CBR Live! Archive
Emoticons from the 1880s
- by Brian Cronin
- in General
A cute bit I came across while looking at Joseph Keppler was the discovery of emoticons in his magazine, Puck, in 1881!
Or as they term it, "typographical art."

Hilarious!
- Posted on October 20, 2008 @ 12:30 PM






16 Comments
Apodaca
October 20, 2008 at 12:48 pm
That IS funny.
Matt Algren
October 20, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Talk about being ahead of your time. He didn't even copyright them!
bloomberg
October 20, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I think we need more "tyrannical crowd[s] of artists"...was this in response to anything in particular?
Jono11
October 20, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I think they're just having a little joke.
STWALLSKULL » INTERESTING LINKS: King Features Syndicate’s 1949 Famous Artists and Writers: October 22nd, 2008
October 22, 2008 at 8:05 am
[...] Emoticons from the 1880s from Comics Should Be Good! [...]
STWALLSKULL » INTERESTING LINKS: King Features Syndicate’s 1949 Famous Artists and Writers: October 22nd, 2008
October 22, 2008 at 9:48 am
[...] Emoticons from the 1880s from Comics Should Be Good! [...]
OM
October 22, 2008 at 10:53 am
...I remember when the emoticons started appearing back in the mid;80's on BBS's and BITNET relay chats, and someone quoted Keppler back then. Most people didn't know who he was anymore, and apparently didn't care that much.
Vinnie Bartilucci
October 22, 2008 at 11:02 am
I wonder what the Acronyms were like?
PTMS - Pray tell me, sir...
SSICL – Shifting Slightly In Char Laughing
FSIMI – Fanning Self in Mock Indignation
who uses… « i’m not drunk enough for this.
October 22, 2008 at 11:12 am
[...] check out his post on the matter. [...]
DeTroyes
October 22, 2008 at 1:11 pm
No doubt, these were meant to be used on Babbage's Difference Engine?
And... I think I'm going to have to start using PTMS in ordinary 'net conversation....
Alexa
October 22, 2008 at 5:37 pm
LOL. This is almost as good as when I found out that 1830s New Englanders liked to use "comical misspellings". If only photography had been more advanced, they may have come up with lolcats on their own.
.com-icks
October 26, 2008 at 4:47 am
wow! love it!
final round of links for October « …the importance of being, Andy.
October 26, 2008 at 10:51 pm
[...] in the 1880s?  Pshhh. Show me some ASCII art and then I’ll be [...]
Really Sarah Syndication » Blog Archive » Emoticons from the 1880s
October 27, 2008 at 1:04 am
[...] Comic Book Resources — with thanks to Michael Danziger for the tip] « Large Display [...]
Emoticons anno 1881 « sehsucht
November 7, 2008 at 1:42 pm
[...] at 21:40 Emoticons sollen eine Erfindung des Internetzeitalters sein? Von wegen. Brian Cronin von Comic Book Resources hat diese aus typographischem Material zusammengebastelten Smilies in einem 127 Jahre (!) alten [...]
::{ Yip Yop }::
December 4, 2008 at 9:00 am
[...] of print shops from all over. Awesome. Friday, 28 November 2008 19th Century emoticons. Studies in Passions and Emotions, 100 years ahead of its time. (via Typophile) Tuesday, 25 November 2008 The antique phonograph [...]