dylan Dog. Mainstream comics are usually published on the monthly basis, in a black and white digest size format, with about 100-132 pages of story. Collections of classic material for the most famous character, usually with over 200 pages, are also common. Author comics are published in the french BD format, with an example being Pratt's Corto Maltese. Italian cartoonists have and receive great influences from other countries including Belgium, France, Spain and Argentina. Italy is also famous for being one of the foremost producers of Walt Disney comic stories, particularly. Donald Duck's superhero alter ego, Paperinik, known in English as Superduck, was created in Italy.

Other European comics

Although Switzerland contributes less to the body of work, it is significant that many scholars point to a Francophone Swiss, Rodolphe Töpffer, as the true father of comics. This choice is still controversial, with critics feeling that Töppfer's work is perhaps somewhat unconnected to the genesis of the artform as it is now known in the region.

The graphic novel

The term graphic novel was first coined by Richard Kyle in 1964, mainly as an attempt to distinguish the newly translated works from Europe which were then being published from what Kyle saw as the more juvenile publications common in the United States. The term was popularised when Will Eisner used it on the cover of the paeprback edition of his work A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories (1978). This was a more mature work than many had come to expect from the comics medium, and the critical and commercial success of A Contract with God helped to establish the term "graphic novel" in common usage.

Regional categories


- American comic book
- Argentine comics
- British comics
- Indian comics
- Manga (Japanese comics)
- Manhua (Chinese comics)
- Manhwa (Korean comics)
- European comics
  - Franco-Belgian comics - Bande Dessinée, BD
  - Italian comics - Fumetti
- Brazilian comics - Histórias em Quadrinhos, HQ

Other Forms


- Tijuana bible (aka 8-pagers)
- Underground comics
- Alternative comics
- Adult comics
- Political and religious comics

Genres

Note: As with film and literature, genres are rarely pure and often blend. Frankenstein, for example, is a science fiction/horror novel; The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. is a Western/comedy TV series. Not all superhero comics are necessarily science fiction; Marvel Comics' Daredevil, for example, despite an initial science-fiction premise, may be more usefully classified as a crime drama.
- Action/adventure comics (of which superhero is a sub-genre)
- Adaptations of narratives in other media, often movies
- Anthromorphic/funny animal comics (see also furry)
- Autobiographical comics
- Crime comics
- Dramatic adventure comics
- Historical comics
- Horror comics
- Humor comics
- Journalistic comics
- Religious comics
- Romance comics
- Satiric comics
- Science-fiction comics
- War comics
- Western comics

Some particularly notable comic books


- 2000 AD (British)
- Acme Novelty Library (United States - Fantagraphics Books)
- Akira (Japanese)
- Asterix (French)
- Batman (United States - DC Comics)
- The Beano (British)
- The Dandy (British)
- Donald Duck (United States - Disney)
- Eightball (United States - Fantagraphics Books)
- The Fantastic Four (United States - Marvel Comics)
- The Incredible Hulk (United States - Marvel Comics)
- Lone Wolf and Cub (Japanese)
- Lucky Luke (Belgium - Dupuis and Dargaud)
- Monica's Gang (Turma da Mônica) (Brazilian)
- Mortadelo y Filemón (Spain)
- Mickey Mouse (United States-Disney)
- Raw (United States - Raw Books)
- The Smurfs (Belgium - Dupuis)
- The Amazing Spider-Man (United States - Marvel Comics)
- Sandman (United States - DC Vertigo Comics, 1988 World Fantasy Award (unique win for a comic-book series)
- Spike and Suzy (Belgian Flemish, originally called Suske en Wiske)
- Superman (United States - DC Comics)
- Tintin (Belgian - Casterman)
- Viz (British)
- Wonder Woman (United States - DC Comics)
- X-Men (United States - Marvel Comics)
- Zap Comix (United States-underground comix)

See also

Comics - the sequential art form in general


- Comic strip
- Graphic novel
- Webcomic
  - Sprite comic
- Storyboard
- Cartoon
  - Political cartoon

Comic book awards


- Eisner Awards
- Harvey Awards
- Ignatz Awards
- Kirby Awards
- Prix de la critique
- Angoulême International Comics Festival Prizes (aka Alph'arts) and the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême
- Tezuka Awards
- Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Awards

Miscellaneous


- Cartoonist
- Comic book creator
- Comic book collecting
- Comic-Con International

Lists


- List of comic creators
- List of comic books
- List of comic book publishing companies
- List of comic and cartoon character pairs
- List of comic strips
- List of cartoonists
- List of comic and cartoon characters named after people
- Comic books in dialects

References

Inge, Thomas M., "Comics as culture" Journal of Popular Culture 12:631, 1979 (not online)

External links


- [http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=695 Database of Comic Book Sales Figures]
- [http://www.heritagecomics.com/common/worth.php How To Figure Out How Much Your Comics Are Worth]
- [http://www.comicbookdb.com/ ComicBookDB.com]
- [http://www.comiccovers.com/ ComicCovers.com]
- [http://www.cbgxtra.com Comics Buyer's Guide]
- [http://www.comics-db.com/ The Big Comic Book Database]
- [http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/ Comic Book Galaxy]
- [http://www.cbr.cc/ Comic Book Resources]
- [http://www.comics.org/ The Grand Comics Database]
- [http://www.crimeboss.com/history03-1.html The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency]
- [http://www.gweeb.com/ Bronze Age 1970s Comic Book Cover Showcase]
- [http://www.toonopedia.com/index.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia]
- [http://www.knightmare6.com/faq/ Fan Site: Comic Book FAQ]
- [http://www.boldcomicsstudio.com/main/ Bold Comic Studios - A site for the independant comic creator]
- [http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/ Comics Fan Zine: articles on comics in pop culture] Nostalgia Zine
- [http://ichibancomics.blogspot.com First Edition Comic Reviews at Ichiban Comics] ja:漫画
- Category:Comics Category:MagazinesCategory:Entertainment

DC Comics

.]]DC Comics is one of the largest companies in comic book and related media publishing. Today a subsidiary of Time Warner, DC is responsible for such famous characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and their teammates in the Justice League. For decades, DC Comics has been one of the two largest American comic book companies (the other being Marvel Comics). Located in New York City for many years at 575 Lexington Avenue, DC Comics moved to 75 Rockefeller Plaza (which is still Time Warner corporate headquarters) and then to 666 Fifth Avenue. Relocating at 1325 Avenue of the Americas in 1992, DC took over several floors when it moved to 1700 Broadway in the mid-1990s. The initials "DC" are an abbreviation for Detective Comics, after one of the company's flagship titles.

History

The corporation was originally three companies: National Allied Publications (founded by Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson in 1934 to publish the first American comic book with all-original material rather than comic strip reprints); Detective Comics; and All-American Publications. The first two companies merged in the 1930s to become National Comics (later National Periodical Publications) and the third shared offices until it was bought by the merged company in 1945. At this time "DC" was simply an informal logo regularly used on the cover; the name National Periodical Publications remained the company's official name into the 1970s.

Golden Age (1930s and 1940s)

1945 This company was the first to publish original stories in comic book form in 1935 with its first title, New Fun Comics, and then was the first to feature superheroes beginning with Action Comics in 1938. It was the foremost exploiter of the new genre in the Golden Age of Comic Books, introducing such popular characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America. When the superhero genre faded in the late 1940s, the company focused more on other genres, such as science fiction, westerns, humour and romance. They largely avoided the crime and horror trends of the time, and thus avoided taking the brunt of the backlash against crime and horror comics in the 1950s. A handful of the most popular superhero titles (most importantly Action Comics and Detective Comics, the two longest-running titles in comics history) continued publication.

Silver Age (Late 1950s through early 1970s)

In the mid-fifties, there came a renewed interest to explore superhero properties. Instead of creating new characters, editor Julius Schwartz decided to recreate popular older characters starting with the Flash. This heralded the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the "Silver Age" of comics. The character's civilian identity, costume, and origin were all changed for a more modern audience. The new series was so popular that it soon led to similar treatment for Green Lantern and a new series which featured a team-up of all of the company's popular characters entitled the Justice League of America. On the other hand, Mort Weisinger oversaw the Superman family of titles that established many of the elements of Superman's supporting characters and villains that still influence the character to this day. In 1967, Carmine Infantino became the artistic director of the company with the declining sales, in part with the growing competition of Marvel Comics being the primary challenge. He attempted to remedy the situation with new titles like The Secret Six and recruited major talents like Steve Ditko and rising new blood as in Neal Adams. However, the results had a mixed success at best. A major change happened in the late 1960s when many veteran creators petitioned DC management for health plans, pensions and similar considerations. DC responded by curtly firing most of the offending staff and replacing them with young people who had largely grown up with the Marvel influence in comics. This proved to be a mixed blessing: for while the new employees strove for sophisticated storytelling and characters, they had little experience in the industry and the relative lack of professionalism in their work hampered the product of the company. Neal Adams), the first issue of an acclaimed run that delved into social commentary in the genre.]] social commentary There were, however, bright lights, like Dennis O'Neil, who worked on Green Lantern and Batman. Nevertheless, the period was plagued by short-lived series that started out strong, but quickly petered out when the creators, not having strong financial reasons to stay, abandoned their creations. In addition, Jack Kirby defected from Marvel to create his most artistically ambitious creation, The Fourth World titles, in which Kirby attempted to create an original sophisticated sub imprint that could appeal to a loyal fan audience. However, conflicts with management who had little faith in the concept led to the venture's premature cancellation, although the characters and concepts would become integral to the DC Multiverse.

Late 1970s and 1980s

The company was acquired by Warner Communications (now Time Warner) in 1976. During this time, DC attempted to compete with Marvel by dramatically increasing its output, which they called the "DC Explosion", including series featuring new characters, such as Firestorm and Shade, the Changing Man and several non-superhero titles. This didn't last long, with many of these series being abruptly cancelled in what industry watchers dubbed "the DC Implosion". DC Implosion In the early 1980s, the new management of publisher Jenette Kahn, vice-president Paul Levitz, and managing editor Dick Giordano decided to address the problem of talent instability in their series. To that end, they began to offer more concrete financial rewards to their talents, such as royalties which gave a direct incentive to foster successful properties and to keep with them. In addition, the company created the publishing concept of the limited series that allowed more flexible arrangements for storylines that could be successful without the pressure of immediately following them up on an indefinite basis. These policy changes immediately paid off with the success of The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, a superhero comic that earned significant sales with its artistic quality and the stability of the talent who kept with the title for years. In addition, the creative team took early advantage of the limited series option to create a spin off title, Tales of the New Teen Titans, to present the origins of their original characters without having to break the narrative flow of their main series or obliging them to double their work load with another ongoing title. This successful revitalization of a minor title led the editorship to look at doing the same to their entire line comics. The result was the limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, which gave the company an opportunity to dismiss some of the "baggage" of its history, and revise major characters such as Superman and Wonder Woman. Yet DC did not abandon their history completely. In 1989, they began publication of the DC Archive Editions, a series created to collect their early, rare issues into a permanent hardback format. DC Archive Editions Meanwhile, British writer Alan Moore had re-energized the minor horror series Saga of the Swamp Thing, and his highly acclaimed work sparked a comic book equivalent of rock's British Invasion, in which numerous British talents, including Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, came to work for the company. The resulting influx of sophisticated horror and dark fantasy material led not only to DC abandoning the Comics Code for particular titles by those talents, but also to the later establishment in 1993 of the Vertigo imprint for mature readers. Acclaimed limited series such as The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Alan Moore's Watchmen, also drew attention to changes at DC. This new creative freedom and the attendant publicity allowed DC to seriously challenge the dominance of Marvel.

1990s

The comics industry experienced a brief boom in the early 1990s, thanks to a combination of speculative purchasing of the books as collectibles and several storylines which gained attention from the mainstream media. DC's extended storylines in which Superman was killed and Batman was crippled, resulted in dramatically increased sales, but the increases were as temporary as the substitutes, and sales dropped off as industry sales went into a major slump. DC's Piranha Press and other imprints in the 1990s were introduced to facilitate diversification and specialized marketing of its product line. They increased the use of nontraditional contractual arrangements, including creator-owned work and licensing material from other companies. They also increased publication of trade paperbacks, including both collections of serial comics and original graphic novels. The Vertigo line was aimed at an older and more literary audience, largely free of the "kid stuff" stigma its main superhero line still held. DC entered into a publishing agreement with Milestone Media, which gave the company a line of comics featuring a more culturally and racially diverse range of superhero characters; although the Milestone line ceased publication, it yielded the popular animated series Static Shock. Paradox Press was established to publish material that would be considered "mainstream" in the book trade - including the large-format Big Book of... series, and crime fiction such as Road to Perdition - but paradoxically remained a niche in the comics industry. DC purchased Wildstorm Comics from Jim Lee and maintained it as a separate imprint with its own style and audience. Likewise they added the Wildstorm imprint America's Best Comics, created by Alan Moore, including the titles Tom Strong and Promethea.

2000s

Comics sales stopped declining but remained weak in the early 2000s, as DC continued diversifying its publishing activities to reach new markets. In March 2003 DC Comics acquired publishing and merchandising rights to the long-running fantasy series Elfquest, which had previously been self-published by its creators Wendy and Richard Pini under the Warp Graphics banner. In 2004 it established the CMX line to reprint translated manga volumes (an already-booming market at the time), and temporarily acquired the North American publishing rights to graphic novels from European publishers 2000 AD and Humanoids. It also rebranded its titles for younger children with the mascot Johnny DC. Starting in 2004, DC's began laying groundwork for a "sequel" to Crisis on Infinite Earths, promising substantial changes to the DCU to come out of it. In 2005 they published several limited series establishing increasing conflicts between the heroes of the DCU, which are expected to come to a climax in the limited series Infinite Crisis. At the conclusion of that series in 2006, all of DC's ongoing series will skip to "one year later", showing the medium-term consequences of that crisis and continuing from there. In 2005 DC Comics launched an "All-Star" line, featuring some of DC's most famous characters, written and illustrated by popular creators. These series were intended to appeal to more casual readers, featuring familiar versions of the characters without tight continuity with the main line of books. All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder was launched in July 2005, with All-Star Superman begining in November 2005.

Logo history

November 2005 DC's first logo appeared on the March 1940 issues of their titles. The letters "DC" stood for Detective Comics, the name the company used at the time. The logo was small and did not have a background. It simply said, "A DC Publication". The November 1941 DC titles introduced an updated DC logo. This version was almost twice the size of the first one, and also was the first version with a white background. The name of Superman was added to "A DC Publication", effectively acknowledging both Superman (the company's flagship character) and Batman (star of Detective Comics). This logo was also the first version to occupy the top left corner of the cover, where the logo has usually resided ever since. In November 1949, the logo was modified, incorporating the company's current name (National Comics Publications) into the logo. This logo would also serve as the round body of Johnny DC, DC's mascot in the 1960s. In October 1970, the circular logo was briefly retired in favor of a simple "DC" in a rectangle with the name of the title, or the star of the book (i.e. many issues of Action Comics said "DC Superman"). An image of the lead character either appeared above or below the rectangle. For books that did not have a single star, such as House of Mystery or Justice League of America, the title and "DC" appeared in a stylized logo, such as a bat for House of Mystery. This use of characters as logos helped to establish the likenesses as trademarks, and was similar to Marvel's contemporaneous use of characters as part of their cover branding. DC's "100 Page Super-Spectacular" titles and later 100-page and "Giant" issues published from 1972 to 1974 featured a logo that was exclusive to these editions, the letters "DC" in a simple sans serif font, in a circle. (A variant had the letters in a square.) The July 1972 DC titles featured a new circular logo. The letters "DC" were rendered in a block-like font that would remain through later logo revisions until 2005. The title of the book usually appeared inside the circle, either above or below the letters. In December 1973, the logo was modified, adding the words "The Line of DC Super-Stars" and the star motif that would continue in later logos. This logo was placed in the top center of the cover from August 1975 to October 1976. When Jenette Kahn became DC's publisher in late 1976, she commissioned graphic designer Milton Glaser to design a new logo. Popularly referred to as the "DC bullet", the logo first appeared on the February 1977 DC titles. Although it varied in size and color and was at times cropped by the edges of the cover, or briefly rotated 45 degrees, it remained essentially unchanged for nearly three decades. On May 8, 2005, a new logo was unveiled, debuting on DC titles starting in June 2005 with DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy #1 and the rest of the titles the following week. In addition to comics, it was designed for DC properties in other media, such as Batman Begins, Smallville, Justice League Unlimited, collectibles, and other merchandise. The logo, which some have dubbed the "DC spin", was designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios.

Noteworthy creators


- Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
- Bob Kane and Bill Finger
- William Moulton Marston
- Jack Kirby
- Julius Schwartz
- Gardner Fox
- Jerry Robinson
- Dick Sprang
- Wayne Boring
- Mort Weisinger
- Gil Kane
- John Broome
- Steve Ditko
- Carmine Infantino
- Joe Kubert
- Curt Swan
- Neal Adams
- Dennis O'Neil
- Dick Giordano
- Archie Goodwin
- Paul Levitz
- Keith Giffen
- Marv Wolfman
- George Pérez
- Doug Moench
- Alan Moore
- Frank Miller
- John Byrne
- Jerry Ordway
- Dan Jurgens
- Roger Stern
- Mike W. Barr
- Chuck Dixon
- Barbara Kesel
- Karl Kesel
- Neil Gaiman
- Grant Morrison
- Mark Waid
- Alex Ross
- James Robinson
- Devin Grayson
- Geoff Johns
- Jeph Loeb
- Greg Rucka
- Jim Lee
- Murphy Anderson
- Gail Simone

Imprints


- Current
  - All Star
  - America's Best Comics
  - CMX
  - DC Archive Editions
  - Johnny DC
  - Humanoids
  - Vertigo
  - Wildstorm
- Defunct
  - DC Focus
  - Helix
  - Impact
  - Milestone
  - Paradox Press
  - Piranha Press

See also


- DC Universe
- History of the DC Universe
- List of DC Comics publications
- List of DC Comics characters
- List of DC Comics movies

References


- [http://www.dccomics.com/ DC Comics official site]
- [http://www.comics-db.com/DC_Comics/index.html Big Comic Book DataBase: DC Comics]
- [http://braveandthebold.net/ Brave and the Bold]
- [http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/features/106143682856239.htm Interview with DC publisher Paul Levitz]
- [http://collectedcomicslibrary.blogspot.com/ Collected Comics Library]
- Goulart, Ron, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comics Books (Contemporary Press, Chicago, 1986) ISBN 0809250454 Category:Comic book publishers (companies)
- Category:Time Warner subsidiaries ja:DCコミック simple:DC Comics

Television program

A television program is the content of television broadcasting. The content of an individual broadcast may be referred to as a television program (U.S., Canada, and Australia), television programme (UK, NZ, Ireland and South Africa) or television show. A program may be a one-off broadcast or, more usually, part of a periodically returning television series. A television series that is intended to air a finite number of episodes is usually called a miniseries. Americans call a short run lasting less than a year a season; Europeans call this a series. This season or series usually consists of 10–24 installments of the series. A single instance of a program is called an episode, although this is sometimes also called a "show" or "program." A one-off broadcast may be called a "special." A television movie is a movie that is initially aired on television rather than being released in cinemas or direct-to-video, although many successful television movies are later released on video.

What television programming is

The content of television programs may be factual, as in documentaries, news, and reality television, or fictional as in comedy and drama. It may be topical as in the case of news and some made-for-television movies or historical as in the case of such documentaries or fictional series. It may be primarily instructional as in the case of educational programming, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy, reality TV, and variety shows. A drama program usually features a set of actors in a somewhat familiar setting. The program follows their lives and their adventures. Many shows, especially before the 1980s, maintained a status quo where the main characters and the premise changed little. If some change happened to the characters lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. (Because of this, the episodes could usually be watched in any order.) Since the 1980s, there are many series that feature progressive change to the plot, the characters, or both. Common TV program periods include regular broadcasts (like TV news), TV series (usually seasonal and ongoing with a duration of only a few episodes to many seasons), or TV miniseries which is an extended film, usually with a small pre-determined number of episodes and a set plot and timeline. Miniseries usually range from about 3 to 10 hours in length, though critics often complain when programs hit the short end of that range and are still marketed as "minis." In the UK, the term "miniseries" is only usually used in references to imported programmes, and such short-run series are usually called "serials" there. In the United States, most regular television series have 22 episodes per year. In general, dramas usually last 44 minutes (an hour with commercials), while comedies last 22 (30 with commercials). However, with the rise of cable networks, especially pay ones, series and episode lengths have been changing. Cable networks usually feature series lasting thirteen episodes. Many British series have significantly shorter yearly runs. Old television shows begin with a title sequence, show opening credits at the bottom of the screen over the beginning of the show, and include closing credits at the end of the show. However, in the 1990s shows began cold opening with a "teaser" (a short beginning to the episode, designed to catch the viewer's attention), followed by a title sequence, and a commercial break. More plot-driven shows begin with a "previously" (a short introduction to past major plot events through excerpts), even before the teaser. And, to save time, some shows omit the title sequence altogether, folding the names normally featured there into the opening credits. While television series appearing in TV networks are usually commissioned by the networks themselves, the real revenue for the producers is typically when the product is sold into syndication. However, with the rise of the DVD home video format, box sets containing entire seasons or the complete run have become a significant revenue source as well.

How programs are made

:What follows is the standard procedure for shows on network television in the United States. Someone (called the show "creator") comes up with the idea for a new television series. This consists of the concept, the characters, usually some crew, and sometimes some big-name actors. They "pitch" it to the various television network