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.

Reader polls started to appear in the 1990s, allowing the readers to rate the strips in the comic.

By the 1980s, several independent publishers, such as Pacific, Eclipse, First, Comico, and Fantagraphics had started 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.

The comic strip's popular success is attributable to its workplace setting and themes, which are familiar to a large and appreciative audience ; Adams said that switching the setting from Dilbert's home to his office was " when the strip really started to take off.

The fictional British Secret Service agent has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip and video game formats as well as being used in the longest continually running and the second-highest grossing film franchise to date, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, starring Sean Connery as Bond.

In 1984, Italian comic artist Vittorio Giardino started producing a number of few-page stories under the title Little Ego, a parodic adaptation of Little Nemo, in the shape of erotic comics.

Goodman, a pulp magazine publisher who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging — and by then already highly popular — new medium of comic books.

Studios started publishing a 24-issue comic book limited series adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?, containing the full text of the novel.

* The Phoenix ( comics ), a weekly British comic that started in 2012

The reason I've never been a comic book fan — and I think it started when I was a child — is because I could never tell which box I was supposed to read.

British publisher Titan Magazines started producing a monthly Wallace and Gromit comic after the debut of Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

* A series of American comic format reprints started in 1983 by Eagle Comics with the first issue of an ongoing monthly Judge Dredd title.

The comic strip Moomintroll, started in 1954 in the Evening News, a newspaper for the London area and London commuters ( no longer in business ).

* In Judge Dredd ( in the comic 2000 AD ) 2070 was the year President Robert L. Booth started the Atomic Wars.

Although the comic started in the 1940s, it has changed over the years to stay current with the times, said writer and artist Dan Parent.

In earlier comic strips, starting with Mickey Mouse in Death Valley ( 1930 ) Pete was portrayed as Sylvester Shyster's henchman, but he gradually started to work on his own.

In April 1930 he started working on the four-month-old Mickey Mouse comic strip.

Venerdì 12 started as a series of the comic magazine L ' isola che non c ' è and continued on the Rat-Man Collection, where it was also completed.

Disappointed with Pedro as the image that the outside world had of Chile, cartoonist René Ríos Boettiger ( Pepo ) started one of the most famous Latin American comic magazines: Condorito.

* Swamp Thing ( 1982 ), based the long running comic that started in DC comics and had ended its run in Vertigo Comics created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson.

Troisi started his artistic career as a cabaret showman in 1972, as a member of the comic trio called " I Saraceni " (" The Saracens ") and, later, " La Smorfia " ( from the name of the " book of the numbers " traditionally used in Naples for lottery and tombola, but also meaning " the face ", as in " to make a face ").

* Quality Communications, a comic book publisher started in 1982

In 1962 Giraud and writer Jean-Michel Charlier started the comic strip Fort Navajo for Pilote no.

From there, he moved again to Italy in 1962 where he started a collaboration with the children's comic book magazine Il Corriere dei Piccoli, for which he adapted several classics of adventure literature, including Treasure Island and Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.