title: PAL

text: People in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay usually own TV sets that also display NTSC-M, in addition to PAL-N. DirecTV also conveniently broadcasts in NTSC-M for North, Central, and South America. Most DVD players sold in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay also play PAL discs—however, this is usually output in the European variant (colour subcarrier frequency 4.433618 MHz), so people who own a TV set which only works in PAL-N (plus NTSC-M in most cases) will have to watch those PAL DVD imports in black and white (unless the TV supports RGB SCART) as the colour subcarrier frequency in the TV set is the PAL-N variation, 3.582056 MHz.


title: PAL

text: In the case that a VHS or DVD player works in PAL (and not in PAL-N) and the TV set works in PAL-N (and not in PAL), there are two options:


title: PAL

text: Some DVD players (usually lesser known brands) include an internal transcoder and the signal can be output in NTSC-M, with some video quality loss due to the standard conversion from a 625/50 PAL DVD to the NTSC-M 525/60 output format. A few DVD players sold in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay also allow a signal output of NTSC-M, PAL, or PAL-N. In that case, a PAL disc (imported from Europe) can be played back on a PAL-N TV because there are no field/line conversions, quality is generally excellent.


title: PAL

text: Some special VHS video recorders are available which can allow viewers the flexibility of enjoying PAL-N recordings using a standard PAL ( 625/50 Hz ) colour TV, or even through multi-system TV sets. Video recorders like Panasonic NV-W1E (AG-W1 for the US), AG-W2, AG-W3, NV-J700AM, Aiwa HV-M110S, HV-M1U, Samsung SV-4000W and SV-7000W feature a digital TV system conversion circuitry.


title: PAL

text: Many 1990s-onwards videocassette recorders sold in Europe can play back NTSC tapes. When operating in this mode most of them do not output a true (625/25) PAL signal, but rather a hybrid consisting of the original NTSC line standard (525/30), with colour converted to PAL 4.43 MHz (instead of 3.58 as with NTSC and South American PAL variants and with the PAL-specific phase alternation of colour difference signal between the lines) — this is known as "PAL 60" (also ""quasi-PAL"" or ""pseudo-PAL"") with "60" standing for 60 Hz (for 525/30), instead of 50 Hz (for 625/25).


title: PAL

text: Some video game consoles also output a signal in this mode. The Sega Dreamcast pioneered PAL 60 with most of its games being able to play games at full speed like NTSC and without borders. Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube also had high support for PAL 60 unlike PlayStation 2. The PlayStation 2 did not actually offer a true PAL 60 mode; while many PlayStation 2 games did offer a "PAL 60" mode as an option, the console would in fact generate an NTSC signal during 60 Hz operation.


title: PAL

text: Most newer television sets can display a "PAL 60" signal correctly, but some will only do so (if at all) in black and white and/or with flickering/foldover at the bottom of the picture, or picture rolling (however, many old TV sets can display the picture properly by means of adjusting the V-Hold and V-Height knobs—assuming they have them). Some TV tuner cards or video capture cards will support this mode (although software/driver modification can be required and the manufacturers' specs may be unclear).


title: PAL

text: PAL usually has 576 visible lines compared with 480 lines with NTSC, meaning that PAL has a 20% higher resolution, in fact it even has a higher resolution than Enhanced Definition standard (852x480). Most TV output for PAL and NTSC use interlaced frames meaning that even lines update on one field and odd lines update on the next field. Interlacing frames gives a smoother motion with half the frame rate. NTSC is used with a frame rate of 60i or 30p whereas PAL generally uses 50i or 25p; both use a high enough frame rate to give the illusion of fluid motion. This is due to the fact that NTSC is generally used in countries with a utility frequency of 60 Hz and PAL in countries with 50 Hz, although there are many exceptions.


title: PAL

text: Both PAL and NTSC have a higher frame rate than film which uses 24 frames per second. PAL has a closer frame rate to that of film, so most films are sped up 4% to play on PAL systems, shortening the runtime of the film and, without adjustment, slightly raising the pitch of the audio track. Film conversions for NTSC instead use 3:2 pull down to spread the 24 frames of film across 60 interlaced fields. This maintains the runtime of the film and preserves the original audio, but may cause worse interlacing artefacts during fast motion.


title: PAL

text: NTSC receivers have a tint control to perform colour correction manually. If this is not adjusted correctly, the colours may be faulty. The PAL standard automatically cancels hue errors by phase reversal, so a tint control is unnecessary yet Saturation control can be more useful. Chrominance phase errors in the PAL system are cancelled out using a 1H delay line resulting in lower saturation, which is much less noticeable to the eye than NTSC hue errors.


title: PAL

text: However, the alternation of colour information—Hanover bars—can lead to picture grain on pictures with extreme phase errors even in PAL systems, if decoder circuits are misaligned or use the simplified decoders of early designs (typically to overcome royalty restrictions). This effect will usually be observed when the transmission path is poor, typically in built up areas or where the terrain is unfavourable. The effect is more noticeable on UHF than VHF signals as VHF signals tend to be more robust. In most cases such extreme phase shifts do not occur.


title: PAL

text: PAL and NTSC have slightly divergent colour spaces, but the colour decoder differences here are ignored.


title: PAL

text: Outside of film and TV broadcasts, the differences between the two formats when displaying video games are quite dramatic. Games ported to PAL have historically been known for having game speed and frame rates inferior to their NTSC counterparts, being typically slowed by approximately 16.7% in order to avoid timing problems or unfeasible code changes. Full motion video rendered and encoded at 30 frames per second by the Japanese/US (NTSC) developers was often down-sampled to 25 frames per second or considered to be 50 frames per second video for PAL release—usually by means of 3:2 pull-down, resulting in motion judder. In addition to this, PAL's increased resolution was not utilised during conversion, creating a pseudo letterbox effect with borders top and bottom, which looks similar to a 14:9 letterbox, and leaving the graphics with a slightly squashed look due to an incorrect aspect ratio caused by the borders. This was especially prevalent during the 8-bit and 16-bit generations when 2D graphics were used almost exclusively. The gameplay of many games with an emphasis on speed, such as the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, suffered in their PAL incarnations, although also made them slightly easier.


title: PAL

text: Despite the possibility and popularity of 60 Hz games in PAL regions, many high-profile games, particularly for the PlayStation 2 console, were released in 50 Hz-only versions. Square Enix have long been criticised by PAL gamers for their poor PAL conversions. Final Fantasy X, for example, runs in 50 Hz mode only, meaning it runs 16.7% slower than the NTSC release and features top and bottom borders. While this practice was common in previous generations, it was considered inexcusable by contemporary consumers at the time of release, due to the availability of TV sets supporting a 60Hz scan rate with PAL colour (see "PAL 60" above) and RGB or component connections that allow colour output without the need for NTSC or PAL color encoding.


title: PAL

text: In contrast, the Dreamcast was the first system to feature "PAL 60", and the overwhelming majority of PAL games offered 50 and 60 Hz modes with no slow speeds. Xbox and GameCube also had high "PAL 60" support.


title: PAL

text: The SECAM patents predate those of PAL by several years (1956 vs. 1962). Its creator, Henri de France, in search of a response to known NTSC hue problems, came up with ideas that were to become fundamental to both European systems, namely:


title: PAL

text: SECAM applies those principles by transmitting alternately only one of the U and V components on each TV line, and getting the other from the delay line. QAM is not required, and frequency modulation of the subcarrier is used instead for additional robustness (sequential transmission of U and V was to be reused much later in Europe's last "analog" video systems: the MAC standards).


title: PAL

text: SECAM is free of both hue and saturation errors. It is not sensitive to phase shifts between the colour burst and the chrominance signal, and for this reason was sometimes used in early attempts at colour video recording, where tape speed fluctuations could get the other systems into trouble. In the receiver, it did not require a quartz crystal (which was an expensive component at the time) and generally could do with lower accuracy delay lines and components.


title: PAL

text: SECAM transmissions are more robust over longer distances than NTSC or PAL. However, owing to their FM nature, the colour signal remains present, although at reduced amplitude, even in monochrome portions of the image, thus being subject to stronger cross colour.


title: PAL

text: One serious drawback for studio work is that the addition of two SECAM signals does not yield valid colour information, due to its use of frequency modulation. It was necessary to demodulate the FM and handle it as AM for proper mixing, before finally remodulating as FM, at the cost of some added complexity and signal degradation. In its later years, this was no longer a problem, due to the wider use of component and digital equipment.


title: PAL

text: PAL can work without a delay line (PAL-S), but this configuration, sometimes referred to as "poor man's PAL", could not match SECAM in terms of picture quality. To compete with it at the same level, it had to make use of the main ideas outlined above, and as a consequence PAL had to pay licence fees to SECAM. Over the years, this contributed significantly to the estimated 500 million francs gathered by the SECAM patents (for an initial 100 million francs invested in research).


title: PAL

text: Hence, PAL could be considered as a hybrid system, with its signal structure closer to NTSC, but its decoding borrowing much from SECAM.


title: PAL

text: There were initial specifications to use colour with the French 819 line format (system E). However, "SECAM E" only ever existed in development phases. Actual deployment used the 625 line format. This made for easy interchange and conversion between PAL and SECAM in Europe. Conversion was often not even needed, as more and more receivers and VCRs became compliant with both standards, helped in this by the common decoding steps and components. When the SCART plug became standard, it could take RGB as an input, effectively bypassing all the colour coding formats' peculiarities.


title: PAL

text: When it comes to home VCRs, all video standards use what is called "colour under" format. Colour is extracted from the high frequencies of the video spectrum, and moved to the lower part of the spectrum available from tape. Luma then uses what remains of it, above the colour frequency range. This is usually done by heterodyning for PAL (as well as NTSC). But the FM nature of colour in SECAM allows for a cheaper trick: division by 4 of the subcarrier frequency (and multiplication on replay). This became the standard for SECAM VHS recording in France. Most other countries kept using the same heterodyning process as for PAL or NTSC and this is known as MESECAM recording (as it was more convenient for some Middle East countries that used both PAL and SECAM broadcasts).


title: PAL

text: Another difference in colour management is related to the proximity of successive tracks on the tape, which is a cause for chroma crosstalk in PAL. A cyclic sequence of 90° chroma phase shifts from one line to the next is used to overcome this problem. This is not needed in SECAM, as FM provides sufficient protection.


title: PAL

text: Regarding early (analogue) videodiscs, the established Laserdisc standard supported only NTSC and PAL. However, a different optical disc format, the Thomson transmissive optical disc made a brief appearance on the market. At some point, it used a modified SECAM signal (single FM subcarrier at 3.6 MHz). The media's flexible and transmissive material allowed for direct access to both sides without flipping the disc, a concept that reappeared in multi-layered DVDs about fifteen years later.


title: Daniela Ruah

text: Daniela Sofia Korn Ruah (born December 2, 1983) is an American-Portuguese actress and film director best known for playing NCIS Special Agent Kensi Blye in the CBS police procedural series "".


title: Daniela Ruah

text: Ruah was born in Boston, U.S., to Jewish parents from Portugal, where her mother is an otologist and her father is an ENT surgeon. When Ruah was 5, the family moved back to Portugal, where she attended St Julian's School and, at 16, began acting in telenovelas. She won a Portuguese-television dance competition.


title: Daniela Ruah

text: Ruah moved to the U.K at the age of 18 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in performing arts from London Metropolitan University. She returned to Portugal where she continued acting, and in 2007 moved to New York City to study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.


title: Daniela Ruah

text: Ruah stated that she grew up in an environment that was both Sephardic and Ashkenazi; her father is of Portuguese-Jewish ancestry, and her mother's Jewish roots are in Russia, Ukraine and Portugal. She holds both Portuguese and American citizenship.


title: Daniela Ruah

text: Ruah started acting in Portuguese soap operas when she was a teen. She made her acting debut at 16, when she played Sara on the soap opera "Jardins Proibidos" ("Forbidden Gardens").


title: Daniela Ruah

text: At 18, Ruah moved to London to attend college. After graduation, she returned to Portugal to pursue her acting career. She was the winner of the celebrity dancing competition "Dança Comigo" (the Portuguese version of "Dancing with the Stars") and got main roles in television series, short films, and theatre. In 2007, she moved to New York to study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.


title: Daniela Ruah

text: Ruah stars as Special Agent Kensi Blye in "", which first aired on September 22, 2009. In 2011, she portrayed the character in a crossover guest appearance on the series "Hawaii Five-0".


title: Daniela Ruah

text: On January 8, 2018, it was confirmed that Ruah would co-host the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal alongside Catarina Furtado, Sílvia Alberto and Filomena Cautela.


title: Daniela Ruah

text: Ruah married David Olsen, the older brother and stunt double of Ruah's "" co-star Eric Christian Olsen, in an interfaith ceremony in 2014. Olsen is Lutheran. They have 2 children, a son, River Isaac Ruah Olsen (born December 2013), and a daughter, Sierra Esther Ruah Olsen (born September 2016).


title: María Pedraza

text: María Pedraza Morillo (born 26 January 1996) is a Spanish actress, dancer and model who gained international recognition for her roles in the series "Money Heist" and "Elite".


title: María Pedraza

text: Pedraza was discovered through her Instagram account by film director Esteban Crespo who invited her to attend an audition for the lead role of his debut film "Amar" where she obtained the role of Laura, joining a cast also made up of Pol Monen, Natalia Tena, Gustavo Salmerón and Nacho Fresneda.


title: María Pedraza

text: Her second project as an actress was playing Alison Parker, daughter of the British ambassador to Spain, in the Atresmedia series "Money Heist". The subsequent purchase of it by Netflix earned the actress both national and international recognition. At the beginning of 2018, Pedraza's participation in the second Netflix original Spanish series entitled "Élite" was announced, with fellow "Money Heist" cast members Miguel Herrán and Jaime Lorente.


title: Lanai

text: Lanai (, , , ,) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple plantation. The island's only settlement of note is the small town of Lanai City. , the island was 98% owned by Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of Oracle Corporation;<ref name="NYTM 2014/09/28"></ref> the remaining 2% is owned by the state of Hawaii or is privately owned homes.


title: Lanai

text: Lanai is a roughly apostrophe-shaped island with a width of in the longest direction. The land area is , making it the 43rd largest island in the United States. It is separated from the island of Molokai by the Kalohi Channel to the north, and from Maui by the Auau Channel to the east. The United States Census Bureau defines Lanai as Census Tract 316 of Maui County. Its total population rose to 3,367 as of the 2020 United States census, up from 3,193 as of the 2000 census and 3,131 as of the 2010 census. As visible via satellite imagery, many of the island's landmarks are accessible only by dirt roads that require a four-wheel drive vehicle due to the lack of paved roadways.


title: Lanai

text: There is one school, Lanai High and Elementary School, serving the entire island from kindergarten through 12th grade. There is also one hospital, Lanai Community Hospital, with 24 beds, and a community health center providing primary care, dental, behavioral health and selected specialty services in Lanai City. There are no traffic lights on the island.


title: Lanai

text: Lanai was under the control of nearby Maui before recorded history. Its first inhabitants may have arrived as late as the 15th century.


title: Lanai

text: The Hawaiian-language name is of uncertain origin, but the island has historically been called , which can be rendered in English as "day of the conquest of Kauluāau." This epithet refers to a legend about a Mauian prince who was banished to Lanai because of his wild pranks at his father's court in Lāhainā. The island was said to be haunted by Akua-ino, ghosts and goblins that Kauluāau chased away, bringing peace and order to the island and regaining his father's favor as a consequence.


title: Lanai

text: The first people to migrate here, most likely from Maui and Molokai, probably established fishing villages along the coast at first, and then spread into the interior, where they raised taro in the fertile volcanic soil. During most of this period, the Mōī of Maui had control over Lanai, but generally left its inhabitants alone. However, at some point, King Kamehameha I or Kalaniōpuu-a-Kaiamamao invaded and killed many of them. The population must have been decimated by 1792, because in that year Captain George Vancouver reported that he had ignored the island during his voyage because of its apparent lack of inhabitants or villages. Lanai is said to have been Kamehameha's favorite fishing spot among Hawaii's main eight islands.


title: Lanai

text: The history of sugar-growing in Hawaii begins in Lanai, when in 1802 a farmer from China, Wong Tse Chun, produced a small amount there. He used a crude stone mill that he had brought with him to crush the cane.


title: Lanai

text: In 1854 a group of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were granted a lease in the ahupuaa of Pālāwai. In 1862 Walter M. Gibson arrived on Lānaʻi to reorganize the settlement. A year later he bought the ahupuaa of Pālāwai for $3000; he used money of the church but titled the land in his own name. When the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found this out they excommunicated him, but he was still able to retain ownership of the land. By the 1870s, Walter M. Gibson, then the leader of the colony on the island, had acquired most of the island’s land, which he used for ranching.


title: Lanai

text: By 1890, the population of Lānaʻi had been reduced to 200. In 1899, Gibson's daughter and son-in-law formed Maunalei Sugar Company, headquartered in Keomuku, on the windward (northeast) coast, downstream from Maunalei Valley. The company failed in 1901. However, between 1899 and 1901 nearly 800 laborers, mostly from Japan, had been contracted to work for the plantations. Many Native Hawaiians continued to live along the less arid windward coast, supporting themselves by ranching and fishing.


title: Lanai

text: In 1909, Charles Gay sold the island to William G. Irwin for one dollar. Irwin's title was upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court.


title: Lanai

text: In 1921, Charles Gay planted the first pineapple plant on Lanai. The population had decreased again - to 150 - most of whom were the descendants of the traditional families of the island. A year later, James Dole, the president of Hawaiian Pineapple Company (later renamed Dole Food Company), bought the island and developed a large portion of it into the world's largest pineapple plantation.


title: Lanai

text: In 1985, Lanai passed into the control of David H. Murdock as a result of his purchase of Castle & Cooke, which was then the owner of Dole. High labor- and land costs led to a decline in Hawaii pineapple production in the 1980s, and Dole phased out its pineapple operations on Lanai in 1992.


title: Lanai

text: In June 2012, Larry Ellison, then CEO of Oracle Corporation, purchased Castle & Cooke's 98 percent share of the island for $300 million. The state and individual homeowners own the remaining 2 percent, which includes the harbor and the private homes where the 3,000 inhabitants live. Ellison, who believes renewable energy must be cost-competitive with fossil fuels in order to be viable, stated his intention to invest as much as $500 million to improve the island's infrastructure and create an environmentally friendly agricultural industry. , Ellison had spent an estimated $450 million to remodel his Four Seasons Resort Lanai at Manele Bay, which reopened in April 2016 after a seven-month shutdown. In Lanai City, he built a new water-filtration system and a resort-style, Olympic-size public pool. He also refurbished the historic movie theater (built in the 1920s but mostly shut since the 1970s), turning it into a state-of-the art movie house. His second Four Seasons Resort, at Kōele in the mountains, was renovated and reopened as Sensei Lanaʻi in 2020. Ellison also started a solar-powered hydroponic farming venture, “Sensei,” which has two 20,000-square-foot computer-monitored greenhouses, and he plans to build four more.


title: Lanai

text: Until 2020, Ellison was in negotiations to purchase the diesel-powered utility assets of the island in order to build a sustainable power system consisting of solar power and batteries. However, it was reported in May 2020 that, while plans to transition from using fossil fuels to renewable resources continue, the talks by Ellison's company to acquire the utility had ended.


title: Lanai

text: According to the Hawaiian legends, man-eating spirits occupied the island. For generations, Maui chiefs believed in these man-eating spirits. Differing legends say that either the prophet Lanikāula drove the spirits from the island or the unruly Maui prince Kauluāau accomplished that heroic feat. The more popular myth is that the mischievous Kauluāau pulled up every breadfruit tree ("ulu") he could find on Maui. Finally his father, Kakaalaneo had to banish him to Lanai, expecting him not to survive in that hostile place. However, Kauluāau outwitted the spirits and drove them from the island. The chief looked across the channel from Maui and saw that his son's fire continued to burn nightly on the shore, and he sent a canoe to Lanai to bring the prince back, redeemed by his courage and cleverness. As a reward, Kakaalaneo gave Kauluāau control of the island and encouraged emigration from other islands. Kauluāau had, in the meantime, pulled up all the breadfruit trees on Lanai, accounting for the historic lack of them on that island.


title: Lanai

text: The highest point in Lanai is Mount Lānaihale. It is an inactive volcano near the center of the island and to the east of Lanai City. The elevation of Mount Lānaʻihale is .


title: Lanai

text: Lanai was traditionally administered in 13 political subdivisions (Ahupuaa), grouped into two districts ("mokuoloko"): "kona" (Leeward) and "koolau" (Windward). The "ahupuaa" are listed below, in clockwise sequence, and with original area figures in acres, starting in the northwest of the island.


title: Lanai

text: Kamoku hosts the largest share of population, because the bigger part of Lanai City falls into it. Parts of Lanai City stretch to Kaa and Paomai. , the remaining "ahupuaa" were virtually uninhabited. According to the census of 2000, Lanai City accounts for 99 percent of the island population (3164 of 3193). As a census-designated place, Lanai City is defined solely for statistical purposes, and not by administrative boundaries.


title: Lanai

text: A volcanic collapse in Lānaʻi 100,000 years ago generated a megatsunami that inundated land at elevations higher than .


title: Lanai

text: Tourism on Lanai began to be prominent in more recent history as the pineapple and sugarcane industries were phased out in the islands. The number of visitors coming to the island is still relatively small, however, with around 59,000 arrivals forecast for 2016—of all the publicly accessible Hawaiian islands only Molokai attracts fewer visitors.


title: Lanai

text: , the two resort hotels on Lanai were managed by Four Seasons Hotels; the Four Seasons Resort Lanai in Manele Bay at "Hulupoe Beach", just a few steps from where the ferry from Lāhainā docks, and the Lodge at Kōele in the mountains. The Hotel Lanai in Lanai City was built in 1923 by James Dole of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company as a lodge to house the executives overseeing the island's pineapple production. It was the island's only hotel until 1990.


title: Lanai

text: "Shipwreck Beach" on the north shore of the island is so named because of the remains of a wrecked vessel aground a short distance offshore. This is popularly referred to as a WW II Liberty Ship, although it is YOGN 42, one of several concrete barges built during the war.


title: Lanai

text: In Lanai City, there are no traffic lights, no shopping malls, and public transportation is supplied by the hotels. Most attractions outside of the hotels and town can be visited only via dirt roads that require an off-road vehicle, bicycle or walking.


title: Lanai

text: Lanai is served by Lanai Airport, which offers air taxi and scheduled commercial operations to other Hawaiian islands.


title: Comic book

text: A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and written narrative, usually, dialogue contained in word balloons emblematic of the comics art form. The first modern comic book, "Famous Funnies", was released in the US in 1934 and was a reprinting of earlier newspaper humor comic strips, which had established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term "comic book" derives from American comic books once being a compilation of comic strips of a humorous tone; however, this practice was replaced by featuring stories of all genres, usually not humorous in tone.


title: Comic book

text: The largest comic book market is Japan. By 1995, the manga market in Japan was valued at (), with annual sales of 1.9billion manga books (tankōbon volumes and manga magazines) in Japan, equivalent to 15issues per person. In 2020 the manga market in Japan reached a new record value of ¥612.5 billion due to a fast growth of digital manga sales as well as an increase in print sales. The comic book market in the United States and Canada was valued at in 2016. , the largest comic book publisher in the United States is manga distributor Viz Media, followed by DC Comics and Marvel Comics the original feature full length special edition franchises including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men. The best-selling comic book categories in the US are juvenile children's fiction at 41%, manga at 28% and superhero comics at 10% of the market. Another major comic book market is France, where Franco-Belgian comics and Japanese manga each represent 40% of the market, followed by American comics at 10% market share.


title: Comic book

text: Comic books are reliant on their organization and appearance. Authors largely focus on the frame of the page, size, orientation, and panel positions. These characteristic aspects of comic books are necessary in conveying the content and messages of the author. The key elements of comic books include panels, balloons (speech bubbles), text (lines), and characters. Balloons are usually convex spatial containers of information that are related to a character using a tail element. The tail has an origin, path, tip, and pointed direction. Key tasks in the creation of comic books are writing, drawing, and coloring. There are many technological formulas used to create comic books, including directions, axes, data, and metrics. Following these key formatting procedures is the writing, drawing, and coloring. In the United States, the term "comic book", is generally used for comics periodicals and trade paperbacks while "graphic novel" is the term used for standalone books.


title: Comic book

text: Comics as a print medium have existed in the United States since the printing of "The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck" in 1842 in hardcover, making it the first known American prototype comic book. Proto-comics periodicals began appearing early in the 20th century, with the first comic standard-sized comic being "Funnies on Parade". "Funnies on Parades" was the first book that established the size, duration, and format of the modern comic book. Following this was, Dell Publishing's 36-page "Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics" as the first true newsstand American comic book; Goulart, for example, calls it "the cornerstone for one of the most lucrative branches of magazine publishing". In 1905 G.W. Dillingham Company published 24 select strips by the cartoonist Gustave Verbeek in an anthology book called 'The Incredible Upside-Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo'. The introduction of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman in 1938 turned comic books into a major industry and ushered in the Golden Age of Comic Books. The Golden Age originated the archetype of the superhero. According to historian Michael A. Amundson, appealing comic-book characters helped ease young readers' fear of nuclear war and neutralize anxiety about the questions posed by atomic power.


title: Comic book

text: Historians generally divide the timeline of the American comic book into eras. The Golden Age of Comic Books began in 1938, with the debut of Superman in Action Comics #1, published by Detective Comics (predecessor of DC Comics), which is generally considered the beginning of the modern comic book as it is known today. The Silver Age of Comic Books is generally considered to date from the first successful revival of the then-dormant superhero form, with the debut of the Flash in "Showcase" #4 (Oct. 1956). The Silver Age lasted through the late 1960s or early 1970s, during which time Marvel Comics revolutionized the medium with such naturalistic superheroes as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four and Lee and Steve Ditko's Spider-Man. The demarcation between the Silver Age and the following era, the Bronze Age of Comic Books, is less well-defined, with the Bronze Age running from the very early 1970s through the mid-1980s. The Modern Age of Comic Books runs from the mid-1980s to the present day.


title: Comic book

text: A notable event in the history of the American comic book came with psychiatrist Fredric Wertham's criticisms of the medium in his book "Seduction of the Innocent" (1954), which prompted the American Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency to investigate comic books. Wertham claimed that comic books were responsible for an increase in juvenile delinquency, as well as potential influence on a child's sexuality and morals. In response to attention from the government and from the media, the US comic book industry set up the Comics Magazine Association of America. The CMAA instilled the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and drafted the self-censorship Comics Code that year, which required all comic books to go through a process of approval. It was not until the 1970s that comic books could be published without passing through the inspection of the CMAA. The Code was made formally defunct in November 2011.


title: Comic book

text: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a surge of creativity emerged in what became known as underground comics. Published and distributed independently of the established comics industry, most of such comics reflected the youth counterculture and drug culture of the time. Underground comix "reflected and commented on the social divisions and tensions of American society". Many had an uninhibited, often irreverent style; their frank depictions of nudity, sex, profanity, and politics had no parallel outside their precursors, the pornographic and even more obscure "Tijuana bibles". Underground comics were almost never sold at newsstands, but rather in such youth-oriented outlets as head shops and record stores, as well as by mail order. The underground comics encouraged creators to publish their work independently so that they would have full ownership rights to their characters.


title: Comic book

text: Frank Stack's "The Adventures of Jesus", published under the name Foolbert Sturgeon, has been credited as the first underground comic; while R. Crumb and the crew of cartoonists who worked on "Zap Comix" popularized the form.


title: Comic book

text: The rise of comic book specialty stores in the late 1970s created/paralleled a dedicated market for "independent" or "alternative comics" in the US. The first such comics included the anthology series "Star Reach", published by comic book writer Mike Friedrich from 1974 to 1979, and Harvey Pekar's "American Splendor", which continued sporadic publication into the 21st century and which Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini adapted into a 2003 film. Some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics. While their content generally remained less explicit, others resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned companies or by single artists. A few (notably "RAW") represented experimental attempts to bring comics closer to the status of fine art.


title: Comic book

text: During the 1970s the "small press" culture grew and diversified. By the 1980s, several independent publishers – such as Pacific, Eclipse, First, , 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.


title: Comic book

text: A number of small publishers in the 1990s changed the format and distribution of their comics to more closely resemble non-comics publishing. The "minicomics" form, an extremely informal version of self-publishing, arose in the 1980s and became increasingly popular among artists in the 1990s, despite reaching an even more limited audience than the small press.


title: Comic book

text: Small publishers regularly releasing titles include Avatar Press, Hyperwerks, Raytoons, and Terminal Press, buoyed by such advances in printing technology as digital print-on-demand.


title: Comic book

text: In 1964, Richard Kyle coined the term "graphic novel". Precursors of the form existed by the 1920s, which saw a revival of the medieval woodcut tradition by Belgian Frans Masereel, American Lynd Ward and others, including Stan Lee.


title: Comic book

text: In 1950, St. John Publications produced the digest-sized, adult-oriented "picture novel" "It Rhymes with Lust", a 128-page digest by pseudonymous writer "Drake Waller" (Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller), penciler Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin, touted as "an original full-length novel" on its cover. In 1971, writer-artist Gil Kane and collaborators devised the paperback "comics novel" "Blackmark". Will Eisner popularized the term "graphic novel" when he used it on the cover of the paperback edition of his work "A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories" in 1978.


title: Comic book

text: In 2017, the comic book market size for North America was just over $1 billion with digital sales being flat, book stores having a 1 percent decline, and comic book stores having a 10 percent decline over 2016. The global comic book market size increased by 12% in 2020 to reach USD 8.49 billion. In 2021, the annual valuation of the market amounted to USD 9.21 billion. The popularity of the product is soaring across the world, led by collaborative efforts being made between brands to deliver more appealing comic content.


title: Comic book

text: The 1970s saw the advent of specialty comic book stores. Initially, comic books were marketed by publishers to children because comic books were perceived as children's entertainment. However, with increasing recognition of comics as an art form and the growing pop culture presence of comic book conventions, they are now embraced by many adults.


title: Comic book

text: Comic book collectors are often lifelong enthusiasts of the comic book stories, and they usually focus on particular heroes and attempt to assemble the entire run of a title. Comics are published with a sequential number. The first issue of a long-running comic book series is commonly the rarest and most desirable to collectors. The first appearance of a specific character, however, might be in a pre-existing title. For example, Spider-Man's first appearance was in "Amazing Fantasy" #15. New characters were often introduced this way and did not receive their own titles until there was a proven audience for the hero. As a result, comics that feature the first appearance of an important character will sometimes be even harder to find than the first issue of a character's own title.


title: Comic book

text: Some rare comic books include copies of the unreleased "Motion Picture Funnies Weekly" #1 from 1939. Eight copies, plus one without a cover, emerged in the estate of the deceased publisher in 1974. The "Pay Copy" of this book sold for $43,125 in a 2005 Heritage auction.


title: Comic book

text: The most valuable American comics have combined rarity and quality with the first appearances of popular and enduring characters. Four comic books have sold for over US$1 million , including two examples of "Action Comics" #1, the first appearance of Superman, both sold privately through online dealer ComicConnect.com in 2010, and "Detective Comics" #27, the first appearance of Batman, via public auction.


title: Comic book

text: Updating the above price obtained for "Action Comics" #1, the first appearance of Superman, the highest sale on record for this book is $3.2 million, for a 9.0 copy.


title: Comic book

text: Misprints, promotional comic-dealer incentive printings, and issues with extremely low distribution also generally have scarcity value. The rarest modern comic books include the original press run of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" #5, which DC executive Paul Levitz recalled and pulped due to the appearance of a vintage Victorian era advertisement for "Marvel Douche", which the publisher considered offensive; only 100 copies exist, most of which have been CGC graded. (See Recalled comics for more pulped, recalled, and erroneous comics.)


title: Comic book

text: In 2000, a company named Comics Guaranty (CGC) began to "slab" comics, encasing them in thick plastic and giving them a numeric grade. Since then, other grading companies have arisen. Because condition is important to the value of rare comics, the idea of grading by a company that does not buy or sell comics seems like a good one. However, there is some controversy about whether this grading service is worth the high cost, and whether it is a positive development for collectors, or if it primarily services speculators who wish to make a quick profit trading in comics as one might trade in stocks or fine art. Comic grading has created valuation standards that online price guides such as GoCollect and GPAnalysis have used to report on real-time market values.


title: Comic book

text: The original artwork pages from comic books are also collected, and these are perhaps the rarest of all comic book collector's items, as there is only one unique page of artwork for each page that was printed and published. These were created by a writer, who created the story; a pencil artist, who laid out the sequential panels on the page; an ink artist, who went over the pencil with pen and black ink; a letterer, who provided the dialogue and narration of the story by hand lettering each word; and finally a colorist, who added color as the last step before the finished pages went to the printer.


title: Comic book

text: When the original pages of artwork are returned by the printer, they are typically given back to the artists, who sometimes sell them at comic book conventions, or in galleries and art shows related to comic book art. The original pages of the first appearances of such legendary characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man are considered priceless.


title: Comic book

text: Many early iterations of black characters in comics "became variations on the 'single stereotypical image of Sambo'." Sambo was closely related to the coon stereotype but had some subtle differences. They are both a derogatory way of portraying black characters. "The name itself, an abbreviation of raccoon, is dehumanizing. As with Sambo, the coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon." This portrayal "was of course another attempt to solidify the intellectual inferiority of the black race through popular culture." However, in the 1940s there was a change in portrayal of black characters. "A cursory glance...might give the impression that situations had improved for African Americans in comics." In many comics being produced in this time there was a major push for tolerance between races. "These equality minded heroes began to spring to action just as African Americans were being asked to participate in the war effort."


title: Comic book

text: During this time, a government ran program, the Writers' War Board, became heavily involved in what would be published in comics. "The Writers' War Board used comic books to shape popular perceptions of race and ethnicity..." Not only were they using comic books as a means of recruiting all Americans, they were also using it as propaganda to "[construct] a justification for race-based hatred of America's foreign enemies." The Writers' War Board created comics books that were meant to "[promote] domestic racial harmony". However, "these pro-tolerance narratives struggled to overcome the popular and widely understood negative tropes used for decades in American mass culture...". However, they were not accomplishing this agenda within all of their comics.


title: Comic book

text: In "Captain Marvel Adventures", a character named Steamboat was an amalgamation of some of the worst stereotypes of the time. The Writers' War Board did not ask for any change with this character. "Eliminating Steamboat required the determined efforts of a black youth group in New York City." Originally their request was refused by individuals working on the comic stating, ""Captain Marvel Adventures" included many kinds of caricatures 'for the sake of humor'." The black youth group responded with "this is not the Negro race, but your one-and-a-half millions readers will think it so." Afterwards, Steamboat disappeared from the comics all together. There was a comic created about the 99th Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black air force unit. Instead of making the comic about their story, the comic was about Hop Harrigan. A white pilot who captures a Nazi, shows him videos of the 99th Squadron defeating his men and then reveals to the Nazi that his men were defeated by African Americans which infuriated him as he sees them as a less superior race and cannot believe they bested his men."The Tuskegee Airmen, and images of black aviators appear in just three of the fifty three panels... the pilots of the 99th Squadron have no dialogue and interact with neither Hop Harrigan nor his Nazi captive." During this time, they also used black characters in comic books as a means to invalidate the militant black groups that were fighting for equality within the U.S. "Spider-Man 'made it clear that militant black power was not the remedy for racial injustice'." "The Falcon openly criticized black behavior stating' maybe it's important us to cool things down-so we can protect the rights we been fightin' for'." This portrayal and character development of black characters can be partially blamed on the fact that, during this time, "there had rarely been a black artist or writer allowed in a major comics company."


title: Comic book

text: Asian characters faced some of the same treatment in comics as black characters did. They were dehumanized and the narrative being pushed was that they were "incompetent and subhuman." "A 1944 issue of the "United States Marines" included a narrative entitled "The Smell of the Monkeymen". The story depicts Japanese soldiers as simian brutes whose sickening body odor betrays their concealed locations." Chinese characters received the same treatment. "By the time the United States entered WWII, negative perceptions of Chinese were an established part of mass culture..." However, concerned that the Japanese could use America's anti-Chinese material as propaganda they began "to present a more positive image of America's Chinese allies..." Just as they tried to show better representation for Black people in comics they did the same for Asian people. However, "Japanese and Filipino characters were visually indistinguishable. Both groups have grotesque buckteeth, tattered clothing, and bright yellow skin." "Publishers depicted America's Asian allies through derogatory images and language honed over the preceding decades." Asian characters were previously portrayed as, "ghastly yellow demons". During WWII, "[every] major superhero worth his spandex devoted himself to the eradication of Asian invaders." There was "a constant relay race in which one Asian culture merely handed off the baton of hatred to another with no perceptible changes in the manner in which the characters would be portrayed."


title: Comic book

text: "The only specific depiction of a Hispanic superhero did not end well. In 1975 Marvel gave us Hector Ayala (a.k.a The White Tiger)." "Although he fought for several years alongside the likes of much more popular heroes such as Spider-Man and Daredevil, he only lasted six years before sales of comics featuring him got so bad that Marvel had him retire. The most famous Hispanic character is Bane, a villain from Batman."


title: Comic book

text: The Native American representation in comic books "can be summed up in the noble savage stereotype" " a recurring theme...urged American indians to abandon their traditional hostility towards the United States. They were the ones painted as intolerant and disrespectful of the dominant concerns of white America".


title: Comic book

text: Manga (漫画) are comic books or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, though the art form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term "manga" is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside Japan, the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in the country.


title: Comic book

text: , fan-made Japanese comics, operate in a far larger market in Japan than the American "underground comics" market; the largest dōjinshi fair, Comiket, attracts 500,000 visitors twice a year.


title: Comic book

text: Korean manhwa has quickly gained popularity outside Korea in recent times as a result of the Korean Wave. The manhwa industry has suffered through two crashes and strict censorship since its early beginnings as a result of the Japanese occupation of the peninsula which stunts the growth of the industry but has now started to flourish thanks in part to the internet and new ways to read manhwa whether on computers or through smartphones. In the past manhwa would be marketed as manga outside the country in order to make sure they would sell well but now that is no longer needed since more people are now more knowledgeable about the industry and Korean culture.


title: Comic book

text: Webtoons have become popular in South Korea as a new way to read comics. Thanks in part to different censorship rules, color and unique visual effects, and optimization for easier reading on smartphones and computers. More manhwa have made the switch from traditional print manhwa to online webtoons thanks to better pay and more freedom than traditional print manhwa. The webtoon format has also expanded to other countries outside of Korea like China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Western countries. Major webtoon distributors include Lezhin, Naver, and Kakao.


title: Comic book

text: France and Belgium have a long tradition in comics and comic books, often called "BDs" (an abbreviation of "bandes dessinées", meaning literally "drawn strips") in French, and "strips" in Dutch or Flemish. Belgian comic books originally written in Dutch show the influence of the Francophone "Franco-Belgian" comics but have their own distinct style.


title: Comic book

text: Although "Ally Sloper's Half Holiday" (1884) was aimed at an adult market, publishers quickly targeted a younger demographic, which has led to most publications being for children and has created an association in the public's mind of comics as somewhat juvenile. "The Guardian" refers to Ally Sloper as "one of the world's first iconic cartoon characters", and "as famous in Victorian Britain as Dennis the Menace would be a century later." British comics in the early 20th century typically evolved from illustrated penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era (featuring Sweeney Todd, Dick Turpin and "Varney the Vampire"). First published in the 1830s, penny dreadfuls were "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young."


title: Comic book

text: The two most popular British comic books, "The Beano" and "The Dandy", were first published by DC Thomson in the 1930s. By 1950 the weekly circulation of both reached two million. Explaining the enormous popularity of comics in the UK during this period, Anita O'Brien, director curator at London's Cartoon Museum, states: "When comics like the Beano and Dandy were invented back in the 1930s – and through really to the 1950s and 60s – these comics were almost the only entertainment available to children." "Dennis the Menace" was created in the 1950s, which saw sales for "The Beano" soar. He features in the cover of "The Beano", with the BBC referring to him as the "definitive naughty boy of the comic world."


title: Comic book

text: In 1954, "Tiger" comics introduced "Roy of the Rovers", the hugely popular football based strip recounting the life of Roy Race and the team he played for, Melchester Rovers. The stock media phrase "real 'Roy of the Rovers' stuff" is often used by football writers, commentators and fans when describing displays of great skill, or surprising results that go against the odds, in reference to the dramatic storylines that were the strip's trademark. Other comic books such as "Eagle", "Valiant", "Warrior", "Viz" and "2000 AD" also flourished. Some comics, such as "Judge Dredd" and other "2000 AD" titles, have been published in a tabloid form. Underground comics and "small press" titles have also appeared in the UK, notably "Oz" and "Escape Magazine".


title: Comic book

text: The content of "Action", another title aimed at children and launched in the mid-1970s, became the subject of discussion in the House of Commons. Although on a smaller scale than similar investigations in the US, such concerns led to a moderation of content published within British comics. Such moderation never became formalized to the extent of promulgating a code, nor did it last long. The UK has also established a healthy market in the reprinting and repackaging of material, notably material originating in the US. The lack of reliable supplies of American comic books led to a variety of black-and-white reprints, including Marvel's monster comics of the 1950s, Fawcett's Captain Marvel, and other characters such as Sheena, Mandrake the Magician, and the Phantom. Several reprint companies became involved in repackaging American material for the British market, notably the importer and distributor Thorpe & Porter. Marvel Comics established a UK office in 1972. DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics also opened offices in the 1990s. The repackaging of European material has occurred less frequently, although "The Adventures of Tintin" and "Asterix" serials have been successfully translated and repackaged in softcover books. The number of European comics available in the UK has increased in the last two decades. The British company Cinebook, founded in 2005, has released English translated versions of many European series.


title: Comic book

text: In the 1980s, a resurgence of British writers and artists gained prominence in mainstream comic books, which was dubbed the "British Invasion" in comic book history. These writers and artists brought with them their own mature themes and philosophy such as anarchy, controversy and politics common in British media. These elements would pave the way for mature and "darker and edgier" comic books and jump start the Modern Age of Comics. Writers included Alan Moore, famous for his "V for Vendetta", "From Hell", "Watchmen", "Marvelman", and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"; Neil Gaiman with "The Sandman" mythos and "Books of Magic"; Warren Ellis, creator of "Transmetropolitan" and "Planetary"; and others such as Mark Millar, creator of "Wanted" and "Kick-Ass". The comic book series "John Constantine, Hellblazer", which is largely set in Britain and starring the magician John Constantine, paved the way for British writers such as Jamie Delano.


title: Comic book

text: At Christmas, publishers repackage and commission material for comic annuals, printed and bound as hardcover A4-size books; "Rupert" supplies a famous example of the British comic annual. DC Thomson also repackages "The Broons" and "Oor Wullie" strips in softcover A4-size books for the holiday season.


title: Comic book

text: On 19 March 2012, the British postal service, the Royal Mail, released a set of stamps depicting British comic book characters and series. The collection featured "The Beano", "The Dandy", "Eagle", "The Topper", "Roy of the Rovers", "Bunty", "Buster", "Valiant", "Twinkle" and "2000 AD".


title: Comic book

text: It has been stated that the 13th century "Cantigas de Santa María" could be considered as the first Spanish "comic", although comic books (also known in Spain as "historietas" or "tebeos") made their debut around 1857. The magazine "TBO" was influential in popularizing the medium. After the Spanish Civil War, the Franco regime imposed strict censorship in all media: superhero comics were forbidden and as a result, comic heroes were based on historical fiction (in 1944 the medieval hero "El Guerrero del Antifaz" was created by Manuel Gago and another popular medieval hero, "Capitán Trueno", was created in 1956 by Víctor Mora and Miguel Ambrosio Zaragoza). Two publishing houses — Editorial Bruguera and Editorial Valenciana — dominated the Spanish comics market during its golden age (1950–1970). The most popular comics showed a recognizable style of slapstick humor (influenced by Franco-Belgian authors such as Franquin): Escobar's "Carpanta" and "Zipi y Zape", Vázquez's "Las hermanas Gilda" and "Anacleto," Ibáñez's "Mortadelo y Filemón" and "13. Rue del Percebe" or Jan's "Superlópez". After the end of the Francoist period, there was an increased interest in adult comics with magazines such as "Totem", "El Jueves", "1984", and "El Víbora," and works such as "Paracuellos" by Carlos Giménez.


title: Comic book

text: Spanish artists have traditionally worked in other markets finding great success, either in the American (e.g., Eisner Award winners Sergio Aragonés, Salvador Larroca, Gabriel Hernández Walta, Marcos Martín or David Aja), the British (e.g., Carlos Ezquerra, co-creator of "Judge Dredd") or the Franco-Belgian one (e.g., Fauve d'Or winner or "Blacksad" authors Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido).


title: Comic book

text: In Italy, comics (known in Italian as "fumetti") made their debut as humor strips at the end of the 19th century, and later evolved into adventure stories. After World War II, however, artists like Hugo Pratt and Guido Crepax exposed Italian comics to an international audience. Popular comic books such as "Diabolik" or the "Bonelli" line—namely "Tex Willer" or "Dylan Dog"—remain best-sellers.


title: Comic book

text: Mainstream comics are usually published on a monthly basis, in a black-and-white digest size format, with approximately 100 to 132 pages. Collections of classic material for the most famous characters, usually with more than 200 pages, are also common. Author comics are published in the French BD format, with an example being Pratt's "Corto Maltese".


title: Comic book

text: Italian cartoonists show the influence of comics from other countries, including France, Belgium, Spain, and Argentina. Italy is also famous for being one of the foremost producers of Walt Disney comic stories outside the US; Donald Duck's superhero alter ego, Paperinik, known in English as Superduck, was created in Italy.


title: Comic book

text: Distribution has historically been a problem for the comic book industry with many mainstream retailers declining to carry extensive stocks of the most interesting and popular comics. The smartphone and the tablet have turned out to be an ideal medium for online distribution.


title: Comic book

text: On 13 November 2007, Marvel Comics launched Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, a subscription service allowing readers to read many comics from Marvel's history online. The service also includes periodic release new comics not available elsewhere. With the release of "Avenging Spider-Man" #1, Marvel also became the first publisher to provide free digital copies as part of the print copy of the comic book.


title: Comic book

text: With the growing popularity of smartphones and tablets, many major publishers have begun releasing titles in digital form. The most popular platform is comiXology. Some platforms, such as Graphicly, have shut down.


title: Comic book

text: Many libraries have extensive collections of comics in the form of graphic novels. This is a convenient way for many in the public to become familiar with the medium.


title: Comic book

text: In 2015, the Japanese manga artist Eiichiro Oda was awarded the "Guinness World Records" title for having the "Most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author". His manga series "One Piece", which he writes and illustrates, has been serialized in the Japanese magazine "Weekly Shōnen Jump" since December 1997, and by 2015, 77 collected volumes had been released. "Guinness World Records" reported in their announcement that the collected volumes of the series had sold a total of 320,866,000 units. "One Piece" also holds the "Guinness World Records" title for "Most copies published for the same manga series".


title: Comic book

text: On 5 August 2018, the "Guinness World Records" title for the "Largest comic book ever published" was awarded to the Brazilian comic book "Turma da Mônica — O Maior Gibi do Mundo!", published by Panini Comics Brasil and Mauricio de Sousa Produções. The comic book measures 69.9 cm by 99.8 cm (2 ft 3.51 in by 3 ft 3.29 in). The 18-page comic book had a print run of 120 copies.


title: Comic book

text: With the July 2021 publication of the 201st collected volume of his manga series "Golgo 13", Japanese manga artist Takao Saito was awarded the "Guinness World Records" title for "Most volumes published for a single manga series." "Golgo 13" has been continuously serialized in the Japanese magazine "Big Comic" since October 1968, which also makes it the oldest manga still in publication.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Dick Tracy is a 1990 American action crime comedy film based on the 1930s comic strip character of the same name created by Chester Gould. Warren Beatty produced, directed, and starred in the film, whose supporting cast includes Al Pacino, Madonna, Glenne Headly, and Charlie Korsmo. "Dick Tracy" depicts the detective's romantic relationships with Breathless Mahoney and Tess Trueheart as well as his conflicts with crime boss Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice and his henchmen. Tracy also begins fostering a young street urchin named Kid.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Development of the film began in the early 1980s with Tom Mankiewicz assigned to write the script. The screenplay was written instead by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr., both of "Top Gun" fame. The project also went through directors Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Walter Hill, and Richard Benjamin before the arrival of Beatty. It was filmed mainly at Universal Studios. Danny Elfman was hired to compose the score, and the film's music was featured on three separate soundtrack albums.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: "Dick Tracy" premiered at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 1990 and was released nationwide a day later. Reviews ranged from favorable to mixed, with positive comments on Madonna's acting and Beatty's direction. The film was a success at the box office and at awards time. It garnered seven Academy Award nominations, winning in three of the categories: Best Original Song, Best Makeup, and Best Art Direction. "Dick Tracy" is remembered today for its visual style.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: In 1938, at an illegal card game, a 10-year-old young street urchin witnesses the massacre of a group of mobsters at the hands of Flattop and Itchy, two of the hoods on the payroll of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice. Big Boy's crime syndicate is aggressively taking over small businesses in the city. Detective Dick Tracy catches the urchin (who calls himself "Kid") in an act of petty theft. After rescuing him from a ruthless host, Tracy temporarily adopts him with the help of his girlfriend, Tess Trueheart.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Meanwhile, Big Boy coerces club owner Lips Manlis into signing over the deed to Club Ritz. He then kills Lips with a cement overcoat (referred to onscreen as "The Bath") and steals his girlfriend, the seductive and sultry singer Breathless Mahoney. After Lips is reported missing, Tracy interrogates his three hired guns Flattop, Itchy, and Mumbles, then goes to the club to arrest Big Boy for Lips' murder. Breathless is the only witness. Instead of providing testimony, she unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Tracy. Big Boy cannot be indicted, and he is released from jail. Big Boy's next move is to try to bring other criminals, including Spud Spaldoni, Pruneface, Influence, Texie Garcia, Ribs Mocca, and Numbers, together under his leadership. Spaldoni refuses and is killed with a carbomb, leaving Dick Tracy, who discovered the meeting and was attempting to spy on it, wondering what is going on. The next day, Big Boy and his henchmen kidnap Tracy and attempt to bribe him; Tracy rebuffs them, prompting the criminals to attempt to kill him. However, Tracy is saved by Kid, who is then bestowed by the police with an honorary detective certificate, which will remain temporary until he decides on a legitimate name for himself.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Breathless shows up at Tracy's apartment, once again in an attempt to seduce him. Tracy allows her to kiss him. Tess witnesses this scene and eventually leaves town. Tracy leads a seemingly unsuccessful raid on Club Ritz, but it is actually a diversion so that Officer "Bug" Bailey can enter the building to operate a secretly installed listening device so the police can listen in on Big Boy's criminal activities. The resultant raids all but wipe out Big Boy's criminal empire. However, Big Boy discovers Bug, and captures him for a trap planned by Influence and Pruneface to kill Tracy in the warehouse. In the resulting gun battle, a stranger with no face called "The Blank" steps out of the shadows to save Tracy after he is cornered, and kills Pruneface. Influence escapes as Tracy rescues Bug from the fate that befell Lips Manlis, and Big Boy is enraged to hear that The Blank foiled the hit. Tracy again attempts to extract the testimony from Breathless that he needs to put Big Boy away. She agrees to testify only if Tracy agrees to give in to her advances. Tess eventually has a change of heart, but before she can tell Tracy, she is kidnapped by The Blank, with the help of Big Boy's club piano player, 88 Keys. Tracy is drugged and rendered unconscious by The Blank, then framed for murdering the corrupt District Attorney John Fletcher, whereupon he is detained by the police. The Kid, meanwhile, adopts the name "Dick Tracy, Jr."


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Big Boy's business thrives until The Blank frames him for Tess' kidnapping. Released by his colleagues on New Year's Eve, Tracy interrogates Mumbles, and arrives at a gun battle outside the Club Ritz where Big Boy's men are killed or captured by Tracy and the police. Abandoning his crew, Big Boy flees to a drawbridge and ties Tess to its gears before he is confronted by Tracy. Their fight is halted when The Blank appears and holds both men at gunpoint, offering to share the city with Tracy after Big Boy is dead. When Junior arrives, Big Boy takes advantage of the distraction and opens fire before Tracy sends him falling to his death in the bridge's gears, while Junior rescues Tess. Mortally wounded, The Blank is unmasked to reveal Breathless Mahoney, who kisses Tracy before dying. All charges against Tracy are dropped.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Later, Tracy proposes to Tess, but is interrupted by the report of a robbery in progress. He leaves her with the ring before he and Dick Tracy, Jr., depart to respond to the robbery.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Estelle Parsons portrays Tess Trueheart's mother. Tony Epper plays Steve the Tramp. Hamilton Camp appears as a store owner and Bing Russell plays a Club Ritz patron. Robert Costanzo cameos as Lips Manlis' bodyguard, and Marshall Bell briefly appears as a goon of Big Boy Caprice who poses as an arresting officer to ensnare Lips. Allen Garfield, John Schuck, and Charles Fleischer make cameos as reporters. Walker Edmiston, John Moschitta Jr., and Neil Ross provide the voices of each radio announcer. Colm Meaney appears as a police officer at Tess Trueheart's home. Mike Mazurki (who played Splitface in the original "Dick Tracy" film) appears in a small cameo, as Old Man at Hotel. 93-year-old veteran character actor Ian Wolfe plays his last film role as "Munger".


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Beatty had a concept for a "Dick Tracy" film in 1975. At the time, the film rights were owned by Michael Laughlin, who gave up his option from Tribune Media Services after he was unsuccessful in pitching "Dick Tracy" to Hollywood studios. Floyd Mutrux and Art Linson purchased the film rights from the Tribune in 1977, and, in 1980, United Artists became interested in financing/distributing "Dick Tracy". Tom Mankiewicz was under negotiations to write the script, based on his previous success with "Superman" (1978) and "Superman II" (1980). The deal fell through when Chester Gould, creator of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip, insisted on strict financial and artistic control.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: That same year, Mutrux and Linson eventually took the property to Paramount Pictures, who began developing screenplays, offered Steven Spielberg the director's position, and brought in Universal Pictures to co-finance. Universal put John Landis forward as a candidate for director, courted Clint Eastwood for the title role, and commissioned Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. to write the screenplay. "Before we were brought on, there were several failed scripts at Universal," reflected Epps, "then it went dormant, but John Landis was interested in "Dick Tracy", and he brought us in to write it." Cash and Epps' simple orders from Landis were to write the script in a 1930s pulp magazine atmosphere and center it with Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice as the primary villain. For research, Epps read every "Dick Tracy" comic strip from 1930 to 1957. The writers wrote two drafts for Landis; Max Allan Collins, then-writer of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip, remembers reading one of them. "It was terrible. The only positive thing about it was a thirties setting and lots of great villains, but the story was paper-thin and it was uncomfortably campy."


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: In addition to Beatty and Eastwood, other actors who were considered for the lead role included Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Tom Selleck, and Mel Gibson. Landis left "Dick Tracy" following the controversial on-set accident on "" (1983), in which three actors were killed. Walter Hill then came on board to direct with Joel Silver as producer. Cash and Epps wrote another draft, and Hill approached Warren Beatty for the title role. Pre-production had progressed as far as set building, but the film was stalled when artistic control issues arose with Beatty, a fan of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip. Hill wanted to make the film violent and realistic, while Beatty envisioned a stylized homage to the 1930s comic strip. The actor also reportedly wanted $5 million plus fifteen percent of the box office gross, a deal which Universal refused to accept.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Hill and Beatty left the film, which Paramount began developing as a lower-budget project with Richard Benjamin directing. Cash and Epps continued to rewrite the script, but Universal was unsatisfied. The film rights eventually reverted to Tribune Media Services in 1985. However, Beatty decided to option the "Dick Tracy" rights himself for $3 million, along with the Cash/Epps script. When Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner moved from Paramount to the Walt Disney Studios, "Dick Tracy" resurfaced with Beatty as director, producer and leading man. Katzenberg considered hiring Martin Scorsese to direct the film, but changed his mind. "It never occurred to me to direct the movie," Beatty admitted, "but finally, like most of the movies that I direct, when the time comes to do it, I just do it because it's easier than going through what I'd have to go through to get somebody else to do it."


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Beatty's reputation for directorial profligacy, notably with the critically acclaimed "Reds" (1981), did not sit well with Disney. As a result, Beatty and Disney reached a contracted agreement whereby any budget overruns on "Dick Tracy" would be deducted from Beatty's fee as producer, director, and star. Beatty and regular collaborator Bo Goldman significantly rewrote the dialogue but lost a Writers Guild arbitration and did not receive screen credit.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Disney greenlit "Dick Tracy" in 1988 under the condition that Beatty keep the production budget within $25 million. Beatty's fee was $7 million against 15% of the gross (once the distributor's gross reached $50 million). Costs began to rise once filming started and quickly jumped to $30 million and its total negative cost ended up being $46.5 million: $35.6 million of direct expenditure, $5.3 million in studio overhead and $5.6 million in interest. Disney spent an additional $48.1 million on advertising and publicity and $5.8 million on prints, resulting in a total of $101 million spent overall. The financing for "Dick Tracy" came from Disney and Silver Screen Partners IV, as well as Beatty's own production company, Mulholland Productions. Disney was originally going to release the film under the traditional Walt Disney Pictures banner, but chose instead to release and market the film under the adult-oriented Touchstone Pictures label leading up to the film's theatrical debut, because the studio felt it had too many mature themes for a Disney-branded film.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Although Al Pacino was Beatty's first choice for the role of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice, Robert De Niro was under consideration. Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathleen Turner and Kim Basinger were too expensive to cast as Breathless Mahoney. Sharon Stone auditioned for the role but she was turned down. Madonna pursued the part of Breathless Mahoney, offering to work for scale. Her resulting paycheck for the film was just $35,000. Sean Young claims she was forced out of the role of Tess Truehart (which eventually went to Glenne Headly) after rebuffing sexual advances from Beatty. In a 1989 statement, Beatty said, "I made a mistake casting Sean Young in the part and I felt very badly about it." Mike Mazurki, who had appeared in "Dick Tracy" (1945) had a cameo. Beatty approached Gene Hackman to do a cameo in the film, but he declined.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Principal photography for "Dick Tracy" began on February 2, 1989. The filmmakers considered shooting the film on-location in Chicago, but production designer Richard Sylbert believed "Dick Tracy" would work better using sound stages and backlots at Universal Studios in Universal City, California. Other filming took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank. In total, 53 interior and 25 exterior sets were constructed. Beatty, being a perfectionist, often filmed dozens of takes of every scene.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: As filming continued, Disney and Max Allan Collins conflicted over the novelization. The studio rejected his manuscript: "I wound up doing an eleventh hour rewrite that was more faithful to the screenplay, even while I made it much more consistent with the strip," Collins continued, "and fixed as many plot holes as I could." Disney did not like this version either, but accepted based on Beatty's insistence to incorporate some of Collins' writing into the shooting script, which solved the plot hole concerns. Through post-production dubbing, some of Collins' dialogue was also incorporated into the film. Principal photography for "Dick Tracy" ended in May 1989.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Early in the development of "Dick Tracy", Beatty decided to make the film using a palette limited to just seven colors, primarily red, green, blue and yellow—to evoke the film's comic strip origins; furthermore each of the colors was to be exactly the same shade. Beatty's design team included production designer Richard Sylbert, set decorator Rick Simpson, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (whom Beatty had worked with on his previous film, "Ishtar," as producer and lead actor), visual effects supervisors Michael Lloyd and Harrison Ellenshaw, prosthetic makeup designers John Caglione, Jr. and Doug Drexler, and costume designer Milena Canonero. Their main intention was to stay close to Chester Gould's original drawings from the 1930s. Other influences came from the Art Deco movement and German Expressionism.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: For Storaro, the limited color palette was the most challenging aspect of production. "These are not the kind of colors the audience is used to seeing," he noted. "These are much more dramatic in strength, in saturation. Comic strip art is usually done with very simple and primitive ideas and emotions," Storaro theorized. "One of the elements is that the story is usually told in vignette, so what we tried to do is never move the camera at all. "Never". Try to make everything work into the frame." For the matte paintings, Ellenshaw and Lloyd executed over 57 paintings on glass, which were then optically combined with the live action. For a brief sequence in which The Kid dashes in front of a speeding locomotive, only 150 feet (46 m) of real track was laid; the train itself was a scale model, and the surrounding trainyard a matte painting. The film was one of the last major American studio blockbusters to have no computer-generated imagery.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Caglione and Drexler were recommended for the prosthetic makeup designs by Canonero, with whom they had worked on "The Cotton Club" (1984). The rogues gallery makeup designs were taken directly from Gould's drawings, with the exception of Al Pacino (Big Boy Caprice), who improvised his own design, ignoring the rather overweight character of the strip. His makeup took 3.5 hours to apply.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Beatty hired Danny Elfman to compose the film score based on his previous success with "Batman" (1989). Elfman enlisted the help of Oingo Boingo bandmate Steve Bartek and Shirley Walker to arrange compositions for the orchestra. "In a completely different way," Elfman commented, ""Dick Tracy" has this unique quality that "Batman" had for me. It gives an incredible sense of non-reality." In addition, Beatty hired acclaimed songwriter Stephen Sondheim to write five original songs: "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)," "More," "Live Alone and Like It," "Back in Business," and "What Can You Lose?". "Sooner or Later" and "More" were performed by Madonna, with "What Can You Lose?" being a duet with Mandy Patinkin. Mel Tormé sang "Live Alone and Like It," and "Back in Business" was performed by Janis Siegel, Cheryl Bentyne, and Lorraine Feather. "Back in Business" and "Live Alone and Like It" were both used as background music during montage sequences. "Sooner or Later" and "Back in Business" were featured in the original 1992 production of the Sondheim revue "Putting It Together" in Oxford, England, and four of the five Sondheim songs from Dick Tracy (the exception being "What Can You Lose?") were used in the 1999 Broadway production of "Putting It Together". A short opera sequence in the film was composed by Thomas Pasatieri


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: "Dick Tracy" is also the first film to use digital audio. In a December 1990 interview with "The New York Times", Elfman criticized the growing tendency to use digital technology for sound design and dubbing purposes. "I detest contemporary scoring and dubbing in cinema. Film music as an art took a deep plunge when Dolby stereo hit. Stereo has the capacity to make orchestral music sound big and beautiful and more expansive, but it also can make sound effects sound four times as big. That began the era of sound effects over music."


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Disney modeled its marketing campaign after the 1989 success of "Batman", which was based on high concept promotion. This included a McDonald's promotional tie-in and a Warren Beatty interview conducted by Barbara Walters on "20/20". "I find the media's obsession with promotion and demographics upsetting," Beatty said. "I find all this anti-cultural." In attempting to increase awareness for "Dick Tracy", Disney added a new "Roger Rabbit" cartoon short ("Roller Coaster Rabbit") and made two specific television advertisements centered on The Kid (Charlie Korsmo). In total, Disney commissioned 28 TV advertisements. Playmates Toys manufactured a line of 14 "Dick Tracy" figures.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: It was Madonna's idea to include the film as part of her Blond Ambition World Tour. Prior to the June 1990 theatrical release, Disney had already featured "Dick Tracy" in musical theatre stage shows in both Disneyland and the Walt Disney World Resort, using Stephen Sondheim and Danny Elfman's music. "The New York Times" also wrote in June 1990 of Disney Stores "selling nothing but "Tracy"-related merchandise". Max Allan Collins lobbied to write the film's novelization long before Disney had even greenlighted "Dick Tracy" in 1988. "I hated the idea that anyone else would write a "Tracy" novel," Collins explained. After much conflict with Disney, leading to seven different printings of the novelization, the book was released in May 1990, published by Bantam Books. It sold almost one million copies prior to the film's release. A graphic novel adaptation of the film was also released, written and illustrated by Kyle Baker. Reruns of "The Dick Tracy Show" began airing to coincide with the release of the film, but stations in Los Angeles and New York pulled and edited the episodes when Asian and Hispanic groups protested that the characters Joe Jitsu and Go Go Gomez were offensive stereotypes. A theme park ride for Disneyland, Disney-MGM Studios and Euro Disney Resort called "Dick Tracy's Crime Stoppers" was planned but ultimately never built. Another tie-in for the movie was an ingenious plan where 1,500 movie theatres were shipped T-shirts with the film's title art on them, which fans could then buy for $12 to $20 and wear into the movie in lieu of buying tickets at the box office.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: "Dick Tracy" had a benefit premiere at a small 300-seat theater in Woodstock, Illinois (the hometown of Tracy creator Chester Gould), on June 13, 1990 while the production premiere occurred the next day at the Walt Disney World Village's Pleasure Island in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The film was released in the United States in 2,332 theaters on June 15, 1990, earning $22.54 million in its opening weekend, including an estimated $1.5 million of t-shirt sales. This was the third-highest opening weekend of 1990 and Disney's biggest ever. "Dick Tracy" eventually grossed $103.74 million in the United States and Canada and $59 million elsewhere, coming to a worldwide total of $162.74 million. "Dick Tracy" was also the ninth-highest-grossing film of America in 1990, and number twelve in worldwide totals.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Although Disney was impressed by the opening weekend gross, studio management was expecting the film's total earnings to match "Batman" (1989). Prior to its overseas release (and other revenue streams), the film was estimated to have generated a $57 million deficit for Disney. Studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg expressed disappointment


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: in a studio memo that noted that "Dick Tracy" had cost about $100 million in total to produce, market and promote. "We made demands on our time, talent and treasury that, upon reflection, may not have been worth it," Katzenberg reported.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 63% based on 56 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10. The site's critics consensus reads: ""Dick Tracy" is stylish, unique, and an undeniable technical triumph, but it ultimately struggles to rise above its two-dimensional artificiality." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film four stars in his review, arguing that Warren Beatty succeeded in creating the perfect tone of nostalgia for the film. Ebert mostly praised the matte paintings, art direction and prosthetic makeup design. ""Dick Tracy" is one of the most original and visionary fantasies I've seen on a screen," he wrote.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote, ""Dick Tracy" has just about everything required of an extravaganza: a smashing cast, some great Stephen Sondheim songs, all of the technical wizardry that money can buy, and a screenplay that observes the fine line separating true comedy from lesser camp." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave a mixed review, but was impressed by Madonna's performance. ""Dick Tracy" is an honest effort but finally a bit of a folly. It could have used a little less color and a little more flesh and blood," Gleiberman concluded.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: In his heavily negative review for "The Washington Post", Desson Thomson criticized Disney's hyped marketing campaign and the film in general. ""Dick Tracy" is Hollywood's annual celebration of everything that's wrong with Hollywood," he stated. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote that Warren Beatty, at 52 years old, was too old for the part. He also found similarities with "Batman" (1989), in which both films involve "a loner hero, a grotesque villain, a blond bombshell, a marketable pop soundtrack and a no-mercy merchandising campaign," Travers continued. "But "Batman" possesses something else: a psychological depth that gives the audience a stake in the characters. "Tracy" sticks to its eye-poppingly brilliant surface. Though the film is a visual knockout, it's emotionally impoverished."


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Although Max Allan Collins (then a "Dick Tracy" comic-strip writer) had conflicts with Disney concerning the novelization, he gave the finished film a positive review. He praised Beatty for hiring an elaborate design team and his decision to mimic the strip's limited color palette. Collins also enjoyed Beatty's performance, both the prosthetic makeup and characterization of the rogues gallery, as well as the Stephen Sondheim music. However, he believed the filmmakers still sacrificed the storyline in favor of the visual design.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards (winning three), the film is currently tied with "Black Panther" for having the most wins for a comic book or comic strip movie.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Retrospective reviews called the film exceptionally unique. Writers for "Vox" and "The Atlantic" asserted that it was one of the most unique movies ever. Multiple authors contrast it with newer comic book movies. One article calls it a "road[] not taken" in comic book adaptations. The author praised Popeye, Dick Tracy, and Hulk for their use of comic techniques such as "masking, paneling, and page layout" in ways the DC Extended Universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe do not.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: "The Encyclopedia of Sexism in American Films" (2019) found the women of the film are subservient to a male power structure.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: The film was released on VHS on December 18, 1990, and was first released on DVD in Europe in 2000, but domestic release in the US was delayed until April 2, 2002, and without any special features. Rumors circulated over the web shortly after the US DVD release that Warren Beatty had planned to release a director's cut under Disney's "Vista Series" label; including at least ten extra minutes of footage.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: The Blu-ray was released in the US and Canada on December 11, 2012. This release also lacked special features, save for a digital copy.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Disney had hoped "Dick Tracy" would launch a successful franchise, like the "Indiana Jones" series, but Disney halted plans. In addition, executive producers Art Linson and Floyd Mutrux sued Beatty shortly after the release of the film, alleging that they were owed profit participation from the film.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Beatty purchased the "Dick Tracy" film and television rights in 1985 from Tribune Media Services. He then took the property to Walt Disney Studios, who optioned the rights in 1988. According to Beatty, in 2002, Tribune attempted to reclaim the rights and notified Disney—but not through the process outlined in the 1985 agreement. Beatty, who commented he had "a very good idea" for a sequel, believed Tribune violated various notification procedures that "clouded the title" to the rights and made it "commercially impossible" for him to produce a sequel. He approached Tribune in 2004 to settle the situation, but the company said they had met the conditions to get back the rights.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Disney, which had no intention of producing a sequel, rejected Tribune's claim, and gave Beatty back most of the rights in May 2005. That same month, Beatty filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles, California Superior Court seeking $30 million in damages against Tribune and a declaration over the rights. Bertram Fields, Beatty's lawyer, said the original 1985 agreement with Tribune was negotiated specifically to allow Beatty a chance to make another "Dick Tracy" film. "It was very carefully done, and they just ignored it," he stated. "Tribune is a big, powerful company, and they think they can just run roughshod over people. They picked the wrong guy."


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: Tribune believed the situation would be settled quickly, and was confident enough to begin developing a "Dick Tracy" live-action television series with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Robert Newmyer, and Outlaw Productions. The TV show was to have a contemporary setting, comparable to "Smallville", and Di Bonaventura commented that if the TV show was successful, a feature film would likely follow. However, an August 2005 ruling by federal judge Dean D. Pregerson cleared the way for Beatty to sue Tribune. The April 2006 hearing ended without a ruling, but in July 2006, a Los Angeles judge ruled that the case could go to trial; Tribune's request to end the suit in their favor was rejected. The legal battle between Beatty and Tribune continued.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: In 2008, Beatty enlisted cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and film critic Leonard Maltin to make "Dick Tracy Special" for Turner Classic Movies, which featured Beatty as Tracy in a retrospective interview with Maltin. Maltin explicitly asked the fictional Tracy if Warren Beatty planned to make a sequel to the 1990 film, and he responded that he'd heard about that, but Maltin needed to ask Beatty himself. By March 2009, Tribune was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and lawyers for the company began to declare their ownership of television and film rights to "Dick Tracy". "Mr. Beatty's conduct and wrongful claims have effectively locked away certain motion picture and television rights to the "Dick Tracy" property," lawyers for Tribune wrote in a filing. Fields responded that it was "a nuisance lawsuit by a bankrupt company, and they should be ashamed of themselves".


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: On March 25, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Dean D. Pregerson granted Beatty's request for a summary judgment, and ruled in the actor's favor. Judge Pregerson wrote in his order that "Beatty's commencement of principal photography of his television special on November 8, 2008 was sufficient for him to retain the Dick Tracy rights." Beatty's lawyer said the court found that Beatty had done everything contractually required of him to keep the rights to the character.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: In June 2011, Beatty confirmed his intention to make a sequel to "Dick Tracy", but he refused to discuss details. He said: "I'm gonna make another one [but] I think it's dumb talking about movies before you make them. I just don't do it. It gives you the perfect excuse to avoid making them." When asked when the sequel would get made, he replied: "I take so long to get around to making a movie that I don’t know when it starts."


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: While there have not been any sequels in either television or motion-picture form, there have been sequels in novel form. Shortly after the release of the 1990 film, Max Allan Collins wrote "Dick Tracy Goes to War". The story is set after the commencement of World War II, and involves Dick Tracy's enlistment in the U.S. Navy, working for their Military Intelligence Division (as he did in the comic strip). In the story, Nazi saboteurs Black Pearl and Mrs. Pruneface (Pruneface's widow) set up a sabotage/espionage operation out of Caprice's old headquarters in Club Ritz. For their activities, they recruit B.B. Eyes, The Mole, and Shaky. Their reign of terror, culminating in an attempt to bomb a weapons plant, is averted by Tracy. A year after "War" was released, Collins wrote a third novel titled "Dick Tracy Meets His Match", in which Tracy finally follows through on his marriage proposal to Tess Trueheart.


title: Dick Tracy (1990 film)

text: In April 2016, Beatty again mentioned the possibility of producing a sequel when he attended CinemaCon.


title: Perpetual motion

text: Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work infinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, as it would violate either the first or second law of thermodynamics or both.


title: Perpetual motion

text: These laws of thermodynamics apply regardless of the size of the system. For example, the motions and rotations of celestial bodies such as planets may appear perpetual, but are actually subject to many processes that slowly dissipate their kinetic energy, such as solar wind, interstellar medium resistance, gravitational radiation and thermal radiation, so they will not keep moving forever.


title: Perpetual motion

text: Thus, machines that extract energy from finite sources will not operate indefinitely, because they are driven by the energy stored in the source, which will eventually be exhausted. A common example is devices powered by ocean currents, whose energy is ultimately derived from the Sun, which itself will eventually burn out. Machines powered by more obscure sources have been proposed, but are subject to the same inescapable laws, and will eventually wind down.


title: Perpetual motion

text: In 2016, new states of matter, time crystals, were discovered in which on a microscopic scale the component atoms are in continual repetitive motion, thus satisfying the literal definition of "perpetual motion". However, these do not constitute perpetual motion machines in the traditional sense or violate thermodynamic laws because they are in their quantum ground state, so no energy can be extracted from them; they exhibit motion without energy.


title: Perpetual motion

text: The history of perpetual motion machines dates back to the Middle Ages. For millennia, it was not clear whether perpetual motion devices were possible or not, but the development of modern theories of thermodynamics has shown that they are impossible. Despite this, many attempts have been made to construct such machines, continuing into modern times. Modern designers and proponents often use other terms, such as "over unity", to describe their inventions.


title: Perpetual motion

text: There is a scientific consensus that perpetual motion in an isolated system violates either the first law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, or both. The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy. The second law can be phrased in several different ways, the most intuitive of which is that heat flows spontaneously from hotter to colder places; relevant here is that the law observes that in every macroscopic process, there is friction or something close to it; another statement is that no heat engine (an engine which produces work while moving heat from a high temperature to a low temperature) can be more efficient than a Carnot heat engine operating between the same two temperatures.


title: Perpetual motion

text: Statements 2 and 3 apply to heat engines. Other types of engines that convert e.g. mechanical into electromagnetic energy, cannot operate with 100% efficiency, because it is impossible to design any system that is free of energy dissipation.


title: Perpetual motion

text: Machines that comply with both laws of thermodynamics by accessing energy from unconventional sources are sometimes referred to as perpetual motion machines, although they do not meet the standard criteria for the name. By way of example, clocks and other low-power machines, such as Cox's timepiece, have been designed to run on the differences in barometric pressure or temperature between night and day. These machines have a source of energy, albeit one which is not readily apparent, so that they only seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics.


title: Perpetual motion

text: Even machines that extract energy from long-lived sources - such as ocean currents - will run down when their energy sources inevitably do. They are not perpetual motion machines because they are consuming energy from an external source and are not isolated systems.


title: Perpetual motion

text: One classification of perpetual motion machines refers to the particular law of thermodynamics the machines purport to violate:


title: Perpetual motion

text: "Epistemic impossibility" describes things which absolutely cannot occur within our "current" formulation of the physical laws. This interpretation of the word "impossible" is what is intended in discussions of the impossibility of perpetual motion in a closed system.


title: Perpetual motion

text: The conservation laws are particularly robust from a mathematical perspective. Noether's theorem, which was proven mathematically in 1915, states that any conservation law can be derived from a corresponding continuous symmetry of the action of a physical system. The symmetry which is equivalent to conservation of energy is the time invariance of physical laws. Therefore, if the laws of physics do not change with time, then the conservation of energy follows. For energy conservation to be violated to allow perpetual motion would require that the foundations of physics would change.


title: Perpetual motion

text: Scientific investigations as to whether the laws of physics are invariant over time use telescopes to examine the universe in the distant past to discover, to the limits of our measurements, whether ancient stars were identical to stars today. Combining different measurements such as spectroscopy, direct measurement of the speed of light in the past and similar measurements demonstrates that physics has remained substantially the same, if not identical, for all of observable time spanning billions of years.