The Pioneers
The Pioneers |
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Page 4 of 35  Broadsheet showing the arrival of His Majesty, Prince Charles, at the Spanish Court in 1623. From these grim beginnings, gradually publishers began to realize that there might be a market for sheets involving humour. Thus, broadsheets began to appear involving caricatures of famous people and funny illustrations. The first examples tended to be expensive, and designed for a middle-class, monied audience with some knowledge of politics. Later, a working-class market thrived based on more slapstick themes. In both cases, the language of pictorial joke-telling was refined to the point where the use of captions and panelled borders became commonplace, with some gags being told in the form of strips. Indeed, there is evidence that these broadsheets were known as 'the comicals', sometimes abbreviated to 'the comics'. One important aspect of this shift towards humour was that the subversive power of pictorial satire was felt for the first time. Occasionally, things could get dangerous, as artists used the sheets to say things about royalty and politicians that they knew they could not get away with in the written word. As a result, the history of this period is peppered with stories of cartoonists being imprisoned, attacked or even assassinated for going too far. |