| Summary: | Batman, Tintin, THe Peanuts, Maus, Corto Maltese, etc., would all these famous 20th century comics have been possible without the authors of the 19th century comics? Genuine artists who further developed the sequential art and proved that their graphic stories had a broad public. Unfortunately, most of the 19th century cartoonists and their work are forgotten or unknown. For the first time several prominent comic strip historians from different countries collaborated on a publication about the comic strip in the 19th century. Most of the specialists give an overview of the comic strip production in their country and present some of the finest cartoonists of that era: Paul Gravett about Great Britain, David Kunzle about the USA, Antonio Martin about Spain, Nop Maas and Vansummeren about the Low Countries. There are also two more detailed discussions - Thierry Groensteen on Töpffer and Hans Ries on Busch - which offer new insights into two major cartoonists. The editors, Pascal Lefevre and Charles Dierick of the Belgian Centre for Comic Strip Art, discuss the controversy over the definition of the comic strip and explain how the comic strip developed in the 19th century as a mass entertainment. There is also a timeline which gives an overview of rhe most important facts and names from 1800 till 1914.
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