One shot (bande dessinée)

In comics, a one-shot is a work composed of a single standalone issue or chapter, contrasting a limited series or ongoing series, which are composed of multiple issues or chapters. One-shots date back to the early 19th century, published in newspapers, and today may be in the form of single published comic books, parts of comic magazines/anthologies or published online in websites. In the marketing industry, some one-shots are used as promotion tools that tie in with existing productions, movies, video games or television shows. In the Japanese manga industry, one-shots are called yomikiri, a term which implies that the comic is presented in its entirety without any continuation. One-shot manga are often written for contests, and sometimes later developed into a full-length series, much like a television pilot. Many popular manga series began as one-shots, such as Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Berserk, Kinnikuman and Death Note. Rising Stars of Manga was an annual competition for original English-language one-shot manga, many of which have gone on to become full-length manga series. Some noted manga authors, such as Akira Toriyama and Rumiko Takahashi, have worked on numerous one-shot stories in addition to their serialized works. In the United States, one-shots are usually labeled with a "#1" despite there being no following issues, and are sometimes subtitled as "specials". On occasion, a character or concept will appear in a series of one-shots, in cases where the subject matter is not financially lucrative enough to merit an ongoing or limited series, but still popular enough to be published on a regular basis, often annually or quarterly. A current example of a series of one-shots would be Marvel Comics' Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius publications. This type of one-shot is not to be confused with a comic book annual, which is typically a companion publication to an established ongoing series. The term has also been borrowed into the Franco-Belgian comics industry, with basically the same meaning, although there it mostly refers to comic albums.