High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! An annual publication, more often called simply an annual, is a book or a magazine, comic book or comic strip published yearly. For example, a weekly or monthly publication may produce an Annual featuring similar materials to the regular publication. A new form of literary work called the "Annual" was a fad from about 1823 through 1857, and became so popular, that they were soon published up to 17 times a year. British royalty increased their popularity. They closely resemble many college literary "books" just produced for college campus today, except they contained lots of etchings of beautiful women from steel plates. They were the fashion magazines of the day. Later it became fashionable to watercolor the etchings, and the "Annuals" became early coloring books. There was later a backlash against "beauty", and the fad ended, as did steel plate etchings for books.