The artist (1799-1846) is known for his extended comic picture novellas with rambling plots involving the mishaps of some knobbly old dolt with an appropriate surname. I confess to finding them impossible to read.

They always feel as if they were contributions to a weekly publication and, at the end of the contrct, the beginning has long been forgotten. The lazy way of remembering him is as the Father of the Strip Cartoon. Well, big deal. I like his spidery handwriting, and the correspondence with the visual narrative. His penwork is lively and truculently slap dash. His crowd scenes contain real turbulence and he does enjoy an opportunity for graphic repetions, as the ocean fiull of Turks above. His landscape is an acquired taste but frilly and full of tripping. I suspect his drawings are often magled in the reproductive process.

TOPPFER ON PHYSIOGNOMY