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., a company doing business as Marvel Comics, produces American comic books and related media. It forms a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc.
Marvel counts among its characters such well-known properties as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the X-Men (notably Wolverine), Daredevil, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, and others. Most of Marvel's fictional characters operate in one single reality known as the Marvel Universe.
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 over longtime competitor DC Comics.
On August 31, 2009, The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in cash and stock
Cartoon Characters
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 through its Latin transcription character, 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 practised by actors or writers, has been called characterisation.
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 individualised. 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