Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer

220 Pages·2007·29.49 MB·English

by  David Kunzle

Father of the Comic Strip
rodolphe Töpffer
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Father of the Comic Strip
rodolphe Töpffer
Great CoMiCs artists
M. thomas inge, General editor
DaviD Kunzle
university Press of Mississippi / Jackson
Publication is made possible in part from a
grant from Pro Helvetia, Zürich, Switzerland
with special thanks to Pierre Schaer
www.upress.state.ms.us
Designed by Todd Lape
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2007 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First edition 2007
∞
Father of the comic strip : Rodolphe Topffer / David Kunzle.
p. cm. — (Great comics artists)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-57806-947-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-57806-947-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-57806-948-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-57806-948-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Töpffer, Rodolphe,
1799–1846—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Title: Father of the
comic strip.
PN6790.S93T65 2007
741.5’092—dc22
[B]
2006028494
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To Marjoyrie, founding and
sustaining member of the Silly Party
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Contents
Preface [ ix ]
Introduction [ 3 ]
ChapTer 1. Töpffer the Satirist: Contexts for Themes [ 9 ]
ChapTer 2. Goethe, Töpffer, and a New Kind of Caricature [ 49 ]
ChapTer 3. Jabot, Crépin, Vieux Bois [ 57 ]
ChapTer 4. Töpffer Launched, Comic Strip Defended, Literary Fame, Festus [ 74 ]
ChapTer 5. Politics and Absurdity: Pencil and Trictrac [ 83 ]
ChapTer 6. The Last Years: Cryptogame, Albert, Aesthetics and Physiognomics [ 95 ]
ChapTer 7. Töpffer the Professional Dilettante [ 120 ]
ChapTer 8. Voyages en Zigzag: Humor of the Unexpected [ 128 ]
ChapTer 9. The Legacy [ 143 ]
Envoi [ 183 ]
Appendix A. Histoire de Sébastien Brodbec [ 185 ]
Appendix B. Töpffer’s Comic Picture-Novels by Professor Fr. Vischer [ 187 ]
Notes [ 191 ]
Bibliography [ 197 ]
Index [ 201 ]
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Preface
Scholars and academics take nothing so seriously I would have to stop short of Töpffer, so great was
as the comic. They should fear nothing more than the material before and between, I began to read
grinding it into scholarly dust. I hope this book does heavenly funny comic strips by the Swiss under the
not love Töpffer to death, while it aligns itself with celestially blue dome of the (then) British Museum
the tradition that sees in a comic masterpiece matters Library. I was mesmerized, unable to contain my
of life and death. Freud established wit and humor laughter in a place where you are not allowed to
as essential psychological components for expression laugh out loud—subject to what Töpffer called le
and survival. Shakespeare, Rabelais, Molière, Dick- fou rire.
ens, Sterne (to cite just a few names treasured by I could take that laughter home with me, but
Töpffer), and a host of other writers, but (curiously) not the texts. There was nowhere else to find the
fewer artists, understood the need for laughter. elusive Swiss, in no other library, and certainly not
Without getting at all theoretical about this (theory on the market. No one had heard of him anyway. It
exists in excess) let us just say that humor resists the is astonishing, in retrospect, to record that outside
oppression of the daily social and political grind; like that bottomless national library you could not find
music it relieves heartache of the mind and body; it reproductions of many Hogarth engravings either,
is medicine to the soul. We see no problem in greet- until Paulson’s compendium appeared in 1965. Finally
ing the humorous and serious as two sides of the there came in 1975 the much-desired Horay edition
same coin, or as fused into one. I now see, and take of Töpffer’s comic strips, which is not complete but
seriously, the serious underlay to Töpffer’s “little fol- served me very well while I prepared the substan-
lies,” and I do so on the understanding that the cen- tial chapter on Töpffer in my History of the Comic
tury-long interlude between Hogarth and Töpffer Strip vol. 2: The Nineteenth Century (1990). Now we
represents a struggle between caricature tightening have also the two oblong volumes from Seuil 1996,
its grip on personal and social real life, and then with its fine introduction by Thierry Groensteen
loosening it in order to embrace the fanciful, imagi- (also coauthor of the excellent Töpffer, inventeur de
native, impossible, and even nonsensical. la bande dessinée), but limited to six, fewer stories
This book and its companion, the facsimile than Horay’s seven. The bilingual German edition
edition Rodolphe Töpffer: The Complete Comic Strips, from Herbig (n.d., 1967-68?) with six stories is also
seem like a lifelong dream come true. I remember incomplete. There are numerous editions of single
well the moment in 1960 when I first toyed with the stories and facsimiles of some of the manuscripts, of
idea of tracing the development of the picture story which latter the Italian Garzanti boxed-set edition
(following a suggestion of E. H. Gombrich in Art is the most complete as well the most rare. (I hereby
and Illusion, just published) from William Hogarth thank again the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva
to Töpffer as a PhD thesis. Before it transpired that for giving me a copy when I needed it most.)
[ ix ]