Cartoon Characters » Super Heroes

Popeye the Sailor Man

Aldric Chang — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:23:49 +0000

Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional hero famous for appearing in comic strips and animated films as well as numerous TV shows. He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar,[1] and first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929.

Although Segar’s Thimble Theatre strip, first published on December 19, 1919, was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, the sailor quickly became the main focus of the strip and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features’ most popular strips during the 1930s. Thimble Theatre was carried on after Segar’s death in 1938 by several writers and artists, including Segar’s assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip, now titled Popeye, continues to appear in first-run installments in Sunday papers, written and drawn by Hy Eisman. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories.

In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer’s Fleischer Studios adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and the Fleischers—and later Paramount’s own Famous Studios—continued production through 1957.

Since then, Popeye has appeared in comic books, television cartoons, arcade and video games, hundreds of advertisements and peripheral products, and including a 1980 live-action film (Popeye, directed by Robert Altman) where he was played by Robin Williams.

Transformers

Aldric Chang — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:31:12 +0000

Transformers are fictional alien robots and the titular characters of a popular[1] Hasbro toy line and its spin-offs. Coming from the planet Cybertron, the Transformers are divided into two factions, the heroic Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the evil Decepticons, led by Megatron. They are able to “transform”, rearranging their bodies into common or innocuous forms, including vehicles (the most commonly known form), devices or animals. Beyond that, they can displace mass (i.e. shrink and expand), combine with one another, and apply synthetic flesh (see: Transformers technology). This ability to transform is reflected in the programs’ taglines “More Than Meets the Eye” and “Robots in Disguise”. All Transformers stories and characters, in a range of media, have been based around this core concept since their debut in 1984.

The largest Transformers story-arc, retroactively known as Transformers: Generation 1, includes both the TV series and Marvel comic, which further divided into Japanese and UK spin-offs respectively. Sequels followed, such as the Generation 2 comic book and Beast Wars TV series which became its own mini-universe. Generation 1 characters underwent two reboots with Dreamwave in 2002 and IDW Publishing in 2006. There have been other incarnations of the story based on different toy lines during the 2000s. The first was the Robots in Disguise series, followed by three shows that consist of the “Unicron Trilogy” (consisting of Armada, Energon, and Cybertron). A live-action film was also released in 2007, again distinct from previous incarnations, while the Transformers Animated series merged concepts from the G1 story-arc and the 2007 live-action film.

Underdog

Aldric Chang — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:06:28 +0000

Underdog was an American animated television series that debuted on October 3, 1964, on the NBC network and continued in syndication until 1973 for a run of approximately 124 episodes over NBC and CBS. Kabillion has began airing episodes of the show on both their online and VOD platforms.

Wonder Woman

Aldric Chang — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:37:56 +0000

Wonder Woman is a fictional character, a DC Comics superhero created by William Moulton Marston. First appearing in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), she is one of three characters to have been continuously published by DC Comics since the company’s 1944 inception (except for a brief hiatus in 1984).

Wonder Woman is a member of a fictional, all-female tribe of Amazons (based on the Amazons of Greek mythology) who is sent to “man’s world” as an ambassador. Among the Amazons she is known as Princess Diana (being the daughter of Amazon queen Hippolyta); in “man’s world” she takes the secret identity of “Diana Prince.” Her powers include super-strength, hand-to-hand combat ability, and sometimes (during the 1980s and 1990s) flight. She also makes use of her Lasso of Truth (which forces those bound by it to tell the truth), a pair of bullet-deflecting bracelets, and an invisible plane.

Created during World War II, the character was initially depicted fighting the Axis military forces, as well as an assortment of supervillains and villainesses. In later decades, some writers and their editors preferred to retain the World War II setting, while others updated the series to reflect an ongoing “present day.” Wonder Woman has also regularly appeared in the team books Justice Society (from 1941) and Justice League (from 1960). Arguably the most popular and iconic female superhero in comics, she is informally grouped with Superman and Batman as one of a “Trinity” of DC characters who are regarded as especially important, both within their fictional universe and without.

In addition to comics, the character has appeared in other media — most notably the 1975-1979 live action Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter, but also in cartoons such the Super Friends and Justice League animated series. Although a number of attempts have been made to adapt the character to film, none have yet emerged from “development hell”.