Comics, Marvel Comics, Cartoon Characters
Comics
Comics (from the Greek κωμικός, kōmikos "of or pertaining to comedy" is a graphic medium in which images are utilized in order to convey a sequential narrative; the term, derived from massive early use to convey comic themes, came to be applied to all uses of this medium including those which are far from comic. It is the sequential nature of the pictures, and the predominance of pictures over words, that distinguish comics from picture books, though there is some overlap between the two media. Most comics combine words with images, often indicating speech in the form of word balloons, but wordless comics, such as The Little King, are not uncommon. Words other than dialogue, captions for example, usually expand upon the pictures, but sometimes act in counterpoint.
Early precursors of comics as they are known today include Trajan's Column and the work of William Hogarth. By 19th century, the medium as we know it today, began to take form among European and American artists. Comics as a real mass medium started to emerge in the United States in the early 20th century, with the newspaper comic strip, where its form began to be standardized (image-driven, speech balloons etc). The combination of words and pictures proved popular, and quickly spread throughout the world. Comic strips were soon gathered into cheap booklets, comic books, and original comic books soon followed. Today, comics are found in newspapers, magazines, comic books, graphic novels, and on the web.
Marvel Comics
Marvel Publishing, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics, is an American company that publishes specializing comic books and related media. Marvel Entertainment, Inc., a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, owns Marvel Publishing.
Marvel counts among its characters such well-known properties as Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, Wolverine, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Daredevil, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange and others. Most of Marvel's fictional characters operate in a single reality known as the Marvel Universe, with locales set in real-life cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The comic-book arm of the company started in 1939 as Timely Publications, and by the 1950s had generally become known as Atlas Comics. Marvel's modern incarnation dates from 1961, with the launching of Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others. Marvel has since become the largest American comic-book publisher, surpassing its longtime competitor DC Comics.
On December 31, 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment for $4.24 billion.
Cartoon Character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art (such as a novel, play, or film). Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of "a part played by an actor" developed. Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theatre or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person." Since the end of the 18th century, the phrase "in character" has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor. Since the 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practiced by actors or writers, has been called characterization.
A character who stands as a representative of a particular class or group of people is known as a type. Types include both stock characters and those that are more fully individualized. The characters in Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (1891) and August Strindberg's Miss Julie (1888), for example, are representative of specific positions in the social relations of class and gender, such that the conflicts between the characters reveal ideological conflicts.
The study of a character requires an analysis of its relations with all of the other characters in the work. The individual status of a character is defined through the network of oppositions (proairetic, pragmatic, linguistic, proxemic ) that it forms with the other characters. The relation between characters and the action of the story shifts historically, often miming shifts in society and its ideas about human individuality, self-determination, and the social order.