He is voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the second-season episode "Three Men and a Comic Book", which originally aired on May 9, 1991.

He is based on "every comic book store guy in America"[9] and represents a stereotypical middle-aged comic-book collector with a supercilious attitude and obsessive knowledge of pop culture minutia.

Comic Book Guy (who states Jeff Albertson to be his real name in the episode "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass"[10]) is a nerdy, snobby and quarrelsome man.

Another example of breaking the fourth wall occurs in an episode when Comic Book Guy's chair collapses, and he sarcastically says "Ooh, a fat man falls.

[16] In Season 16's "There's Something About Marrying", he hopes to wed a Xena: Warrior Princess cardboard figure.

While part of an intellectual junta that briefly ran Springfield in "They Saved Lisa's Brain", he proposes plans to limit breeding to once every seven years (a reference to the Vulcan blood fever of mating, called Pon farr), commenting that this would mean much less breeding for most, but for him, "much, much more".

[16] They are nearly married at a science fiction convention with Skinner and Bart trying to stop the wedding, but Edna changes her mind, preferring not to be tied down to a relationship.

His store is his sanctuary, where he holds some level of self-esteem, imperiously lording over pre-teen kids, like Bart Simpson and Milhouse Van Houten, using a heavily sarcastic tone and often banning certain customers for minor infractions.

His store contains a lower level full of illegal videos (which include Mr. Rogers drunk, Alien autopsy, Illegal Alien Autopsy, a "good version" of The Godfather Part III, and Kent Brockman picking his nose).

[18] In "Husbands and Knives", the store was closed due to bankruptcy when a rival comic book shop opened across the road, run by an owner with significantly better customer service and social skills.

Comic Book Guy was partly inspired by a clerk at the Los Angeles comic book shop who often "[sat] on the high stool, kind of lording over the store with that supercilious attitude and eating behind the counter a big Styrofoam container full of fried clams with a lot of tartar sauce.

"[9] Groening noted: I can't tell you how many times people have come up to me and said, "I know who you based that comic book guy on.

"[9]Azaria based Comic Book Guy's voice on a college contemporary named Mark who went by the nickname "F", short for "Flounder" from the film National Lampoon's Animal House, and lived in the room next door to him at Tufts University.

Hank Azaria further explained that "F" would listen to the song "867-5309" all day long and that Mark would keep a list of top five and bottom five people whom he liked and hated in the dorm and post it hourly.

"[9] Within the series, the character Comic Book Guy is often used to represent a stereotypical inhabitant of the newsgroup alt.tv.simpsons.

[20] The first such instance occurred in the seventh-season episode "Radioactive Man", in which Comic Book Guy is logging on to his favorite newsgroup alt.nerd.obsessive.

The writers respond by using the voice of Bart Simpson:[23] Comic Book Guy: Last night's Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever.

Comic Book Guy makes a cameo appearance in the season two finale of The Cleveland Show saying the line, "Worst.