CAPTAIN AMERICA COMIC IS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1940

Today, The Grandma has been reading one of her favourite comics, Captain America, whose first issue was published on a day like today in 1940.

 

Captain America is a superhero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby who appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. 

 

The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1, published on December 20, 1940, by Timely Comics, a corporate predecessor to Marvel.

Captain America's civilian identity is Steven "Steve" Rogers, a frail man enhanced to the peak of human physical perfection by an experimental super-soldier serum after joining the United States Army to aid the country's efforts in World War II. Equipped with an American flag–inspired costume and a virtually indestructible shield, Captain America and his sidekick Bucky Barnes clashed frequently with the villainous Red Skull and other members of the Axis powers.

In the final days of the war, an accident left Captain America frozen in a state of suspended animation until he was revived in modern times. He resumes his exploits as a costumed hero and becomes leader of the superhero team the Avengers, but frequently struggles as a man out of time to adjust to the new era.

The character quickly emerged as Timely's most popular and commercially successful wartime creation upon his original publication, though the popularity of superheroes declined in the post-war period and Captain America Comics was discontinued in 1950. The character saw a short-lived revival in 1953 before returning to comics in 1964, and has since remained in continuous publication.

Captain America's creation as an explicitly anti-Nazi figure was a deliberately political undertaking: Simon and Kirby were stridently opposed to the actions of Nazi Germany and supporters of U.S. intervention in World War II, with Simon conceiving of the character specifically in response to the American non-interventionism movement. Political messages have subsequently remained a defining feature of Captain America stories, with writers regularly using the character to comment on the state of American society and government.

Having appeared in more than ten thousand stories in more than five thousand media formats, Captain America is one of the most popular and recognized Marvel Comics characters, and has been described as an icon of American popular culture. Though Captain America was not the first United States -themed superhero, he would become the most popular and enduring of the many patriotic American superheroes created during World War II. 

Captain America was the first Marvel character to appear in a medium outside of comic books, in the 1944 serial film Captain America; the character has subsequently appeared in a variety of films and other media, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where he was portrayed by actor Chris Evans from the character's first appearance in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) to his final appearance in Avengers: Endgame (2019).

In 1940, Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman responded to the growing popularity of superhero comics -particularly Superman at rival publisher National Comics Publications, the corporate predecessor to DC Comics -by hiring freelancer Joe Simon to create a new superhero for the company. Simon began to develop the character by determining who their nemesis could be, noting that the most successful superheroes were defined by their relationship with a compelling villain, and eventually settled on Adolf Hitler. He rationalized that Hitler was the best villain of them all as he was hated by everyone in the free world, and that it would be a unique approach for a superhero to face a real-life adversary rather than a fictional one.

Captain America Comics #1 was published on December 20, 1940, with a cover date of March 1941.

Simon wrote the first two issues of Captain America Comics before becoming the editor for the series; they were the only Captain America stories he would ever directly write.

Captain America made his ostensible return in the anthology Strange Tales #114 (November 1963), published by Atlas' corporate successor Marvel Comics. In an 18-page story written by Lee and illustrated by Kirby, Captain America reemerges following years of apparent retirement, though he is revealed as an impostor who is defeated by Human Torch of the Fantastic Four.

Captain America is one of the most popular and widely recognized Marvel Comics characters, and has been described as an icon of American popular culture. He is the most well-known and enduring of the United States-themed superheroes to emerge from the Second World War and inspired a proliferation of patriotic-themed superheroes in American comic books during the 1940s. This included the American Crusader, the Spirit of '76, Yank & Doodle, Captain Flag, and Captain Courageous, among numerous others.

Though none would achieve Captain America's commercial success, the volume of Captain America imitators was such that three months after the character's debut, Timely published a statement indicating that there is only one Captain America and warning that they would take legal action against publishers that infringed on the character.

After being dismissed from Timely, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby would themselves create a new patriotic superhero, the Fighting American, for Prize Comics in 1954; the character became the subject of a lawsuit from Marvel in the 1990s after Rob Liefeld attempted to revive the character following his own departure from Marvel.

More information: Get Comics

Graphic novels are not traditional literature,
but that does not mean they are second-rate.
Images are a way of writing.
When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw,
it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.

Marjane Satrapi

'SCOOBY-DOO', THE AMERICAN ANIMATED FRANCHISE

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Scooby-Doo, the American animated media franchise.

Scooby-Doo is an American animated media franchise based on an animated television series launched in 1969 and continued through several derivative media.

Writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears created the original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, for Hanna-Barbera Productions. This Saturday-morning cartoon series featured teenagers Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Shaggy Rogers, and their talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo, who solve mysteries involving supposedly supernatural creatures through a series of antics and missteps.

Scooby-Doo was originally broadcast on CBS from 1969 to 1976, when it moved to ABC. ABC aired various versions of Scooby-Doo until canceling it in 1985, and presented a spin-off featuring the characters as children called A Pup Named Scooby-Doo from 1988 until 1991.

Two Scooby-Doo reboots aired as part of Kids' WB on The WB and its successor The CW from 2002 until 2008. Further reboots were produced for Cartoon Network beginning in 2010 and continuing through 2018. Repeats of the various Scooby-Doo series are frequently broadcast on Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang in the United States and other countries. The current Scooby-Doo series, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, premiered on June 27, 2019, as an original series on Boomerang's streaming service and later HBO Max.

In 2013, TV Guide ranked Scooby-Doo the fifth-greatest TV cartoon of all time.

More information: Warner Bros

In 1968, parent-run organizations, particularly Action for Children's Television (ACT), began protesting what they perceived as excessive violence in Saturday-morning cartoons. Most of these shows were Hanna-Barbera action cartoons such as Space Ghost, The Herculoids, and Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, and virtually all of them were cancelled by 1969 because of pressure from the parent groups. Members of these watch groups served as advisers to Hanna-Barbera and other animation studios to ensure that new programs would be safe for children.

The first episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! What a Night for a Knight debuted on the CBS network Saturday, September 13, 1969, at 10:30 AM Eastern Time. The original voice cast featured Don Messick as Scooby-Doo, Casey Kasem as Shaggy, Frank Welker as Fred, actress Nicole Jaffe as Velma, and Indira Stefanianna as Daphne.

Scooby's speech patterns closely resembled an earlier cartoon dog, Astro from The Jetsons (1962–63), also voiced by Messick. Seventeen episodes of Scooby-Doo Where Are You! were produced in 1969–70. The series theme song was written by David Mook and Ben Raleigh, and performed by Larry Marks.

Gold Key Comics began publication of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! comic books in December 1969. The comics initially contained adaptations of episodes of the television show drawn by Phil DeLara, Jack Manning and Warren Tufts. The comic books later moved to all-original stories until ending with issue #30 in 1974. Several of these issues were written by Mark Evanier and drawn by Dan Spiegle.

Charlton published Scooby comics, many drawn by Bill Williams, for 11 issues in 1975. From 1977 to 1979, Marvel Comics published nine issues of Scooby-Doo, all written by Evanier and drawn by Spiegel. Harvey Comics published reprints of the Charlton comics, as well as a handful of special issues, between 1993 and 1994.

In 1995, Archie Comics began publishing a monthly Scooby-Doo comic book, the first year of which featured Scrappy-Doo among its cast. Evanier and Spiegel worked on three issues of the series, which ended after 21 issues in 1997 when Warner Bros.' DC Comics acquired the rights to publish comics based on Hanna-Barbera characters. DC's Scooby-Doo series continues publication to this day.

More information: Scooby Addicts

In 2013, DC began a digital bi-monthly comic book titled Scooby-Doo Team-Up, crossing over Mystery Inc. with other DC and Hanna-Barbera characters. Since then, the series has become a monthly comic book available in print.

In 2004, a limited series of a 100 comic books called Scooby-Doo! World of Mystery was released. In each issue, Mystery Inc. go from country to country solving mysteries. Each issue came with a pack of exclusive cards, with 350 in total able to be collected.

In 2016, DC launched a new monthly comic book entitled Scooby Apocalypse, with the characters being reinvented in a story set in a post-apocalyptic world, where monsters roam the streets and Scooby and the gang must find a way to survive at all costs, while also trying to find a way to reverse the apocalypse.

Early Scooby-Doo merchandise included a 1973 Milton Bradley board game, decorated lunch boxes, iron-on transfers, coloring books, story books, records, underwear, and other such goods. When Scrappy-Doo was introduced to the series in 1979, he, Scooby, and Shaggy became the foci of much of the merchandising, including a 1983 Milton-Bradley Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo board game.

The first Scooby-Doo video game appeared in arcades in 1986, and has been followed by a number of games for both home consoles and personal computers.  

Scooby-Doo multivitamins also debuted at this time, and have been manufactured by Bayer since 2001.

More information: Cartoon Research

Yeah, but, how do we know
the phantom will ever chase Scooby-Doo?
He’s a dog.

Shaggy

STAN LEE, THE FATHER OF MARVEL COMICS' SUPERHEROES

Today, The Grandma has been reading some comics. She loves them and she has wanted to remember one of the greatest comic book write of all time, Stan Lee, father of some of the most incredible Marvel superheroes, who died on a day like today in 2018.

Stan Lee (December 28, 1922-November 12, 2018) was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer.

He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Publications which would later become Marvel Comics' primary creative leader for two decades, leading its expansion from a small division of a publishing house to a multimedia corporation that dominated the comics and film industries.

In collaboration with others at Marvel-particularly co-writers/artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko -he co-created characters including superheroes Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Wasp, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, and Black Widow.

These and other characters' introductions in the 1960s pioneered a more naturalistic approach in superhero comics, and in the 1970s Lee challenged the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to changes in its policies.

In the 1980s he pursued the development of Marvel properties in other media, with mixed results.

Following his retirement from Marvel in the 1990s, Lee remained a public figurehead for the company, and frequently made cameo appearances in films and television shows based on Marvel characters, on which he received an executive producer credit.

He continued independent creative ventures into his 90s until his death in 2018. Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received the NEA's National Medal of Arts in 2008.

More information: The Real Stan Lee

Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28, 1922, in Manhattan, New York City, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue. Lee was raised in a Jewish household.

The Stan Lee Foundation was founded in 2010 to focus on literacy, education, and the arts. Its stated goals include supporting programs and ideas that improve access to literacy resources, as well as promoting diversity, national literacy, culture and the arts.

Lee donated portions of his personal effects to the University of Wyoming at various times, between 1981 and 2001.

In September 2012, Lee underwent an operation to insert a pacemaker, which required cancelling planned appearances at conventions. Lee eventually retired from convention appearances by 2017.

On July 6, 2017, Boocock, his wife of 69 years, died of complications from a stroke. She was 95 years old.

Lee died on November 12, 2018, at the age of 95, one month before his 96th birthday, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, after being rushed there in a medical emergency earlier in the day.

More information: Twitter-Stan Lee

The pleasure of reading a story and wondering
what will come next for the hero
is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and,
I think, will always be with us.

Stan Lee