1849 PANTOMIME by Alfred Crowquill - A Link To The Past 0

[BOOT]

Recently picked up this comic book - PANTOMIME by Alfred Crowquill. (AS IT WAS, IS, AND WILL BE...TO BE PLAYED AT HOME) This was published in 1849 by J. Harwood of London. It was printed by Standedge & Company.

 

The booklet measures 6" by 10 1/8" in an oblong format, about the size of a standard comic book. It is printed on heavy paper, with heavier card stock covers. Every page is hand colored.

 

"Alfred Crowquill" was the pen name of Alfred Henry Forrester. He was an English author and artist who lived from 1804-1872. According to Wikipedia he wrote and illustrated many types of stories.

 

This is the only copy of this I have ever seen. There seems to be no mention of this in any comic reference book, and very little mention online. Harvard has a set of Crowquill's originals for another version of Pantomime that can be viewed here.

 

Though these originals show a different version, they contain many of the same elements of the printed comic.

 

PANTOMIME contains a single complete comic story. As I read this, I was amazed to see how this simple, silly tale contains many elements of later comic books:

• This shows love and lust, double entendres, gratuitous violence, comic mayhem, and the struggle between good and evil.
  
• It shows transformation of the main characters into costumed alter egos.
  
• Harlequin not only has a costume, but a mask, and a magic bat that grants him amazing powers.
  
• His nemesis, Clown, seems like an obvious precursor to the Joker. Like the Joker, the Clown "shows a great contempt for constituted authorities, and receives much applause."
  

The comic does not take itself seriously and pokes fun at itself, ending with...

 

Clown catches the Lovers tripping.

He seizes the magic Bat.

Harlequin loses his power.

Last Scene _ Blue Fire! Happy Lovers _ Everybody gets upon everybodies shoulders. Curtain falls.

 

Struck by how similar these characters and their adventures were to many Golden Age comic books, I checked out the history of the Harlequin. A whole genre of British theatre called the Harlequinade featured the stylized adventures of the characters of the Harlequin and the Clown. These plays were popular between the 17th and late 19th centuries.

 

Harlequinade at Wikipedia

 

The characters of the Harlequinade were derived in part from the earlier Commedia dell'arte, a stylized form of street theatre developed in Italy in the 16th century.

 

Commedia dell'arte at Wikipedia Commedia dell'arte at Wikipedia -

 

I hope this group of the savvy collectors enjoys seeing this fascinating link to the cultural antecedents of modern comic books. It's interesting to think how superheroes reflect archetypes from much older periods in human history!

 

Blue Fire! Happy Lovers _ Everybody gets upon everybodies shoulders. Curtain falls. Until next issue...

[BOOT]

PANTOMIME Part 2

[BOOT]

PANTOMIME Part 3

[rjpb]

Cool find. It's interesting to compare the two versions ( your's and Harvard's). It appears Forrester liked "rebooting" this story. I wonder if there are more versions.

[philippinescomics]

Very neat find. I had never heard of it either.

[jaybuck43]

Amazing find! Would love to know more about the book itself. For being 165 years old it looks in AMAZING condition. The colors pop amazingly. The paper seems to be in perfect white shape. What kind of paper is it? Looks like it was printed in London. How did you find it?

[tb]

What a fun book! I'm struck by how well the story and its humor holds up compared to contemporary, cringe inducing narratives like that of "Obadiah Oldbuck".

 

Are pantomime theater and the Harlequin character widely known in the US? In Denmark, where I grew up, every kid is familiar with the genre because of the Panthomime Theater in Tivoli. I read this book as a storyboard-like series of tongue-in-cheek gags about typical pantomime clichés. It's actually pretty clever and funny. Then again, perhaps I just used a lot of words stating the obvious.

[adamstrange]

Not that I'm aware of. I read widely as a kid and saw references to the characters in a number of book. This was always puzzling to me as I had never seen it in any written or visual form. As an adult, I have a vague recollection of seeing a portion of it in a film or two.

[BOOT]

Amazing find! Would love to know more about the book itself. For being 165 years old it looks in AMAZING condition. The colors pop amazingly. The paper seems to be in perfect white shape. What kind of paper is it? Looks like it was printed in London. How did you find it?

It's a heavier card stock sort of paper. You are right, it is a well-made object! Really love the hand-coloring!

 

BTW, recently found this full page print from 1870 of the same artist and characters, so he must have gotten some mileage out of them. Check this out - whoa - this guy was 100 years before Starlin and the like!

 

How did you find it?

[BOOT]

Here's a weird connection...

 

This back cover to a Gold Key Munsters comic from the Back Covers thread in CG has Crowquill's 1870 illustration as the background behind Herman...

 

[sfcityduck]

That is one of the coolest finds ever!