Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: Who started DC Comics?
Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (January 7, 1890[1] – 1965)[2] was an American pulp magazine writer and entrepreneur who pioneered the American comic book, publishing the first such periodical consisting solely of original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips. Long after his departure from the comic book company he founded, Wheeler-Nicholson's National Allied Publications would evolve into DC Comics, one of the U.S.'s two largest comic book publishers along with rival Marvel Comics.
In the Golden Age of Comic Books publishing, DC Comics was also an imprint of Detective Comics and its affiliated companies, All-American Publications and National Allied Publications, that were later all merged into National Periodical Publications, later renamed DC Comics. Before the merger, due to squabbles between the companies, All-American published under its own name/imprint in 1945 starting with the February stand date until the December stand date.
Roy attended an art school in Wayne, New Jersey, where she studied painting techniques. Her first contact with comics was through collecting Marvel Comics' "Tomb of Dracula", "The Sub-Mariner" and "Conan the Barbarian". Roy's first work as a comics colorist was assisting her husband Anthony Tollin, who worked for DC Comics at the times. But it was long-time colorist Jack Adler who would give her the first job at DC: the cover of "DC Special Series" #8 (featuring the Batman, Deadman and Sgt. Rock team-up). Adler and Sol Harrison (who was also a colorist) were considered by Roy herself as her mentors and both trained her on coloring during the first years at DC.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe starting in 2008 is a shared universe with films combining characters from different works by Marvel Comics. The DC Extended Universe starting in 2013 uses the same model for DC Comics.
In 2005, DC Comics released the "All-Star" line of comics. This line is not in continuity with the other comic book titles released through DC Comics so its storylines have no impact on Wonder Woman's generally established comic book history. In the title "All-Star Superman", a Bizarro Wonder Woman is introduced. Generally she is a 4- to 5-foot-tall () statue carried around by Bizarro on various Bizarro Justice League missions. Bizarro explains that Bizarro Wonder Woman started out as a beautiful baby who turned into an ugly cheap clay statue. Thus she has the opposite life of the traditional Wonder Woman who started out as a clay statue of a child who was transformed into a flesh and blood woman. Despite being an inanimate statue, Bizarro insists that Bizarro Wonder Woman is a good team player.
In January 1993, DC's Vertigo imprint was launched with some former DC Comics imprint titles. DC teamed up with Milestone Media to co-publish Milestone Comics starting in 1993. Impact Comics last saw print in July.
To please fans and collectors who wanted better figures, not just repaints, DC Comics started production on their own line of action figures. These highly articulated figures, based on popular DC Comics characters, feature many Batman characters, and also feature storyline inspired character figures including Elseworld figures.
In 2016, DC Comics started DC Rebirth, a relaunch of its entire line of comic books.
Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe (usually referred to as Who's Who) is the umbrella title for a number of comic book series which DC Comics published to catalogue the wide variety of fictional characters in their imaginary universe, the DC Universe.
As the 50th anniversary of DC Comics drew near, major events were proposed for the celebration: an encyclopedia ("Who's Who in the DC Universe") and a crossover of the ages, characters, and worlds appearing in DC's comics. As told in the letter section of "Crisis On Infinite Earths" #1, as the research started in the late 1970s, it became evident that there were many flaws in continuity. The way used to circumvent some of these errors was the "Multiple Earths", which also showed a chaotic nature that brought even more continuity problems that were not easily explained or were simply left unexplained. Examples of this included: 1) Black Canary of Earth-One being the daughter of the original Black Canary of WWII even though the original Black Canary was a resident of Earth-Two, and 2) the existence of Golden Age comic books on Earth-One and the people not noticing that some of the characters in those comic books existed in "real-life". In addition, many universes had multiple alternate timelines, such as Kamandi and the Legion of Super-Heroes, both being from Earth-One.
Grell originally created "Starslayer" for DC Comics, but plans to publish it were halted after the mass cancellation of titles known as the DC Implosion. Instead, he offered it to Pacific Comics, who released it as a six issue series in 1982. It was originally intended as an ongoing series per Pacific Comics's publisher Bill Schanes but Grell's developing relationship with the new First Comics and previous working relationship with their editorial director Mike Gold (who had been Grell's editor at DC) swayed him to release future issues with First. In August 1983 First Comics continued the series, starting with issue #7, with Grell writing and providing breakdown art with finishes by Lenin Delsol. Grell left the series after issue #8, and was replaced by writer John Ostrander and Delsol as sole artist. Later contributors to the series were Tim Truman, Hilary Barta, and Tom Sutton. The final issue, #34, came out November 1985.
Of the 80 issues under the No Man's Land banner, 40 were collected into trade paperbacks:In December 2011, DC started re-issuing the storyline in "complete" editions that will collect all of the comics involved.
In 2000, DC Comics published a novelization of "No Man's Land" written by Greg Rucka. The story features many of the same characters as the comic book arc. It also describes other members of the GCPD. The book omits the characters of Azrael and Superman, who were present throughout in the comics.
Lawrence "Larry" Wade is a fictional character who appears in comic books published by DC Comics and a supporting character of Static/Virgil Hawkins. Created by writers Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III, and artist John Paul Leon, Larry first appeared in "Static" #1 (June 1993), one of the titles published by Milestone Comics, an imprint of DC Comics. After the closing of Milestone Comics, Larry became part of DC's mainstream universe of characters. He was also featured on the "Static Shock" TV series from the DCAU and was voiced by Omar Gooding.
[[DC Direct]] released a cold-cast porcelain, hand-painted medium-sized statue of The Kingdom's version of Gog in 1998, based upon designs by artist [[Jerry Ordway]]. The statue was limited to 3,000 pieces and measured 7 7/8 x 5 x 5 inches, and came with an official certificate of authenticity from DC Comics.
[[Category:Fictional mass murderers]]
[[Category:DC Comics characters who can move at superhuman speeds]]
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[[Category:Fictional characters from Kansas]]
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[[Category:Fictional orphans]]
[[Category:Comics characters introduced in 1998]]
[[Category:Jack Kirby's Fourth World]]
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[[Category:DC Comics cosmic entities]]
In March 1996, Wilstorm announced the start of the Homage Comics in August with the relaunch of Kurt Busiek's "Astro City" and that Homage Comics would be published outside the Image Comics system. In August 1998, DC purchased Wildstorm including imprints Cliffhanger, Homage and America's Best Comics with the imprints appearing under the DC banner in January 1999. Homage merged with Cliffhanger to become "WildStorm Signature Series".
Zuda Comics was DC Comics' internet comics website/imprint starting in 2007. The site published all new web comics and open submission policy for new creators. DC shuttered Zuda in 2010 as the company moved to only DC Comics digital releases instead of web comics.
The United States publisher of "Classics Illustrated", Gilberton, marketed their CI series as educational in nature and felt that releasing "Dr. No" would be a poor marketing fit. So the rights were sold to Independent News, then-owners of DC Comics, who published the comic as issue 43 of the "Showcase" anthology series, in January 1963. As the US issue hit the news stands four months before the film's US release, sales were disappointing. With interior art very different from most other work published by DC Comics, it may have had trouble finding an audience since James Bond was still relatively unknown in the US at the time. DC has not published another James Bond comic since, though they considered starting a title when their 10-year option for a Bond comic was about to expire in 1972. Artist Jack Kirby and writer Alex Toth were contacted, but DC ultimately decided against it, feeling unsure about the future of the characters as Sean Connery made what he stated would be his last appearance as 007, "Diamonds Are Forever".
Johnny DC is a character that DC Comics has used at various times as a mascot for its lines of comic books, and occasionally as a metafictional character who comments on the comics in which he appears.
Starting in around 1966, Schnapp's classic, art deco-inspired look was replaced by the pulsing, organic style of Gaspar Saladino, who redesigned DC's house style for the counterculture era. Gaspar became the cover letterer for all of DC's books throughout the 1970s, and even "ghosted" as Marvel Comic's "page-one" letterer for much of the same period. Gaspar's work became so iconic that various independent comics publishers which sprang up in the 1970s and 1980s – such as Atlas/Seaboard, Continuity Comics, and Eclipse Comics – hired him to design logos for their entire line of titles.
Vulcan, is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. He is the second character to star in a book titled "Son of Vulcan", the first being Johnny Mann, who was created by Charlton Comics in 1965 and later purchased by DC Comics in 1983.
Among other various assignments were jobs for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, Warren Comics, "New York Daily News", Archie Comics, as well as periodicals magazines including "National Lampoon", "The New York Times", Kitchen Sink, "Playboy", "TV Guide" and "Rolling Stone". He was a "Mad" illustrator for ten years and has worked regularly with numerous comics publishers on projects such as "Omega Men", "Super Powers", "DC Comics Presents", DC's "Who's Who" and "Planet of the Apes".
In June 2011, DC Comics announced that the character would be incorporated into the main DC Universe in an ongoing series written by Ron Marz and drawn by Sami Basri as part of The New 52, a relaunch of DC Comics' properties. Josh Williamson was announced as the new writer of the comic book, starting with "Voodoo" #5, because DC wanted to take the story in a different direction.
The DC Comics rating system is a system for rating the content of comic books used by DC Comics. In 2011, DC Comics decided to withdraw from the Comics Code Authority and implement their own rating system for their comics. Rather than replicating the system used by Marvel Comics, DC Comics' system is more similar to video game ratings, specifically the ESRB. A few months later, Image Comics implemented a similar rating system to their own comics that followed the same system as DC.
DC production manager Sol Harrison conceived of the idea of a DC "pro-zine," and assigned Bob Rozakis—who got his start in the industry through his many letters to comic book letter columns—to oversee its development. In addition to editing, Rozakis wrote for the publication and oversaw the letters page. "Amazing World" was co-edited by a group of fellow young fans-turned-DC Comics editorial employees that Rozakis termed the "Junior Woodchucks." Carl Gafford was a key contributor to the zine, doing editing, writing, production work and color separations.
Firefly (Garfield Lynns) is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by France Herron and Dick Sprang, he made his debut in "Detective Comics" #184 (June 1952) as a criminal who utilized lighting effects to commit crimes. Following the reboot of the DC Universe per the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths", the character was re-imagined as an unhinged and sociopathic pyromaniac with an obsessive compulsion to start fires. This darker depiction of Firefly has since endured as one of the superhero Batman's most recurring enemies and belongs to the collective of adversaries that make up his rogues gallery.
In the mid-1950s, following the decline of superhero comics after World War II and the end of the Golden Age of comics, the editors at DC decided to revive some of their Golden Age superheroes with completely new origins and backstories. Starting with the Flash in "Showcase" #4 in 1956, new versions of DC's former heroes were gradually introduced as completely separate characters with no connection to previous incarnations. This concept eventually became canonized with the introduction of DC's multiverse in 1960s DC Comics.