Franchises
The publishers, studios and worlds these characters come from. If you already know who you want, the A–Z is faster.
DC Comics
Since 1934
DC is the older of the two American superhero publishers and the one that invented the form.
Marvel Comics
Since 1939
Marvel's competitive advantage from 1961 onward was a single editorial decision.
Star Wars
Since 1977
Star Wars changed the economics of the film industry as much as its aesthetics.
Nintendo
Since 1889
Nintendo was founded in Kyoto in 1889 making hanafuda playing cards.
Pokémon
Since 1996
Pokémon began with Satoshi Tajiri's childhood insect collecting in suburban Tokyo, and the original design intent shows.
Sega
Since 1960
Sega spent the early 1990s as the only company to seriously threaten Nintendo's dominance of home consoles.
Xbox
Since 2001
Microsoft entered the console market in 2001 partly out of a defensive concern that game consoles could…
PlayStation
Since 1994
PlayStation exists because of a failed partnership.
Tomb Raider
Since 1996
Tomb Raider arrived in 1996 as one of the first games to make three-dimensional space itself the puzzle.
Disney Animation
Since 1923
Walt Disney Animation Studios effectively invented the feature-length animated film with Snow White in 1937.
Looney Tunes
Since 1930
The Warner Bros.
Peanuts
Since 1950
Charles M. Schulz drew Peanuts for very nearly fifty years.
Harry Potter
Since 1997
The Harry Potter novels were published between 1997 and 2007 and are among the best-selling books ever written.
The Lord of the Rings
Since 1954
J. R. R. Tolkien was a philologist by profession.
Star Trek
Since 1966
Star Trek was pitched by Gene Roddenberry as a Western in space and became something considerably stranger.
Doctor Who
Since 1963
Doctor Who began in 1963 as an educational children's programme intended to teach history and science.
Ghostbusters
Since 1984
Ghostbusters was written by Dan Aykroyd out of a genuine family interest in spiritualism.
Back to the Future
Since 1985
Back to the Future was rejected by every major studio more than forty times.
Horror Icons
Since 1974
The American slasher film emerged in the late 1970s and produced a set of masked antagonists who have…
Anime
Since 1963
Japanese animation reached Western audiences in successive waves.
Television Animation
Since 1989
American prime-time animation was effectively dead between The Flintstones and 1989.
Television Drama
Since 1999
The prestige television era, conventionally dated from The Sopranos in 1999.
Preschool Characters
Since 1969
Preschool television is the most research-driven category in children's media.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Since 1950
C. S. Lewis wrote the seven Narnia books between 1950 and 1956.
Roald Dahl
Since 1961
Roald Dahl's children's books are built on a consistent and slightly subversive proposition.
Pixar
Since 1986
Pixar began as the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm.
Sesame Street
Since 1969
Sesame Street was built as a research project.
Picture Book Classics
Since 1902
The picture book is a genuinely distinct commercial form.
Indiana Jones
Since 1981
Indiana Jones came out of a conversation on a Hawaiian beach in 1977, where George Lucas.
Alien
Since 1979
Alien is a haunted house film relocated to a working spaceship.
The Terminator
Since 1984
James Cameron has said the first film came from a fever dream in Rome of a chrome skeleton pulling itself out of fire.
The Matrix
Since 1999
The Matrix arrived in 1999 carrying a great deal at once.
Godzilla
Since 1954
Godzilla began as a direct response to nuclear weapons.
Namco
Since 1955
Namco began in 1955 renting mechanical rocking horses on Japanese department store rooftops.
Game of Thrones
Since 1996
George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire began in 1996 as a deliberate corrective to the fantasy…
Sherlock Holmes
Since 1887
Sherlock Holmes is the most portrayed literary character in film and television history.
The Addams Family
Since 1938
The Addams Family began as single-panel cartoons in The New Yorker.
Transformers
Since 1984
Transformers is a toy line that acquired a mythology backwards.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Since 1984
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started as a parody.
The Muppets
Since 1955
Jim Henson built his first puppets for a local Washington television slot in 1955 while still a teenager.
Masters of the Universe
Since 1982
Masters of the Universe is the clearest example of the 1980s toy-first model.
The Witcher
Since 1986
The Witcher began as Polish short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski in 1986.
Universal Monsters
Since 1931
Universal's horror cycle of the 1930s and 1940s did not invent its monsters.
Beetlejuice
Since 1988
Beetlejuice is a horror comedy in which the ghosts are the protagonists and the living are the infestation.
Studio Ghibli
Since 1985
Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki.
PAW Patrol
Since 2013
PAW Patrol was built by a toy company, and the structure shows in a way that is worth understanding…
Sanrio
Since 1960
Sanrio is unusual among the properties in this catalogue in that its characters mostly have no stories.
My Little Pony
Since 1982
My Little Pony ran for three commercially successful but critically dismissed generations before Lauren Faust.