Our Animal ABC (Charles E. Graham & Co., circa 1900)

Another turn of the century ABC book which looks very much like a modern comic book.  Primers and spellers and the like don't get their proper due in the history of comics.

Terrific artwork, though the "X-mas" baby looks a little old for the part.  Interesting to see "X-mas" being used here, given the controversy associated nowadays with the abbreviation!

Lee

Happy Time ABC (McLoughlin Bros., 1900)

Comic strip on six trade (advertising) cards--King's Quick-Rising Flour (late 19th century?)

Lee

Picture Story of Two Bad Boys (Our Young Folks--November, 1871)

A dark reading of Jack and Jill (1878)!

From More Classics of Babyland (1878), one dark reading of the story of Jack and Jill!  We like to think of the middle-class folks of this era as genteel, but if this is any indication of their stance on corporal punishment, then... yikes.

Lee

Illustrations for "Tale of a Comet" (1881)

Comic book-style illustrations (illustrator not credited) for J.T. Trowbridge's poem, "A Tale of a Comet," in the January, 1881 issue of Wide Awake magazine.

More from Aesop's Fables (1884):

This is a follow-up to an earlier post.  Here's another chapter from this amazing 1884 children's volume, with superb (and mildly nightmarish!) art by Edmund H. Garrett.

The Union Pictorial Primer (1866): The modern comic book layout in progress