Michel Kempeneers
Fig.
1. Screenshot of the “David Kunzle Page” on the Töpfferiana website.
Introduction
In order to pay tribute to comics history
pioneer, David Kunzle (1936-2024), the “Töpfferiana” website takes a unique
initiative and shares most of Kunzle’s writings on early comics on a dedicated
“Kunzle Page,” thus making them available to scholars and researchers.
Though, in 2025, comics are widely spread
and the subject of significant academic interest, “early comics” remain a field
apart, and a highly specialized one.
Since Kunzle started his academic career
in the 1960s, he has always remained an important voice in this field, maybe
even the only one reaching a broader, not necessarily, academic audience. More
importantly, Kunzle probably was the only high-profile author trying to get
books on the subject published.
This has never been easy, though, not even
for a researcher of Kunzle’s reputation. In his early years, because Kunzle demanded
his “Early Comics” volumes be published in a huge format, (to do justice to the
reproductions of broadsides), even though most of them still required a reduced
format to fit them on the “early comics” pages. But even in the new millennium,
Kunzle complained, among insiders, of a lack of interest by his publisher, who
kept postponing the publication of, for example: his Cham book, without ever providing a
satisfactory explanation for yet another delay. Surprisingly, Kunzle was always
worried that his publisher would no longer be interested in his next book, which
also shows how keen he was on sharing his findings with an interested audience,
even long after he had officially retired as an academic.
David Kunzle
(Tribute) Page
The organizers of the yearly, “Platinum
Meeting,” which is organized in the margin of the Angoulême “Festival de la BD,”
end of January, found it appropriate to start their gathering of Platinum Age[i] scholars with a tribute to
Kunzle. Participants shared testimonies and anecdotes, and one researcher
wondered if anyone in the audience was aware of the status of Kunzle’s two
landmark books on early comics. “Kunzle 1” (1973) and “Kunzle 2” (1990), as
these are commonly tagged, had been out-of-print for ages, and nothing seemed
to indicate that the University of California Press was ever going to reprint
them. The answer was negative, and the meeting’s organizers promised to reach
out to Mrs. Marjorie Kunzle and inquire.
They quickly found out that Mrs. Kunzle
holds the rights to all of David’s articles, and, it later turned out, that the
same goes for both “early comics” volumes. Mrs. Kunzle was completely in
agreement with the suggestion that both volumes be spread as pdf files among
the early comics community, though she would not actively participate in any
concrete project to make that happen.
During these exchanges, the idea grew to
grab the occasion and to really pay tribute to Kunzle’s legacy of half a
century of research on early comics. And, why limit the effort to Kunzle’s
first two major works, when it seemed possible to stretch it to all of Kunzle’s
writings on the subject and share these on one platform? This way, scholars
would have a single point of access, and, thus, be able to more easily advance
with their own research projects.
As we were convinced that Kunzle himself
would have loved that idea, and with Mrs. Kunzle backing it, the “David Kunzle(tribute) Page” (DKP) was born. “Töpfferiana.fr” seemed the logical place to
host it, for the site shares a focus on early comics, and since, for a couple
of years, it also organizes the Angoulême “Platinum Meeting.”
So, we set out to compile Kunzle’s comics
bibliography. It seemed easiest to kick off with articles and book chapters, as
we were already sure that there would not be any rights issues with these.
Moreover, we discovered that, in February 2024, independent scholar, Hillel
Schwartz, published a draft of Kunzle’s complete bibliography, all subjects
included,[ii] i.e., not only comics,
but also posters, arts, and even corsets(!). Schwartz imposed only one
important limitation on this cv; it would not include the many reviews written
by Kunzle.[iii]
From Schwartz’s overview, we retrieved all
comics-related articles and book chapters, and ordered chronologically in an
Excel table. Such an underlying table will allow researchers to also easily search
the set for specific data, or extend their own copy with extras for personal
use. That may sound trivial for a corpus consisting solely of early comics
articles, as it will probably consist of little more than some 40 entries. But,
if ever the list is extended to other areas in which Kunzle’s expertise led to
publications, that may quickly change, so it seemed better to foresee such potential
extensions in the specifics of the current table. Besides, it is not impossible
that, at some point in the future, the current project scope is extended to
include reviews, both by and of Kunzle.
All in all, it took less than a week to
gather about 15 articles, which presumably already contained most of the
essential ones. At the DKP Go Live on March 2, the counter stood at 26
articles/chapters out of 38 pieces identified, and early June (deadline for this
article), these figures are 37 out of 45, i.e., almost 82 percent, with a
couple more files to come. But, the real gems are the pdf versions of “Kunzle 1”
and “Kunzle 2,”[iv]
Structure
All shared articles are in pdf format. We
harmonized their presentation, as well as the way the corresponding files are
named. Moreover, we made it a point to only share searchable files, for this
characteristic is one of the prime reasons for researchers to be keen on
e-versions of reference materials. We also made sure to document all such
specifics in the detailed Excel table. That file is only aimed at visitors
needing more details; the overview on the DKP of all articles and book chapters
identified (and their download links) will be more than sufficient for most
people.
On top of that, we explicitly marked every
article which we have not been able to locate; this way, scholars and
researchers who consult the DKP, or its Excel table, and discover that they
have a pdf copy available of one of the Kunzle writings still missing in our offer,
can reach out and share, so that we can add it to the DKP at the next update. In
fact, this already happened almost immediately after we publicized the
initiative on the Platinum discussion list.
Fig.
2. Excerpt of the article bibliography on Töpfferiana’s “David Kunzle Page.”
It is also worth pointing out that the
overview makes no distinction between languages (English, French, Spanish,
...), and does not try either to establish a logic between articles with the
same subject. Indeed, as is the case for most academics, no subjects were ever
really “completed” for Kunzle. He kept reworking them, leaving out parts,
updating others, and adding new finds and insights, possibly reacting to fellow
researchers. Kunzle made no distinction between languages while doing so: any journal wanting to publish his--then
current--insights, was entitled to a state-of-the-art article, regardless of
language. (Kunzle was fluent in four or five languages.)
Future
An inherent danger of any tribute
initiative is that it outgrows its purpose; tribute has been paid, check.
People have no obvious reason to return; they have visited the site, secured
all the extras they wanted, or found the information they were looking for.
Full stop.
Töpfferiana is very much aware of this
pitfall and wants to avoid it by approaching the DKP as work-in-progress. In
practice, the DKP team will try to add novelties on a regular basis, and will
notify its core community of any such updates. In a sense, this boils down to
giving the DKP some of the characteristics of a periodical. The aim is to share
something bound to interest the early comics community every three months or
so.
So far, the DKP has not only shared Kunzle
articles; it celebrated its first update by also adding some Kunzle tributes
spontaneously offered to the DKP by researchers who had known Kunzle for a long
time. More tributes will be added in due time.
Furthermore, Philippe Kaenel of Lausanne
University (Switzerland), a long-time friend and colleague of Kunzle, recently
suggested to Töpfferiana to open up the DKP to other historic research on
Töpffer, other reference articles on Töpffer which have become very difficult
to find unless one has easy access to a good research library.
Rodolphe Töpffer (1799-1846) was already
on the radar of Kunzle’s mentor, Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001), the influential
art and culture historian, and he is probably the artist whom Kunzle studied for
the longest time. And, logically, Töpfferiana itself would find it difficult to
hide or deny its sympathy for this Swiss comics pioneer. Kaenel shared several
of his own articles on Töpffer with the DKP team, who probably have added them
already. On the other hand, chances are that the DKP will be able to share the
articles of the Töpffer coffee table book, published in 1996 by (then) Swiss
publisher, Skira. That book accompanied the celebrations for the 150th
anniversary of Töpffer’s death, and has been out-of-print for decades.[v]
Obviously, it would be beneficial if the
missing Kunzle articles were to be added. As they are not readily available on
the academic e-platforms, that may turn out to be complicated, but we are
confident that researchers will contribute, because Kunzle has left a strong
impression with generations of them, especially the ones who were lucky to meet
him. We also hope that we will be able to add Kunzle publications in less
obvious languages, e.g., German, as we have also identified some of these. That
would be helpful, especially because Kunzle always had a keen interest in
seeing his writings spread as widely as possible. For him, that wasn’t a matter
of ego, but he was very much aware how little has been written about early
comics, and how important it is to make Töpffer & Co. available to
audiences who don’t know French.
The DKP team decided to also add an
atypical, unusual contribution of the “early” Kunzle, which we believe tells a
lot about his drive then, and, which is definitely worth pointing out.
In 1972, before “Kunzle 1,” Kunzle translated
an article by the French author, Francis Lacassin (1931-2008), for the Fall
issue of Film Quarterly.[vi] In this article, Lacassin
argued that the “language” of the comic strip shows many similarities, and even
some historical priorities, over the language of film. Curiously, it turns out
that there is no genuine source article by Lacassin: in fact, Kunzle combined a recent article and
a huge chapter from a new book, both by Lacassin, directly into an English
summary. In the process, he added a
couple of small footnotes, and, more importantly, extended his Lacassin summary
with four more pages of comments, even adding illustrations, as he wanted to
update some of Lacassin’s findings by his own, not yet published, ones. Obviously,
he did so with the consent of the journal, which even publicized this unusual
translation in the article’s introduction.
If similar unexpected finds pop up, we
will make sure to add them to the DKP, as they definitely have historical
importance.
Opportunity
It may not be obvious at first, but the
DKP also offers a test case for “collaborative improvement” or “enrichment” of
these source materials. Indeed, it seems that this specific format for a
tribute page, with shared materials, has never been deployed before. The DKP
offers opportunities to probe how such a project might evolve, when it appeals
to its reader community, not only for them to fill holes in the current offer,
but also to investigate which added value a community can offer to factually
improve key works, such as “Kunzle 1” or “Kunzle 2,” and how their findings can
best be shared with the early comics community. A first attempt to do so is on
the DKP already, for interested researchers to discover.[vii] Similarly, it can help
to offer added value to users by providing bookmarks, e.g., of the
publication’s structure, or to add pagination when missing, so that these users
do not have to re-invent the wheel. The point here is to see if the community
feels like participating to the effort, and if it does so spontaneously, or, on
the contrary, it must be stimulated and encouraged to do so.
The
DKP can be consulted here:
http://www.topfferiana.fr/2025/03/david-kunzles-bibliography.
The
“Platinum Age Comics” discussion group is hosted by Google Groups:
https://groups.google.com/g/platinum-age-comics.
[i] Roughly
anything pre-World War II, but, especially, because European comics focus is
mostly on 19th Century production.
[iii] One
notable exception is Kunzle’s review of Thierry Groensteen’s “M. Töpffer
invente la bande dessinée” (Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2014) for European
Comic Art, 7-2 (Autumn 2014). This review also contains a personal
biographical account of the origins of his own interest in Töpffer. Hence, it
seemed worth adding to the list.
Similarly, Kunzle’s “Review Essays” for
the International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA) have been withheld. For,
indeed, as the name indicates, this particular IJOCA format is more than
merely a review, and is like a lengthy article triggered by a new publication, as
reviews get considerably less space in the IJOCA.
[iv] Contrary
to popular belief, Kunzle’s final book, Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870 (University
Press of Mississippi, 2021), is not the last volume of his History of
the Comic Strip series, which had been announced as a trilogy. Rebirth...
does not contain any such reference, and the description of the would-be
content of this volume in Ian Gordon’s Kunzle tribute on the IJOCA blog
makes clear that this third volume, unfortunately, never materialized (see,
https://ijoca.blogspot.com/2024/01/ian-gordon-remembers-david-kunzle.html, accessed
on March 16, 2025).
[v] Even
though, in 1996, Kunzle had already been an established international Töpffer authority
for several years, he did not contribute to the Skira book. For administrative reasons,
it was not possible to include an article by him.
[vi] “The
Comic Strip and Film Language,” Film Quarterly. 26 (1, Fall 1972):
11-23. As hinted by Michael Connerty on the Platinum discussion list March 5,
2025.
[vii] For
example, in his “Kunzle 2” (Note 19, p.109), Kunzle (notoriously) states that
he did not find a copy of Gustave Doré’s Holy Russia at the French
National Library (BnF), which, he found surprising. In the Internet era, it is
easy to establish that Kunzle was wrong, but not really so, as it turns out
that the BnF does have a copy, be it not in book format, but as loose
sheets (prints). Hence, the BnF’s Holy Russia set is kept in the
Prints Department.
________________________
Michel
Kempeneers is an independent Belgian comics scholar. After
several decades of comics journalism in the national press, he has turned his
focus to proto-comics and 19th-Century illustrated press, the latter
especially through e-versions shared online by major reference libraries. A version of this article will appear in IJOCA 27-1.
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