Vanity Fair, Vol. 6, No. 143

This Victorian satirical weekly features Edwin Forrest, a celebrated American actor, rendered as a gravedigger contemplating a skull between the graves of "Morbick" and "W. Shakespeare." The caption identifies him as "The Great Medium between the Spirit of Shakespeare and the Stage." The image mocks Forrest's theatrical pretensions through gothic imagery and caricature typical of 19th-century periodical illustration. Such cheap weeklies—serialized for working-class readers at a penny per issue—blended sensational content, theatrical gossip, crime narratives, and grotesque humor. These publications directly preceded the comic book form, establishing visual-narrative conventions and the appetite for episodic popular entertainment that would define comics' evolution.