Proper Japanese Title: ビッグコミックスペリオール
Big Comic Superior is the youngest of the four mainline magazines in the Big Comic family (after Big Comic, Big Comic Original and Big Comic Spirits). Though all four are generally aimed at an adult male audience, Spirits and Superior are specifically aimed at the newer seinen market. Like Big Comic and Big Comic Original, Superior is published twice a month. Spirits was also published twice a month around the time Superior began but had just increased to weekly which it has remained at ever since.
Big Comic Superior's first issues (before it was called Big Comic Superior) were as special issues of Big Comic Original Zōkan. While covers of Original are traditionally animals, these extra issues of Zokan in 1986-1987 began the cover designs that would become early Superior's signature style of anthropomorphized objects (computers, telephones, cars, drinks, etc.). These Original Zokan issues also began the serialization of several works that would kick-off Superior like Aji Ichi Monme, Nobunaga and Kudokiya Joe. Nobunaga's artist Ryoichi Ikegami and Kurata's Aji Ichi Monme have remained a consistent significant presence in Superior ever since.
The line-up in the early magazine of the late 80's included a number of veterans of the industry but most of them only had a brief run at Superior. 1990 quickly brought in two major veterans that had long runs in the magazine, the first was Yū Koyama who started with Momotaro but a few years later began Azumi which became one of the magazine's longest franchises. The second veteran brought in was Yoshiyuki Okamura who was the writer on Ikegami's Sanctuary, this was their first series collaboration but they would go on to collaborate for decades in Superior with titles including Strain, Heat and Lord (Okamura switched between his two main pennames on these projects).
In the 90's, the cover style also changed to featuring stylized human "mascot" characters in everyday scenarios (at first a romantic couple from 1990-1991 and then an individual man from 1992-1995). In 1996 it shifted to anthropomorphized animals which remained until 1998 when it abandoned these types of covers altogether. This made it the first of the Big Comic magazines to completely move away from its unique cover artists featuring non-manga material (Spirits would follow years later) and the only one to shift to routinely featuring the actual serialized manga contents on the cover, something that is relatively uncommon in seinen manga. The then long-established Ikegami and Azumi instantly became regular cover features.
The early 00's began bringing in and highlighting more mainstay creators like Taro Nogizaka, Kawai Tan and Yasuo Ohtagaki. Superior hasn't been as dominated by long-runners or a stable line-up of creators and a number of significant creators have dipped in and out over the decades. Apart from the aforementioned authors, notable serializations of recent years have included Chi no Wadachi, Gigant and Gekiko Kamen.
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