History of the comic books in Europe

Much like many other forms of artistic expression that have achieved great popularity in modern times , comics also originated and evolved during the period of Renaissance that swept through continental Europe in the late 15th and 16th century A .D . Although , these early pictorial caricatures differed widely from the modern-day comic strips , as we know them , theless , they became a powerful medium for cultivating public opinion on diverse subjects

Quite naturally , the earliest comics drew heavily from social and political themes prevailing in Europe at that time . In the late 15th

century for example , woodcuts depicting contemporary religious , moral and political themes became quite popular in Germany . In neighboring Holland , another early version of the modern day comic , called centsprent or mannekesprent , also began to receive considerable public attention with their depiction of the lives of holy men and themes from the Aesop 's fables etc . etc , However , with the development of letterpress printing and engraving techniques in Europe , in the wake of the industrial revolution , subsequently these illustrated works came to be fashioned in a more sophisticated manner . It was also around this time that `speech balloons , a mandatory element of comics , made their first appearance in England , in the propaganda banners prepared by Francis Barlow in `The Horrid Hellish Popish Plot . The winds of change that had upended the traditional social and political in Europe found their way into the themes of these illustrations and in no time at all , the satirized representation of social ills present...