Imagerie d'Epinal Album d'Images (1888) comic books 1984

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Reprint edition, publication date unknown. This is a 39-40 page, hardcover edition with a blue background. Full color, French text, no date or indicia, though we suspect this is a modern reprint. "Imagerie d'Epinal Album d' Images" by various French artists. Printed and hand colored in France expressly for the Humoristic Publishing Company by Jean-Charles Pellerin's Imagerie d'Epinal printing house, which was founded in 1796. Printed on one side only. This is a collection of forty or so broadsheets (actual number of broadsheets vary by copy; a broad sheet is a single sheet), originally sold separately. According to Overstreet, all known copies were collected with sheets 15-20, 23,24, 47 and 48 missing. Each broadsheet tells a different fairy tale, in sequential art panels (with accompanying descriptive text below each panel). This historically important graphic collection presages the format used by Hal Foster in his Prince Valiant strips by some fifty years, and is a clear forerunner of the modern day comic book. Pellerin for Humoristic Publishing Co., Kansas City, Mo; no date but Overstreet states the original was published in 1888. 11-1/2" x 15-1/2", Page count may vary per copy (around 40). Full color hardcover, hand colored interior.