frbd1-2, Exercise 2: Why there is no single "first comic"

Model answer (check the details):

The answer depends on the definition.

1. A sequence of pictures telling a story: this reaches back very far, to ancient reliefs and medieval tapestries, and in modern print to Hogarth's series (1730s) and Töpffer's stories (1830s).
2. Pictures and text combined in a regular printed format for a mass audience: Töpffer, or the Épinal prints and the illustrated papers of the 19th century.
3. A continuing hero in a periodical: Ally Sloper in Britain (1884), La Famille Fenouillard in France (1889).
4. Speech balloons: in the American newspaper strips of the 1890s and in French strips from the 1920s (Zig et Puce, check).

Point: "first" is a claim about a definition, so a careful writer states the definition before naming a work.

Care: each date and example needs checking in a standard history of comics.