James Gillray - 'The Table's turned - Billy in the devil's claws / Billy sending the devil packing'
Much more influencial than Hogarth or Goez were the thousands of British political cartoons. Most were just that, cartoons, meaning single image jokes. However, a huge number of them used (and developed the use of) speechbaloons. And a good number did in fact use two or more interdependant images to tell a story. (That means they were comics.)
William Hogarth 'The Harlot's Progress (1730) small version click here
The famous 'progressions' by Hogarth were not actually comics. The images don't lead into and don't interact with each other. Each shows a distinct, separate stage of a longer story. However, because of their great popularity, they established the very notion of telling entertaining stories with a series of pictures and so became a highly influencial stepping stone for future developments.
