Comic Strips: What is their origin, and which was the first?

In the 6th paragraph of the article from the 'Knowledge' section of The Times quoted by Harrock n roll in the What next for Tintin in 2007 thread, the curator of the Tintin exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, reportedly declared he was wondering why something born one century ago - the comic strip form - was not in his collection?

Please could anyone tell us where was our modern comic strip born?

yamilah
Please could anyone tell us where was our 'modern' comic strip born?

It depends what you class as a 'comic strip'. If it's simply a marriage of words and pictures, then you can trace it back as far as Leonardo's sketchbooks of the 15th century, and was refined in William Hogarth's Rake's Progress from the 1730s. There's early word-and-picture stories such as Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz and Richard Outcault's Yellow Kid but I'd say the first comic strip proper is Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, an American strip begun in 1905.

At this time, though, Europe was lagging behind. Binchon's Bécassine (who, as we know, the early Tintin bears a striking resemblance to!) still carried captions underneath the drawings.
It was the Frenchman Alain Saint-Ogan's Zig et Puce that introduced the comic strip with speech bubbles to the continent in 1925, and as we know, Hergé's Tintin followed in 1929.

So the "modern" comic strip is roughly a hundred years old, but its roots stretch much further back in time. Europe took a while to catch up- the end of the Second World War, to be precise, when American creativity reached an all-time low and Belgium overtook thanks to Hergé's continuing work, and that of E.P. Jacobs, Franquin and the like.

Can I recommend the site of a very good chap I know, Andy, with lots of lovely comic-strip history goodness...

I know this is going back further than the modern strip cartoon, but I'm sure will be of interest.

Best -
Garen

Richard
was refined in William Hogarth's Rake's Progress from the 1730s.
I saw those engravings on the excellent site tybaltstone gave above: the characters are many and don't seem as recognizable or legible as those from the later comics you mentioned, who were also always given names, as it seems.
Moderator Note: You are once again behaiving in what might seem to be a vexatious manner: you have asked a question, which people have endeavoured to help; now you are setting arbitraray conditions, to gainsay their answers, without helping to further the debate. Why is it necessary for characters to be named? Where is that part of the definition of a "modern" strip-cartoon? If you [i]know what the answer to your questionis, why ask it? If you don't, and others do, why not accept what they tell you in good faith?[/i]

At this time, though, Europe was lagging behind.
Maybe the difference between 'captions' and 'speech bubbles' is not so relevant?

Moderator Note: Again - you are not accepting that the use of speech-bubbles is generally considered a mark of the modern strip-cartoon, and a major sttep forward in the change from picture-book to comic; as you yourself are want to say, you can look for links yourself, if you are not prepared to accept it.

There's early word-and-picture stories such as Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz and Richard Outcault's Yellow Kid but I'd say the first comic strip proper is Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, an American strip begun in 1905.
Do you think the European and American comics could have a common origin?

tybaltstone
Thanks for this excellent link!

Here's an interesting site with short articles about the issue:
The Yellow Kid, USA, (1895)
Little Nemo, USA, (1905)