YOU say ("Glasgow revealed as the cradle of comic books since Victorian Age", The Herald, November 14) that Scotland can lay claim to the origins of the art form of comics and that the world's first comic, Glasgow Looking Glass, was created in the city in 1825. This newspaper-style document, held by Glasgow University and which is to go on display at a special one-off Night at the Museum event, is claimed to be the first publication to carry cartoons "playing out a narrative in a sequential manner" and involving techniques "which would later become standards of the industry, such as the use of speech bubbles, captions, satire and caricature".
Surely a much earlier speech bubble can be found in the famous bird's eye view (Anon. 1567) of scenes following the murder of Mary Queen of Scots' husband Lord Darnley at Edinburgh's Kirk o' Field. This political picture illustrates, disrespectfully, the dead body of Darnley and its later removal; also the body of his servant and its later burial. And there are captions: "ye place of ye murther", and others. Henry and Mary's infant son, the future James VI of Scotland and I of England, is depicted in bed, crying out in his voice bubble, "Judge and revenge my caus O Lord".
Mrs C Lincoln,
1/12 Pentland Drive, Edinburgh.
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