Andy's Early Comics Archive (Text Index)
Comics Before 1929
Artists A-Z (click here) Artists by Language/Country (click here)
Sections: 1700-1800 1800-1840 Rodolphe Töpffer 1840-1860 (pre-Busch) Wilhelm Busch 1860-1900 (post Busch) 1900-1929
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1700 - 1800
William Hogarth Index
The famous 'progressions' by Hogarth were not actually comics. The images don't lead into and don't interact with each other. Each shows a distinct, separate stage of a longer story. However, because of their great popularity, they established the very notion of telling entertaining stories with a series of pictures and so became a stepping stone for future developments. 'The Harlot's Progress (1730) Franz Joseph Goez 'Lenardo und Blandine' 1783 Ironically this, the first actual graphic novel(ette), probably had little influence. It was too ahead of its time as far as the comic-structure is concerned. In content it was delightfully very much of its time, full of outrageous melodrama. Here's the complete sequence, with my translation underneath: 1 - page 1-34 2 - page 35-65 3 - page 66-93 4 - page 94-125 5 - page 126-160 James Gillray - 'The Table's turned - Billy in the devil's claws / Billy sending the devil packing' Much more influencial than Hogarth or Goez were the thousands of British political cartoons. Most were just that, cartoons, meaning single image jokes. However, a huge number of them used (and developed the use of) speechbaloons. And a good number did in fact use two or more interdependant images to tell a story. (That means they were comics.) Chinese Woodcut 'How China is Made' (china = porcelain) (late 18th cent., reprinted 1893) |
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1800 - 1840 (pre-Töpffer)
Anonymous 'The Comical Adventures of the Little Woman, Her Dog and the Pedlar' (1820s, American, probably a reprint of a British chapbook)William Heath - 'White Bait' (1830) (a four-panel comic strip with speechbaloons) Heinrich Hoffmann 'Struwwelpeter' (drawn 1844, published 1847 - English edition 1848) This famous picture book is stylistically related to earlier chapbooks and Bilderbogen (picture sheets). The hunter-rabbit story is similar to a panel from earlier Bilderbogen showing (non-sequential) instances of a 'topsy turvy' world. Thomas Rowlandson'THE TOUR of DOCTOR SYNTAX, In search of the PICTURESQUE' This is not a comic. It's not even a sequential series of images, like a Hogarthian progress, or even illustrations of a novel. But it can be seen as a milestone in comics history, because of the influence on Rodolphe Toepffer, who imitated the type of main character, the drawing style and the general atmosphere of countryfied wackyness. The use and re-use of one striking visual character, generally recognized and popular, is certainly typical of many comics to come. Part 2 - DOCTOR SYNTAX, In search of Consolation Part 3 - DOCTOR SYNTAX - In Search of a Wife |
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Rodolphe Töpffer
Index Monsieur Vieuxbois (1839) (partial translation) Comparison of the Aubert Pirate Version (1839) and the US copy (1842) Comparison of Monsieur Tric Trac and a Dutch sequel (Prikkebeen) Comparison of Vieuxbois and Cruikshank External Link: 'Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois' Original manuscript version of Monsieur Vieuxbois, 1827 (30 pages/158 panels) with text helpfully typed out underneath, and a translation by Leonardo De Sà. The first printed edition was published ten years later, expanded to 88 pages/198 drawings. The second edition 1839 (as presented above on my own site) had 92 pages / 220 panels. |
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Eventually there should be a section presenting this crucial period in more detail. At the moment I don't have sufficient material. Magazine comics from that time will remain in the preceding section. It is difficult to decide how important the development of comics in humorous magazines and in the newspapers respectively were, without studying a lot more of the work. Below you can at least sample the visual flavour of one magazine and that exciting new thing, a comics supplement, both from the summer of 1897. At the time it wasn't clear that it would be the supplements which would develop into modern comics. Magazines like Puck, which were based on German magazines of the time, such as 'Lustige Blätter', were stuck in a bit of a rut. The type of comics they presented had not changed much for 30 years. But there were other magazines, such as the German weekly 'Simplizissimus' (starting April 1896), which came up with sublimely inventive designs, and satirical adult themes. HOWEVER: Looking at this Puck and the Sunday Comics Supplement , it struck me that both the format and the audience for the latter may be the cause of significant changes. The newspaper format was much larger and cheaper, providing a lot more empty space to fill. The audience was less sophisticated, but (possibly because of this) more open to a particular type of experimentation, despite the dumb and lowbrow humour. Admittedly, this is being wise in retrospect. For whatever reason, these American Sunday pages became the breeding ground for something new. Weirder, rougher, slapdashier. Also easier, for children, but not childish. More popular. More ... somethingier. Maybe it was that new type of human being, the urban immigrant, who was most prepared and eager to pay for all this new visual goings on. As you can see in the example below, early supplements didn't actually have many comics, apart from the usual short black and white snippets, similar to those in magazines. The new, enormous areas of colour were at first used for large, sometimes complex cartoons. But sequential cartoons did start to pop up with a vengeance in the form of Hans and Fritz, the Katzenjammer Kids, based on the popular classic 'Max und Moritz' (1864) by Wilhelm Busch. These two remarkable rapscallions appeared onto this stage of coloured spreads a few months later, on the 12th of December 1897. The Busch influence was of course felt througout the 'magazine-comics-period' 1860-1900. But in young Dirks he had finally found a follower of genius, who together with other likeminded artists, and above all an avaricious public, created the new parameters of the medium. Puck 28. July 1897 Small Large The World 'Comic Weekly' 20. June 1897 (6 pages, ie two missing) Small Large |
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Copyright © 2010 by Andy Konky Kru