Virginia Applejack, along with Beth, Monster, Spanish Scott and all the other wonderful characters she interacts with - though the beginnings of their story barely scrapes under the 30-year mark, I must admit. Stel and Malik Caine. Drum Hellar. Those kids in Sheltered. Graham Bricke. Marv. The Goon, the Buzzard, and the Zombie Priest - some aspects of their characters and the world they inhabit may be a homage to earlier ages of comics and noir, but they are definitely their own thing.
There are no doubt many others who have slipped my mind, but I don't read many comics these days.
I don't really have access to them, and I usually don't have the money to spend on such things either. Keeping up with comics is fuckin' expensive, man. There are still a few TPs and at least one gorgeous, hardcover volume I wanna buy, though.
I have been meaning to gather up, sort and safely store my collection, though. And re-read, obviously.
Fakeedit: oh, I just saw the "made it big" part. I suppose it depends on just what you mean by made it big - if you mean 'film adaptations' big, I'm pretty sure from this list only Graham Bricke and (obviously) Marv would make the cut. The Goon is s'posed to get his own motion picture one of these days, but I'm pretty sure it's still (blueberry!) pie in the sky at this stage.
Most of these are/were at least reasonably successful in the comics world, though.