History
There have been science fiction comics in the United States since comic books began in 1938 when newspaper comic strips of Superman were published in collected form. Since then there have been comics based on science fiction of many styles including superheroes with a science fiction angle, comics featuring the space travels of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Dan Dare and others.
In the 1950s, EC Comics had great success and popularity publishing science fiction comics of increasing sophistication, but were almost driven out of business by the wave of anti-comics feeling stirred-up among parents and educators by Dr. Fredric Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent. In spite of opposition, science fiction in comics in the U.S. continued through the 1960s with stories for children and adolescents. It began to return to the adult market again in the late 60s with the wave of hippy underground comics.
Japanese manga also featured science fiction elements very early. In the 1950s, Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy was one of the first major science fiction manga. In the next decades many other creators and works would follow, including Leiji Matsumoto (e.g. Galaxy Express 999), Katsuhiro Otomo (e.g. Akira) and Masamune Shirow (e.g. Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell).
In the UK, the publication of Eagle gave a platform for the launch of Dan Dare in 1950. Starting in the mid-sixties The Trigan Empire was featured in Look and Learn drawn by Don Lawrence, who would go on to create Storm. In the 1970s, publications such as 2000 AD featured a selection of regular stories either putting a science fiction spin on popular themes like sports and war and also introduced characters like Judge Dredd. Its success spawned a number of spin-offs an imitators like Tornado, Starlord and Crisis none of which lasted more than a few years, with the earlier titles being merged back into 2000 AD. Other examples include the Polish comic Funky Koval.
The first French comics story with a science-fiction theme was Zig et Puce au XXIème Siècle (Zig & Puce In The 21st Century), first serialized in a French Sunday newspaper and then published as an album in 1935; this was one of the many adventures of the teenage characters Zig and Puce first created in 1925. The first serious (featuring non-juvenile characters) French science fiction comics story was Futuropolis serialized in the comics magazine Junior in 1937-1938; the pseudo-sequel Electropolis followed in 1940. When the Nazi occupation forces banned the import of Flash Gordon into France, Le Rayon U (The U Ray) was created as replacement in the magazine Bravo which had been running Flash Gordon. Other French science fiction comics which debuted in 1943 include Otomox, featuring a powerful robot, serialized in Pic et Nic and L'Épervier Bleu (The Blue Hawk), serialized in Spirou. The first French comics magazine exclusively featuring a science fiction hero was the relatively short-lived Radar of 1947. A far more longer lasting French comics magazine would be the small-format Meteor, published from 1953 onwards till 1964; its main feature was Les Connquerants de l'espace (The Conquerors of Space). Subsequent notable French science fiction names the heroine Barbararella, publications like Métal Hurlant and authors like Enki Bilal (e.g. The Nikopol Trilogy) and Moebius.
With the advent of the Internet, a number of notable science fiction comics have been published primarily online. Among the earliest science fiction webcomic was Polymer City Chronicles, which first appeared in 1994. Other notable comics include Schlock Mercenary, and Starslip Crisis.
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