In Italy, while the success of Satanik generates several black comics with female protagonists (Samantha, Masokis, Super women, Jena), all short lived, the writer and publisher Renzo Barbieri launches the first explicitly erotic comics (the spy-story Goldrake, the peplum Messalina, the swashbuckler Isabella).
January
January 1: The final episode of Theo Fünke Kupper's De Verstrooide Professor is published.[1]
February 5: The first issue of the British comics magazine Smash is published. It will run until April 1971.
February 6: Bob West's Theophilus makes its debut. It will run until 19 April 2002.[5]
February 10: Francis' Marc Lebut et son Voisin debuts in Spirou, where it will run for 20 years.[6]
February 27: Dick Cavalli's Winthrop makes its debut, after debuting under the different name Morty Meekle on 9 January 1956. The series will run until 1994.
Lenny of Laredo (Print Mint) — the underground printing and distribution business publishes its first comic, a reprint of Joel Beck's self-published title[11]
May 9 : Il passato di Tex by Gian Luigi Bonelli and Galep; the origins of Tex Willer and his life before his first appearance in comics are revealed.[14]
The first issue of the American comics magazine Eerie is published.[21][22]
The first issue of the Provo magazine God, Nederland en Oranje is published. Two cartoons by Willem lead to a court case for insulting public authority and lèse-majesté. He will in 1968 eventually only be sentenced for the first account, not the second.[23]
After the first edition was held in Bordighera, Italy, the year before the Lucca Comics festival is now held in Lucca, Italy, where it is still held to this day as one of the oldest comics festivals in the world.[24]
At the University of Strasbourg André Bertrand creates the four-page comic strip La Retour de la Colonne Durutti (The Return of the Durutti Column, 1966), which is distributed as a pamphlet during student protests.[25]
December 7::La preda umana, by Guido Nolitta and Gallieno Feri; debut of the likeable outlaw Guitar Jim, both friend and adversary of Zagor.[27]
December 18: In the Italian Disney comics magazine Topolino the first episode of The Miner's Granddaughter, by Romano Scarpa is published, in which Dickie Duck makes his debut.
George Scarbo, American comics artist (Be Sure You're Right, Closeup and Comedy, The Comic Zoo, Zoo's Whoo, Tinymites, The Great American Home, Radiomania, Ticklers), passes away at the age of 67.[32]
Tony Royle, British comics artist (continued Belinda), dies at age 66.[33]
March
March 8: Francisco Darnis, Spanish comics artist (Nick Pecho de Hiero, El Jabato), dies at age 56.[34]
Jeff Hayes, American comics artist (continued Adamson's Adventures as Silent Sam), dies at age 62 or 63.[47]
Pierre Mouchot, aka Chott, French comics publisher and comics artist (Éditions Piere Mouchot, Société d'Éditions Rhodaniennes), dies at age 54 or 55.[48]
S.K. Perkins, British comics artist (Spadger's XI, The Adventures of Elsie, Winnie and Johnny, Smiler the Sweeper), passes away at age 76 or 77.[49]
Jon Small, British comics artist (Bulletman), dies at an unknown age.[50]
Giorgio Scudellari, Chilean-Italian comics artist (illegal Mickey Mouse newspaper comics, continued Fulmine), dies at age 57 or 58.[51]
Ed Wheelan, American cartoonist (Minute Movies), dies at age 80.[52]
July 23–24: Southwestern Con (Hotel Southland, Dallas, Texas) — c. 70 attendees; organized by Larry Herndon; official guest is Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors executive secretary/"Academy Con" promoter Dave Kaler[55]
^McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 118: "In his first-ever published story, fourteen-year-old Jim Shooter admitted four new members into the Legion of Super-Heroes ... Shooter's long, memorable tenure as one of the Legion's greatest writers was officially underway."
^ abcSchelly, Bill. "The Kaler Con: Two Views: Bigger And Better Than The Benson Con Just Three Weeks Before?? (Part VIII of '1966: The Year Of (Nearly) Three New York Comics Conventions')," Alter-Ego #64 (Jan. 2007).
^Schelly, Bill. "1966: The Year Of THREE (Or Maybe 21/2) New York Comicons!: Part 2: The 1966 New York 'Benson' Con," Alter-Ego #54 (Nov. 2005).
^Schelly, Bill. Founders of Comic Fandom: Profiles of 90 Publishers, Dealers, Collectors, Writers, Artists and Other Luminaries of the 1950s And 1960s (McFarland, 2010), p. 60.
^Schelly, Bill. "Introduction," Founders of Comic Fandom: Profiles of 90 Publishers, Dealers, Collectors, Writers, Artists and Other Luminaries of the 1950s and 1960s (McFarland, 2010), p. 8
^McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 118: "With a story written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Al Plastino, the Parasite entered Superman's life."
^McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 118: "Poison Ivy first cropped up to plague Gotham City in issue #181 of Batman. Scripter Robert Kanigher and artist Sheldon Moldoff came up with a villain who would blossom into one of Batman's greatest foes"
