Rodolphe Töpffer

Who was Rodolphe Töpffer?

Rodolphe Töpffer was a Swiss teacher, author, painter, cartoonist, and caricaturist. He is best known for his illustrated books, which can be seen as the earliest European comics.

Paris-educated, Töpffer worked as a schoolteacher and ran a boarding school, where he entertained students with his caricatures. In 1837, he published Histoire de M. Vieux Bois. 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.