Histoire de Mr. Jabot

Rodolphe Töpffer’s Histoire de Mr. Jabot (1833–present) is widely regarded as one of the earliest comic strips ever published, a single-issue work from the Swiss artist-educator that helped pioneer the sequential storytelling form. Töpffer wrote and drew this satirical tale of a social-climbing fop, using hand-drawn panels with text beneath them—a format he essentially invented. Its importance lies in its foundational role in comic history, demonstrating how picture sequences could tell a coherent, humorous narrative long before the medium had a name.