Most comic book artists draw comic books. As a result, it's a common occupation or hobby for characters in media. These characters are typically very Genre Savvy or Wrong Genre Savvy and possibly Fourth Wall-breaker. Most often they are aspiring Comic Artists / Mangaka who work on Sequential Artworks (Comics, Doujin, or Manga) to sell at Fan Conventions. Sometimes these can take the form of an Author Avatar relating problems they had or have making their work. They tend to have a penchant for Cosplay generally as the characters in their own works, or works they're fans of.
In Japan, they are more often Female and are often Yaoi Fan Girls. Males are far more common in the Western world thanks to the western idea that Comic Books are for boys.
A common Superpower for these characters is Art Initiates Life.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Cool-Kyou Shinsha has had multiple mangaka across his various series that range from doujinshi (Mayotama and Miki in I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying, Takiya and Fafnir in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid), to hentai (Mizuki in Paranoia Cage), to mainstream manga (Yuzu from Metsuko ni Yoroshiku)
- There are a few mangaka characters in 20th Century Boys, whose philosophizing about manga is a reflection of the author's own opinions.
- Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says is about an editor and mangaka at an eromanga magazine. There's also an arc where they and some other artists make a doujinshi for Comiket.
- Bakuman。's entire premise is two teenagers forming a two-person mangaka team, with one as the artist and the other as the storywriter. They publish manga at the Shonen Jump, aiming for their series to become an anime. Several characters are also manga authors publishing their own series in the same magazine.
- Miu Amano from Blend-S is more famous as a doujinshi author under the Pen Name Hanazono Folder.
- The cast of The Comic Artist and his Assistants are all involved in manga production. Out of the recurring cast, Aito (also the main character), Tsurumeki and Meisei are manga artists; Sahoto and Rinna are artists' assistants, and Mihari and Minato are editors.
- Comic Girls focuses on a group of high school girls who are themselves manga artists. Ririka, the housemother, was this; she previously draw for Yuri Genre.
- Doujin Work is about some girls trying (and failing) to be successful as doujinshi artists.
- Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga tells the tale of a loser aspiring to draw a successful manga. It's a parody of "How to draw manga" books, the Japanese comic industry, the conventions and cliches of manga, and generally very apt.
- Sora Wakanae of Family Compo is a professional manga author. At least three story arcs revolve around his profession.
- The main character of Freesoul, Keito, is an aspiring mangaka.
- Genshiken has 2 specific arcs about this as they attempt to complete Doujin for Comiket. Ogiue is specifically a Yaoi artist who makes her boyfriend, an aspiring Editor, edit it (Most definitively not a yaoi fan...)
- Hanaukyō Maid Team La Verite episode 5. Ikuyo Suzuki reveals that she's a mangaka and takes the main characters to Comiket to sell her Doujinshi, which features a (fictional) relationship between the maids Yashima Sanae and Konoe Tsurugi.
- Hayate the Combat Butler, Nagi is an aspiring artist and keeps trying to win the Rookie award for a magazine. However, her manga are completely nonsensical.
- The protagonist of I Am a Hero works as an assistant manga artist in the beginning of the series, though he strives to one day become a professional mangaka in his own right. These plans are interrupted by an ill-timed Zombie Apocalypse, however.
- Rohan Kishibe of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4 is a mangaka. His struggles as an artist are shown in his own spinoff chapters, and he also very briefly cameos close to the end of Part 6. Hirohiko Araki says that Rohan isn't meant to be his Author Avatar, but fans have their suspicions anyway.
- Jean-Pierre Polnareff wanted to be one as a kid, but he became a reporter instead. Still, when an enemy stand user asks him for his deepest wish, he replies 2 things to have his sister Sherry Back from the Dead and to become a mangaka. Whether it's being a French comic-book artist or an actual manga artist, it's up to the reader and the translation (in the original Japanese version, he uses the word "manga", which can refer to both Japanese comics and Western comics, similar to how the word "anime" can be used to refer to all animation, while in the English dub of the anime, he phrases it as "comic artist").
- Karen from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War secretly draws her own Real-Person Doujins about Kaguya and Shirogane. She had written at least 11 volumes worth by the end of Shirogane's first term as Student Council President.
- Hiyori Tamura from Lucky Star, who draws doujinshi.
- Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun has two: Umetaro Nozaki, the eponymous "Nozaki-kun," who writes under the Pen Name of Sakiko Yumeno; and Yukari Miyako, a college student writing under her own name. Both draw Shoujo Genre manga.
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Haruna is an aspiring artist who draws Doujins of the popular Magical Girl anime Mahou Shojo Biblion. And the thing she hates the most? Deadlines.
- Mashiro of The Pet Girl of Sakurasou switched from a classical painter to a mangaka after she moves to Japan, and has at least one series (Nanohanasou) serialized.
- Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Harumi Fujiyoshi specifically is a Yaoi Doujin artist with an obsession with pairings. First seen drawing by hand but by season 2 she upgrades to digital.
- Hanasaki Sono in Sensitive Pornograph is an uke older than his partner. Oh, and the creator of delicate, lightly fanservicey girl manga.
- Aki Hinata in Sgt. Frog is a manga editor, and thus will often make reference to manga tropes, and uses the Keroro Platoon as inspiration for new manga.
- To Love Ru, Yuuki Rito's father Saibai is a professional manga artist who treats every page like a battle.
- Zastin, bodyguard of the alien princess Lala, becomes Saibai's assistant and decides he wants to become a professional mangaka himself. Lala's father, the emperor of the universe, doesn't appreciate this.
- YuruYuri has Kyoko, a doujinshi artist, who has been shown selling her doujinshi at ComuKet, shanghaiing the rest of the Amusement Club or Ayano into helping her in the process.
Comic Books
- Angel and the Ape: Sam Simeon is an intelligent comic book artist who happens to be a talking gorilla.
- Chuck Clayton, a friend of Archie Andrews of Archie Comics fame, is a cartoonist. His greatest ambition is to become a comic book artist after he graduates from Riverdale High School.
- Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) is a professional illustrator and cartoonist, and at one time was the writer/artist for the in-universe Captain America comic book.
- Green Lantern Kyle Rayner is a professional comic book artist and writer. If he's fighting alongside other Lanterns, this tends to be shown as influencing his style of combat.
- Scribbly, the main character in what would later become the Golden Age Red Tornado strips, was a young boy who wandered around his neighbourhood drawing cartoons of what was happening. In the later DC mythos, Scribbly went on to work for a newspaper as a cartoonist. Granted, the strip was meant to be semi-autobiographical...
- Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, who started out as an Author Avatar (but was NOT actually meant to be Jhonen Vasquez), was once a talented artist now fallen to drawing the deranged stick figure comics of Happy Noodle Boy. The worse Nny's mental condition deteriorates, the less sense his comics make. Meanwhile, Nny's ex-girlfriend Devi gets a job painting illustrations for Nerve Publishing's books, which is an absolutely horrible place to work at that actively tries to break creativity. Naturally, the latter was written when Vasquez was still working for Nickelodeon.
- Cooper Cypress of Revival is an aspiring comic book artist despite working in crayon most of the time. His works are sometimes showcased to recap previous issues. Late in the series he is commissioned by Jordan to draw a propaganda piece.
- After Alan Moore retooled Supreme as a homage to Superman, the Clark-Kent-equivalent character was a comic book artist, and the Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen equivalents were comic book writers.
Film
- In Chasing Amy (and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards are writers/artists for Bluntman and Chronic comic, Alyssa Jones is writer/artist for Idiosyncratic Routine, and Hooper X produces the comic White Hatin' Coon.
- Manky is an inker, and his Berserk Button is whenever someone refers to his work as "tracing".
- In Freddy Got Fingered, Tom Green plays a cartoonist named Gordon Brody.
- In Secondhand Lions Walter grows up to be a comic strip artist, with a strip called "Walter and Jasmine", about a boy and his pet lion, which he based on his own experiences as a child.
- Michael Kellum of Three Men and a Baby is a professional cartoonist. It is his artwork that decorates the hallway outside the apartment the three men share.
- Michael from Tomcats is a comic strip artist - he makes a Furry comic also called "Tomcats" Despite the comic being some sort of sex comedy, the movie doesn't seem to be aware of the Furry Fandom.
Live Action TV
- The Bones episode "The Superhero in the Alley" features a teenager who draws his own comic books.
- Caroline in the City focused around the life of cartoonist Caroline Duffy.
- The Criminal Minds episode "True Night" features a serial killer whose crimes seem to match up with the work of a comicbook artist.
- Isaac Mendez of Heroes used his precognitive Psychic Powers to write and draw his comic book, 9th Wonders.
- Tim Bisley of Spaced is writing and drawing a graphic novel... but never seems to get anywhere with it.
Newspaper Comics
- The father in the somewhat-autobiographical family in The Family Circus is a cartoonist.
- Jon Arbuckle from Garfield is officially a cartoonist, but he's almost never shown doing his job.
- Rerun van Pelt from Peanuts, younger brother to Lucy and Linus, is an "underground cartoonist" who is apparently quite the subversive even though he's only in kindergarten.
- Also from Peanuts, Charlie Brown has tried his hand at producing a strip. Nobody he shows it to ever likes it.
Webcomics
- Arthur, Merlin and Nimue are all webcartoonists in the modern arc of Arthur, King of Time and Space.
- Sarah from El Goonish Shive has at least two comic strips she's working on. One is entitled "The Wizard Sarah", and the other features a squirrel-boy named Dan.
- Hang In There Kogasa San is a Journal Comic written by a Touhou Project Doujin artist; besides him, his wife and most of their friends also make doujin and thus the series frequently covers their trips to events like Comiket.
- Ménage à 3 centres around Gary, a comic and manga fan who is attempting to make a doujinshi with the help of Yuki, the daughter of a famous hentai artist.
- Sequential Art focuses on Art, a Sequential Artist.
Western Animation
- The Magic School Bus: Tim is noted to be a good artist. In one episode, he says he's always wanted to do a comic book. He gets his chance in the weather episode, where he draws up a short "Weatherman" comic book based on the episode's events.
- Ready Jet Go!: Sydney is a relatively decent artist who writes and draws her own Commander Cressida fan comics.
- Superman: The Animated Series: Kyle Rayner is employed as a graphic artist, but wants to break into comics and has been submitting portfolios without success.
- Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: Brad likes to draw comics.
