A semilinear initial-boundary-value problem with a Caputo time derivative of fractional order alpha is an element of (0, 1) is considered, solutions of which typically exhibit a singular behavior at an initial time. For L1-type discretizations of this problem, we employ the method of upper and lower solutions to obtain sharp pointwise-in-time error bounds on quasi-graded temporal meshes with arbitrary degree of grading. In particular, those results imply that milder (compared to the optimal) grading yields the optimal convergence rate 2 - alpha in positive time, while quasi-uniform temporal meshes yield first-order convergence in positive time. Furthermore, under appropriate conditions on the nonlinearity, the method of upper and lower solutions immediately implies that, similarly to the exact solutions, the computed solutions lie within a certain range. Semidiscretizations in time and full discretizations using finite differences and finite elements in space are addressed. The theoretical findings are illustrated by numerical experiments.