One of the most popular genres in print is the comic. Comic strips and graphic novels are available throughout the world. There were invented — or perhaps “pioneered” — by Rudolphe Töpffer, who was born this day in 1799 in Geneva. He’s known as both “the father of comic strips” and the “first comic artist in history.”
Töpffer was born on what we call January 31, but at the time the date was “12 Pluviôse of Year 7.” At the time Geneva was in France (modern Switzerland didn’t exist until about 50 years later), and it was the time of the French Republic. They instituted the Republican Calendar, which renamed all the months and organized each month into three 10-day weeks. They tried using decimal time too (ten “hours” in a day, 100 “minutes” in an hour, etc). None of this lasted very long, but never mind; back to Töpffer.
He became a school teacher and opened his own boarding school in Geneva. In 1832 he became Professor of Literature at the University of Geneva. He was pretty successful, but it was his hobbies that really gathered attention. He was a painter, mostly of local landscapes, a short story writer, and a caricature artist. He published a book of drawings and caricatures in 1837, The Story of Mr. Wooden Head. It was 30 pages long, and each page contained up to six graphic panels — in effect the world’s first comic book. It turned out to be popular, and was republished in other countries (including the US) in the 1840s as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck.
Töpffer began publishing his stories and drawings in newspapers across Europe, and his work is still considered the precursor to the entire modern art form. He also wrote some serious works, including an analysis of children’s creativity in Reflections et menus propos d’un peintre genevois. He pointed out that children were often more creative than trained artists, because the artists concentrated too much on their technical skills. In 2007 the University Press of Mississippi published an English translation of most of Töpffer’s work, including his unpublished manuscripts. You can see an online version of one of his stories here.
