A comic book or comicbook, also called comic paper or comic magazine (often shortened to simply comic or comics) is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog (usually in word balloons, emblematic of the comic book art form) as well as including brief descriptive prose. The first comic book appeared in the United States in 1933, reprinting the earlier newspaper comic strips, which established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term "comic book" arose because the first comic books reprinted humor comic strips. Despite their name, comic books are not necessarily humorous in tone; modern comic books tell stories in a variety of genres.

Since the introduction of the comic book format in 1933 with the publication of Famous Funnies, the United States has produced the most titles, with only the British comic and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles, though manga has many more followers and dwarfs American comics in readership.^{[citation needed]}

Gwendolyn "Gwen" Stacy appears as a supporting character in Marvel Comics' Spider-Man series. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, she first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #31 (December 1965).

A blonde college student, Gwen was originally the first love of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) before the introduction of Mary Jane Watson. The Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) killed Gwen in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 (June 1973). Both the decision to kill Gwen and the method in which Marvel implemented it remain controversial among fans, but the death became a pivotal point in both Spider-Man’s history and in American comic books in general. Many point to Gwen's death as the end of the so-called Silver Age of comics. Spider-Man writers and fans disagree about who is the character’s "one true love;" Gwen or his subsequent love-interest Mary Jane. The character was ranked 89th in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.

In the 2007 feature film Spider-Man 3, Gwen is portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard. In the upcoming reboot The Amazing Spider-Man she will be played by Emma Stone.

Jim Lee (Korean 이용철; born August 11, 1964) is a Korean-American comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher. He first broke into the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, before gaining a great deal of popularity on The Uncanny X-Men. X-Men #1, the 1991 spinoff series premiere that Lee penciled and co-wrote with Chris Claremont, remains the best-selling comic book of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

In 1992 Lee and several other artists formed their own publishing company, Image Comics, to publish their creator-owned titles, with Lee publishing his titles through his studio, Wildstorm Productions, such as WildC.A.T.s and Gen¹³. Eschewing the role of publisher in order to return to illustration, Lee sold Wildstorm in 1998 to DC Comics, where he continued to run Wildstorm as a DC imprint until DC ended Wildstorm in 2010, as well as illustrating successful books set in DC's main fictional universe, such as the year-long "Batman: Hush" and "Superman: For Tomorrow" storylines. On February 18, 2010, Jim Lee was announced as the new Co-Publisher of DC Comics with Dan DiDio, both replacing Paul Levitz.

Todd McFarlane (born March 16, 1961) is a Canadian cartoonist, writer, toy designer and entrepreneur, best known for his work in comic books, such as the fantasy series Spawn.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic book superstar due to his work on Marvel Comics' Spider-Man franchise. In 1992, he helped form Image Comics, pulling the occult anti-hero character Spawn from his high school portfolio and updating him for the 1990s. Spawn was a popular hero in the 1990s and encouraged a trend in creator-owned comic book properties.

Since leaving inking duties on Spawn with issue #70 (February 1998), McFarlane has illustrated comic books less often, focusing on entrepreneurial efforts, such as McFarlane Toys and Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio. In September, 2006, it was announced that McFarlane will be the Art Director of the newly formed 38 Studios, formerly Green Monster Games, founded by major league baseball pitcher Curt Schilling. McFarlane used to be a co-owner of the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers but sold his shares to Daryl Katz. He is also a high-profile collector of history-making baseballs.

Robert "Rob" Liefeld (born October 3, 1967) is an American comic book creator. A prominent artist in the 1990s, he has since become a controversial figure in the medium.

In the early 1990s, the self-taught artist became prominent due to his work on Marvel Comics' The New Mutants and later X-Force. In 1992, he and several other popular Marvel illustrators left the company to found Image Comics, which started a wave of comic books owned by their creators rather than by publishers. The first book published by Image Comics was Rob Liefeld's Youngblood #1.

Rob Liefeld was born October 3, 1967. He grew up in Anaheim, California, and has a sister, seven years his senior. As a teenager, he attended comic book conventions at the nearby Disneyland Hotel, where he met creators such as George Pérez, John Romita Jr., Jim Shooter, Bob Layton, Mike Zeck and Marv Wolfman.

In 1986, Liefeld illustrated a pin-up page included in Boris the Bear #6.

In 1988, at the age of 20, he completed his first significant published work for DC Comics' in Warlord #131 and Secret Origins #28. This was quickly followed by the Hawk and Dove limited series by Barbara and Karl Kesel, who also provided inks. Liefeld's layouts were oriented sideways in story pages taking place in a chaos dimension, so that a reader would have to turn the comic book at a right angle to read them. Because this was done without editorial input, editor Mike Carlin cut and pasted the panels into the proper order, and Kesel lightboxed them onto DC comics paper to ink them. The letters column of Hawk and Dove #5 mentions that Liefeld "showed something new to an editor who thought he’d seen everything." In his defense, Liefeld offered that that was how the dimension had been drawn the only other time it had been featured in the book, although Karl Kesel claims this is untrue.