Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

Bingham 21
Another artist who worked with Gillray and influenced the development of
modern comics was Thomas Rowlandson. Rowlandson first published “The
Schoolmaster's Tour” in Rudolph Ackermann's Poetical Magazine in 1809 (Tabachnick
8). The work was printed from of a series of engraved plates that were paired with
descriptive verses by William Combe. As a result of its serial success, the work was reissued
as the Tour of Dr. Syntax in the Search of the Picturesque three years later in 1812.
This bound album of the serially published work could be said to be a precursor to
comics as we know them today. In fact, this reissued album was so popular that it was
issued in a fifth edition the next year. Rowlandson capitalized on the public's infatuation
and curiosity with this character, creating new narratives based on new experiences: The
Second Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of Consolation (1820) and The Third Tour of Dr.
Syntax in Search of a Wife (1821) (Tabachnick 8). Ironically, the protagonist's name calls
attention to a facet of narrative and linguistic communication: syntax. Through this
clever incorporation, readers were perpetually reminded of the ways in which this
particular story was not merely limited to the content envisioned by its creators. The
work was informed by the past, including all of the individuals responsible for
developing and reinforcing linguistic structure, and was also simultaneously acting as a
vehicle contributing to this larger sense of an intertwined community. Redrawing Dr.
Syntax and expanding the narrative surrounding him, Rowlandson was a pioneer of
enlarging the canon of graphic narrative. As the success of this graphic narrative reveals,
collaboration was not an uncommon practice when producing such works.
Like Rowlandson's initial publication of the illustrated Dr. Syntax stories, comics
were mainly released in serial publications. One of the earliest and most widely read of