European comics

Comics are a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically takes the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus among theorists and historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or the use of recurring characters. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most common means of image-making in comics. Photo comics are a form that uses photographic images. Common forms include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels and comic albums have become increasingly common, along with webcomics.

The history of comics has followed different paths in different cultures. Scholars have posited a pre-history as far back as the Lascaux cave paintings. By the mid-20th century, comics flourished, particularly in the United States, western Europe (especially France and Belgium), and Japan. The history of European comics is often traced to Rodolphe Töpffer's cartoon strips of the 1830s, while Wilhelm Busch and his Max and Moritz also had a global impact from 1865 on, and became popular following the success in the 1930s of strips and books such as The Adventures of Tintin. American comics emerged as a mass medium in the early 20th century with the advent of newspaper comic strips; magazine-style comic books followed in the 1930s, and the superhero genre became prominent after Superman appeared in 1938. Histories of Japanese comics (manga) propose origins as early as the 12th century. Japanese comics are generally held separate from the evolution of Euro-American comics, and Western comic art probably originated in 17th-century Italy. Modern Japanese comic strips emerged in the early 20th century, and the output of comic magazines and books rapidly expanded in the post-World War II era (1945–) with the popularity of cartoonists such as Osamu Tezuka. Comics has had a lowbrow reputation for much of its history, but towards the end of the 20th century, it began to find greater acceptance with the public and academics.

Rodolphe Töpffer (/ˈtɒpfər/ TOP-fər; French: [ʁɔdɔlf tœpfɛʁ]; 31 January 1799 – 8 June 1846) was a Swiss teacher, author, painter, cartoonist, and caricaturist. He is best known for his illustrated books (littérature en estampes, "graphic literature"), which are possibly the earliest European comics. He is known as the father of comic strips and has been credited as the "first comics artist in history."

Paris-educated, Töpffer worked as a schoolteacher at a boarding school, where he entertained students with his caricatures. In 1837, he published Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois (published in the United States in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck). Each page of the book had one to six captioned cartoon panels, much like modern comics. Töpffer published several more of these books, and wrote theoretical essays on the form.

The Adventures of Tintin (French: Les Aventures de Tintin [lez‿avɑ̃tyʁ də tɛ̃tɛ̃]) is a series of 24 comic albums created by Belgian cartoonist Hergé (pen name of Georges Remi). The series was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. By 2007, a century after Hergé's birth, Tintin had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies, and had been adapted for radio, television, theatre, and film.

The series first appeared in French on 10 January 1929 in Le Petit Vingtième, a youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. The success of the series led to serialised strips published in Belgium's leading newspaper Le Soir and spun into a successful Tintin magazine. In 1950, Hergé created Studios Hergé, which produced the canonical versions of ten Tintin albums. Following Hergé's death in 1983, the final instalment of the series, Tintin and Alph-Art, was released posthumously.

Georges Prosper Remi (French: [ʒɔʁʒ pʁɔspɛʁ ʁəmi]; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (/ɛərˈʒeɪ/ air-ZHAY; French: [ɛʁʒe] ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials RG, was a Belgian comic strip artist. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums that are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. He was also responsible for two other well-known series, Quick & Flupke (1930–1940) and The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko (1936–1957). His works were executed in his distinctive ligne claire drawing style.

Born to a lower-middle-class family in Etterbeek, Brussels, Hergé began his career by contributing illustrations to Scouting magazines, developing his first comic series, The Adventures of Totor, for Le Boy-Scout Belge in 1926. Working for the conservative Catholic newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, he created The Adventures of Tintin in 1929 on the advice of its editor Norbert Wallez. Revolving around the actions of boy reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, the series' early instalments – Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo, and Tintin in America – were designed as conservative propaganda for children. Domestically successful, after serialisation the stories were published in book form, with Hergé continuing the series and also developing both the Quick & Flupke and Jo, Zette and Jocko series for Le Vingtième Siècle. Influenced by his friend Zhang Chongren, from 1934 Hergé placed far greater emphasis on conducting background research for his stories, resulting in increased realism from The Blue Lotus onward. Following the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, Le Vingtième Siècle was closed, but Hergé continued his series in Le Soir, a popular newspaper controlled by the Nazi administration.

Spirou & Fantasio (French: Spirou et Fantasio), commonly shortened to Spirou, is one of the most popular classic Franco-Belgian comics. The series, which has been running since 1938, shares many characteristics with other European humorous adventure comics like The Adventures of Tintin, Lucky Luke, and Asterix. It has been written and drawn by a succession of artists.

Spirou and Fantasio are the series' main characters, two adventurous journalists who run into fantastic adventures, aided by Spirou's pet squirrel Spip and their inventor friend, the Count of Champignac.