Rodolphe Töpffer (1799 - 1846)
And now we come to the man who is universally acknowledged by comic historians as the father of comic artists. You’ll forgive my omitting the umlaut from his name from here on in, as I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep pasting in one word. Born, as you can see, in an auspicious year, on the very cusp of the new century, Topffer was the first ever Swiss comic artist and, despite an eye defect which initially prevented him from drawing, would almost single-handedly invent the medium of comics as we know them today. What was different about his work compared to, say, Daumier, Gillray or Rowlandson, you ask? I’m glad you did ask, because I was asking the same thing, and I got the same answer, the one I’m now going to give to you.
Here it is.
I should probably really say, here they are, because not only were there several important differences, but Topffer’s cartoons were unlike anything that had been produced anywhere before, in the world. First, he didn’t use colour; all his drawing were on white paper in black pen. All were hand-drawn, none featured any political, royal or literary character; all were his own original creations. His comics all followed very clear narratives, text following on from text and picture from picture, leading the reader through the story. His figures were not realistic but stylised. He even invented a new drawing technique, autography, which involved drawing on special paper which was then reversed and traced onto a lithographic stone.
He produced seven different series:
Histoire de M. Jabot (created in 1831, first published in 1833),
Monsieur Crépin (1837),
Les Amours de M. Vieuxbois (created in 1827, published in 1837), 'Monsieur Pencil' (created 1831, first published 1840),
Le Docteur Festus (created 1831, first published 1846),
Histoire d'Albert (1845) and
Histoire de Monsieur Cryptogame (1845). I believe I recognise the second-last there, but will keep my counsel for now. Some of you may also. Quite aware of what he was creating, Topffer even wrote books and essays in which he explained and defended his techniques to a world perhaps sceptical to a new approach to cartoons, and used to the overly flamboyant and exaggerated colour depictions of his predecessors.
Initially though, Topffer was drawing only for himself, and it was famous poet Goethe who convinced him to publish them, though sadly the author of
Faust died before he could see how popular his friend’s work would become. As is ever the case with genius though - and more to the point, genius that sells - there are always those ready to rip you off, and so bastardised copies of Topffer’s work were produced by German and French artists, as well as ones in Holland (Netherlands) where his fame lasted all the way to 1972, where a TV series was produced based on one of the spin-offs. And no, it wasn’t the same Albert as on the Genesis album
Duke, so my bad there.
Topffer showed that there was a real appetite for comics outside of satirical magazines, and his drawings were published in several magazines and serialised, written specifically for public consumption, and indeed a translated version of
Les Amours de M. Vieuxbois, renamed as
The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, was the first comic in history to sell in the USA. I can’t find any specifics about his death, but I think we can assume he did not die in poverty, and given no mention is made of the usual alcoholism or madness, hopefully he just died of natural causes (although he does seem to have died at an early age so maybe not) and peacefully.
Another Swiss comics artist, though he practiced and became famous for his art in Sweden, was Fritz von Dardel (1817 - 1901). A regular at the court of the Swedish king, Charles XV, he was of course hardly going to be satirising his patron, but instead concentrated on depicting life in Sweden and at the court, though in a sympathetic manner rather than a satirical one.
The mid-to-late nineteenth century was a time when political humour magazine began to flourish in England. Titles like
Bell’s Life in London (1822 - 1866) and
The Age (1825 - 1846) had whetted the public’s appetite for sharp political satire in cartoon form, but these were newspapers, not at all dedicated to cartoons and certainly not comics. The closest to an actual satirical journal seems to have been
Figaro in London (1831- 1839), based on the French humour magazine of the same name, and which led, through its editor, Henry Mayhew, to a name which would loom large over English society, politics and humour for a century or more.
1841 saw a major event in comics history, as the English satirical magazine
Punch was published. The brainchild of Henry Mayhew, journalist, playwright and reformist, and Ebenezer Landells, a wood-engraver and illustrator, it was to become the voice of the people over the next 100 years, mercilessly taking to task politicians, kings and queens, celebrities, nobles and trends and fashions with a sharp wit and keen eye for the risible in society. Mayhew did not stay with the publication very long, leaving it after four years, and though it would become incredibly influential in English politics over the next century, initially it failed to capture the public interest until Landells sold to a large publishing house who also handled someone called Dickens, and were able to invest more capital into producing it properly with the new printing techniques just coming into operation.
While Rodolphe Topffer may have been the world’s first real comic artist and virtually invented the medium as a mass appeal venture,
Punch can claim the honour of coining the term we’re all so familiar with today. When making some sketches on cardboard for murals which were to be hung in the Houses of Parliament in 1843, the sketches were referred to as cartoons, from the Italian
cartone, a term which
Punch then used for its political drawings, and which became so popular and well-known that it was soon attributed to any comical drawing, and later of course to animated ones.
I’m not that familiar with
Punch, only know of it through its reputation and through some quotes I used or read in other research, but I have the feeling it didn’t run actual comic strips, like its French counterpart, more single cartoons. But it is a very important part of the history of comics, and it would have been a proving ground for some of the wittiest writers and best comic artists over the next hundred years. I won’t pretend I know any of them, other than Gerald Scarfe and John Tenniel, but I’m reliably informed they were all big names.
Punch also attracted huge names in the field of literature; apart from Dickens, who took an active part in editing the magazine, there was Kingsley Amis, Quentin Crisp, C.S. Lewis, Somerset Maugham, George Melly, William Makepeace Thackeray and P.G. Wodehouse, to name but a few.
Punch was quickly subject to imitators, pretenders to its comic crown, the most blatant of which was
Judy (1867 - 1888) which also undercut its price. This magazine would in fact be the one to spawn perhaps the first real comic character - the first comic strip to concentrate on a single character’s adventures, at any rate -
Ally McBeal sorry
Ally Sloper, who would go on to have his own weekly self-titled comic in 1884. Sloper would make his debut in
Judy in 1867.
Other imitators included
Diogenes: A Light Upon Many Subjects (1853) and
Fun (1861). This latter was in fact the basis for later magazine
Judy, though it played upon
Punch’s name. The two,
Judy and
Fun, were seen as rivals and divided along lines of political ideology, the former conservative while the latter was liberal.
Fun made much use of its name in puns (not too hard really) and tried to attract the younger, more savvy reader away from
Punch and (ahem)
Judy, however in 1871 it was bought by the engravers Dalziel Brothers, who took all the (ahem, again) fun out of it, running it purely as a money-making enterprise.
Judy was not laughing for long though, as the Dalziel’s bought it two years later, and for sixteen years the two publications had to run side by side. However by now the sleeping giant which would become the comic book proper was beginning to stir, and a seismic shift would occur in another ten years, as we will see in the next chapter.