hermanthegerm wrote:
Scathach80 wrote:
Andy Hardy started as a play.

El Santo started as a wrestler's persona in the ring. One might as well count those western singers and cowboy film stars who played themselves (well, fictionalized versions of themselves) and had comic books based on them. In other words, I do not.

I would say that any character fictional or otherwise that is featured in a comic book named after him/her qualifies as a 'comic book hero.'

Just 'cause, literally, that is what that character is.
Then the distinction grows meaningless, since numerous properties that started in prose and elsewhere have received comic book adaptations.

Remember, one of the ironies about the success of comic book based movies has to do with the fact that, since the 1960's, comic books (at least in the U.S.) have not sold as well as prose private eye novels, for example, have, but, to return to the example of private eye novels, adaptations of private eye novels have not often produced franchises in the last fifty years.