Cham, real name Count Amédée de Noé and a serious rival to Daumier, may have been the epitome of a célèbre inconnu, a famous unknown. He is one much deserving, at last, of this first account of his huge oeuvre as a caricaturist. This book concentrates on his mastery of the important newcomer to the field of caricature, which we call comic strip, picture story, and graphic novel. The volume features facsimiles of nearly twenty of these from 1839 to 1863 and ranging from one page to forty (this last a parody of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables). In addition, summaries and sample illustrations of twenty-seven “minor works” demonstrate that Cham is by far the most important specialist of what was then a new genre in Europe. Born to an ancient aristocratic family, Cham was from early on wholly dedicated to an art considered far beneath his class. Starting as a disciple of the father of the modern comic strip, Swiss Rodolphe Töpffer, Cham soon launched out on his own, evolving an original form of comedy, his own comédie humaine, farcical, absurd, and parodic. His productivity was legendary and comprised all the known genres of caricature, the full-page cartoon lithograph, the thematic seasonal group, weekly and monthly humorous comment (much like the daily newspaper cartoonist today), and a feature called the Revue Comique, which made him the supreme graphic journalist of his day. Hitherto unknown correspondence reveals an attractive personality who was fond of animals and who honored a low-class woman he eventually made his countess. Vaunted comics scholar David Kunzle has created a fitting tribute to Cham’s impact and genius.

A collection of cartoonist Crumb's work, ranging from his earliest comics published in the mid sixties, to work completed in the nineties with his comentaries interspersed thoughout the book.

From its invention to the internet age, photography has been considered universal, pervasive, and omnipresent. This anthology of essays posits how the question of when photography came to be everywhere shapes our understanding of all manner of photographic media. Whether looking at a portrait image on the polished silver surface of the daguerreotype, or a viral image on the reflective glass of the smartphone, the experience of looking at photographs and thinking with photography is inseparable from the idea of ubiquity—that is, the apparent ability to be everywhere at once. While photography’s distribution across cultures today is undeniable, the insidious logics and pervasive myths that have governed its spread demand our critical attention, now more than ever.

This book explores the series of cartoons of China and the Chinese that were published in the popular British satirical magazine Punch over a sixty-year period from 1841 to 1901. Filled with political metaphors and racial stereotypes, these illustrations served as a powerful tool in both reflecting and shaping notions and attitudes towards China at a tumultuous time in Sino-British history. A close reading of both the visual and textual satires in Punch reveals how a section of British society visualised and negotiated with China as well as Britain’s position in the global community. By contextualising Punch’s cartoons within the broader frameworks of British socio-cultural and political discourse, the author engages in a critical enquiry of popular culture and its engagements with race, geopolitical propaganda, and public consciousness. With a wide array of illustrations, this book in the Global Perspectives in Comics Studies series will be an important resource for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, political history and Empire, Chinese studies, popular culture, Victoriana, as well as media studies. It will also be of interest to readers who want to learn more about Punch, its history, and Sino-British relations.