He wasn't a dwarf but he was a bit of a comic figure.

Alexis (, c. 394 BC – c. 288 BC ) was a Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy period.

The public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theatres.

Salieri would also write several bravura aria's for a soprano playing the part of a middle class character that would combine coloratura and concertante woodwind solos, another innovation for a comic opera that was to be widely imitated.

Again a classic of Renaissance literature was the basis of the libretto by Boccherini, in this case a comic mock-epic by Tassoni, in which a war between Modena and Bologna ensues over a stolen bucket.

Gluck feared that the Parisian critics would denounce the opera by a young composer known mostly for comic pieces and so the opera was originally billed in the press as being a new work by Gluck with some assistance from Antonio Salieri, then shortly before the premiere of the opera the Parisian press reported that the work was to be partly by Gluck and partly by Salieri, and finally after popular and critical success were won on stage the opera was acknowledged in a letter to the public by Gluck as being wholly by the young Antonio.

Alfred Gerald Caplin ( September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979 ), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li ' l Abner.

The technique — as invigorating as it was unorthodox — was later adopted by cartoonists like Walt Kelly and Garry Trudeau ," wrote comic strip historian Rick Marschall.

Li ' l Abner was also the subject of the first book-length, scholarly assessment of an American comic strip ever published.

( This fable-like story was collected into an educational comic book called Mammy Yokum and the Great Dogpatch Mystery !, and distributed by the Anti-Defamation League of B ' nai B ' rith later that year.

" The article recounted Capp's days working for an unnamed " benefactor " with a miserly, swinish personality, who Capp claimed was a never-ending source of inspiration when it came time to create a new unregenerate villain for his comic strip.

As is usual with collaborative efforts in comic strips, his name was the only one credited — although, sensitive to his own experience working on Joe Palooka, Capp frequently drew attention to his assistants in interviews and publicity pieces.

There was also a separate line of comic book titles published by the Caplin family-owned Toby Press, including Shmoo Comics featuring Washable Jones.

Cartoonist Mell Lazarus, creator of Miss Peach and Momma, wrote a comic novel in 1963 titled The Boss Is Crazy, Too which was partly inspired by his apprenticeship days working with Capp and his brother Elliot at Toby.

In the Golden Age of the American comic strip, successful cartoonists received a great deal of attention ; their professional and private lives were reported in the press, and their celebrity was often nearly sufficient to rival their creations.

Besides his use of the comic strip to voice his opinions and display his humor, Capp was a popular guest speaker at universities, and on radio and television.

Li ' l Abner was one of 20 classic American comic strips honored with a USPS commemorative postage stamp.

In the comic, minor characters like Earl, Billy Bob, Clark Cobb, and Mistress Cora Anthrax would get repeated appearances ; Earl was quite regular, and Anthrax was in two issues and got to answer a letter's page.

William " Bill " Boyd Watterson II ( born July 5, 1958 ) is an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995.

Later, when Watterson was creating names for the characters in his comic strip, he allegedly decided upon Calvin ( after the Protestant reformer John Calvin ) and Hobbes ( after the social philosopher Thomas Hobbes ) as a " tip of the hat " to the political science department at Kenyon.

On December 21, 1999 a short piece, written by Watterson to mark the forthcoming end of the comic strip Peanuts, was published in the Los Angeles Times.

The comic book series Cerebus The Aardvark ( created, written and illustrated by Dave Sim ) features an aardvark as its protagonist.

* Atlas ( comics series ), a comic book series by Dylan Horrocks

* Alphonse and Gaston, French duo in a comic strip created by Frederick Burr Opper

Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix (, ) is a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo ( Uderzo also took over the job of writing the series after the death of Goscinny in 1977 ).

Jonathan Rosenberg, author / artist of the humorous science fiction webcomic Scenes from a Multiverse, references an ansible powered by a quantum-entangled ferret in the 2012-Jun-25 edition of the comic.

is a comic book limited series written by Toshimichi Suzuki and illustrated by Tony Takezaki.

In 1946 Capp created a special full-color comic book, Al Capp by Li ' l Abner, to be distributed by the Red Cross to encourage the thousands of amputee veterans returning from the war.

) Two years later, Capp's studio issued Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, a 1958 biographical comic book distributed by The Fellowship of Reconciliation.

" Comics ,” wrote Capp in 1970, “ can be a combination of the highest quality of art and text, and many of them are .” Capp would produce many giveaway educational comic books and public services pamphlets, spanning several decades, for the Red Cross, the Department of Civil Defense, the Department of the Navy, the U. S. Army, the Anti-Defamation League, the Department of Labor, Community Chest ( a forerunner of United Way ), and the Job Corps.

During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States.

The first comic book appeared in the United States in 1933, reprinting the earlier newspaper comic strips, which established many of the story-telling devices used in comics.

Since the introduction of the comic book format in 1933 with the publication of Famous Funnies, the United States has produced the most titles, along with British comics and Japanese manga, in terms of quantity of titles.

This actually was not his first work in comics, as earlier the same year Barks along with Hannah and fellow storyman Nick George scripted Pluto Saves the Ship, which was among the first original Disney comic book stories published in the United States.

The United States had several writers of comic fantasy, including James Branch Cabell, whose satirical

Doonesbury is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college student to a youthful senior citizen in the 40 + years of the strip's daily existence.

In 1994, the company purchased all rights to the Garfield comic strips from 1978 to 1993 from United Feature Syndicate.

Freas was commissioned to paint the Skylab I insignia design and posters promoting the space program ( used by NASA and now hanging in the Smithsonian Institution ); pinup girls on bombers while in the United States Army Air Forces ; comic book covers ; the covers of the GURPS worldbooks Lensman and Planet Krishna ; and many others, such as more than 500 saints ' portraits for the Franciscans executed simultaneously with his portraits of Alfred E. Neuman (" What?

* October 26 – Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury debuts in approximately two dozen newspapers in the United States.

That move cost UPI the revenues of its previous United Feature Syndicate subsidiary, which in later years made large profits on the syndication of Peanuts and other popular comic strips and columns.

In the Lucky Luke comic book Sarah Bernhardt, which is set in the late 19th-century Wild West, President Rutherford B. Hayes ’ wife is portrayed as being one of many who strongly disapproves of the titular actress ' tour of the United States, given her reputation for loose morality.

In comic writer Don Rosa's stories, Duckburg is located on the west coast of the United States, though other writers often leave the city's location more vaguely defined.

In the mid-1950s, in the wake of the crackdown on comics which followed Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent and the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings on the dangers of comic books, the content of comics faced radical overhauls and the imposition of the censoring Comics Code Authority body.

The United States has also had a long tradition of collecting comic strips into book form

They hold a celebration annually in June called " The Superman Celebration " where comic book collectors come from all over the United States.

After returning to Mexico, Cantinflas starred in the comic drama El bolero de Raquel ( 1957 ), the first Cantinflas film to be distributed to the United States by Columbia Pictures.

Between 1936 and 17 October 1959, the comic strip Belinda Blue-Eyes ( later shortened to Belinda ) ran in the United Kingdom in the Daily Mirror.

Set in a fictional United States Army military post, it is among the oldest comic strips still being produced by the original creator.

In 1940, Western Publishing began producing Disney comic books in the United States.

Between 1981 and 1986, Ken Pierce Books Inc. of the United States, in conjunction with Eclipse Comics, published eight volumes of comic book-sized reprints dubbed the First American Edition series.

The average age of the comic reader in Mexico was higher than in the United States, about 18 instead of 13, so some argue the content of comics had a very strong influence on Mexican society.

By the mid-1950s the title was the best selling comic book in the United States, with a monthly circulation of over three million.