Sophisticated, Key Early Comics Unearthed?

Here's one where I'm bound to get something wrong in the details, but it's too interesting to pretend it doesn't exist. The French-language comics news clearinghouse ActuaBD.com has a post up here commenting on the discovery of some British newspaper comics from the late 19th and early 20th Century. The article seems skeptical of a claim by the historian Thierry Smolderen that these are some sort of crucial, connecting link -- Smolderen disputes that he made this claim, and from a brief look at the initial announcement he has a point in that at least there he emphasized the elements of the comics themselves rather than their developmental aspects -- between the serial picture tradition of the 19th Century and the early comic strips of the 20th Century. Made up point or not I have to share that skepticism, but not from anything approaching a learned position. I'm just pretty bone-ignorant when it comes to summary academic judgment of early comics and proto-comics material.

That said, barring a complete failure on my part to understand what the article is presenting (which is entirely possible), at the very least the pages included in the report seem extremely sophisticated and accomplished. It seems to me that at minimum they can add to our knowledge of who was doing what and when, and give us new material with which to grapple, if not just stare at.

It also strikes me this is a very nice discovery for this year's Angouleme given early comics super-fan Art Spiegelman's involvement with the Festival.
 
posted 12:50 am PST | Permalink
 

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