Ensemble Dark Horse / Comic Strips

• Peanuts: Pig-Pen was a massively popular character in the strip despite being hated as a one-off joke by Schulz. Schulz was eventually forced to include him occasionally throughout the 60's and 70's.
• Dilbert has at least two cases in which one-shot characters joined the main cast by popular demand: Ratbert and Catbert. Scott Adams hadn't even named the latter when he got deluged with emails for "more Catbert."
  • Dogbert once summed up this trope while discussing LOUD HOWARD:
  Dogbert: A disturbing number of you have requested the return of Loud Howard. Loud Howard is one-dimensional. There is nothing clever or insightful about him. He is simply loud. It is a mystery why anyone would want more of this guy.
  Loud Howard: THEY LOVE ME!
• Opus, the main character of Bloom County and two other comic strips by Berke Breathed, was originally intended to appear for one week-long arc, but after an enormous amount of fanmail, the author promoted him to a recurring character. Finally, after a huge fan response to one particular◊ Sunday strip featuring Opus, he became the main character of the comic.
• April from For Better or for Worse became this for the fandom, often seen as the Only Sane Man... which is odd because the creator didn't like her. At all.
• Sheila Roo seems to be a fan favorite in Pluggers, most likely for being the furthest from the "old/fat/slob/cheapskate" stereotype displayed by almost all other characters.
• Pierce of Zits is so popular as a secondary character that the creators put out Pierced, a compilation of every strip in which he had appeared to that point.

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