Short answers, pulled from the story.
Akira Toriyama created Dragon Ball, writing and illustrating the manga himself. It was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995, with its 519 chapters collected into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha.
Dragon Ball was loosely modeled on the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, with Goku based on Sun Wukong, plus elements of Hong Kong martial arts films. The seven Dragon Balls came from the Japanese novel Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, which featured heroes collecting eight Buddhist prayer beads.
The Dragon Ball manga has sold over 160 million copies in Japan and 260 million worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Its worldwide tankōbon total has reached 350 million copies.
The main anime series are Dragon Ball, which premiered on Fuji TV in 1986, and Dragon Ball Z, which ran from 1989 to 1996. Later entries include Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super, and Dragon Ball Daima, plus the recut Dragon Ball Z Kai.
In November 1999, Toys R Us pulled Viz's Dragon Ball from its stores after a Dallas parent complained it contained borderline soft porn. In October 2009, Wicomico County Public Schools in Maryland banned the manga from its district, citing nudity and sexual innuendo.
No, Dragonball Evolution, released in 2009 and directed by James Wong, flopped at the box office and was widely considered one of the worst adaptations of all time. Akira Toriyama, who was left out of the creative process, said the result was a movie he couldn't even call Dragon Ball.