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[crashryan]

What a fascinating artifact! It surprised me to see how comic-llike it is, given that it's from 1847. Interesting story, good art and color.

Link to the book: London Out of Town

[Andrew999]

Yes, how interesting - it begs the question as to what was the first comic book? The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck apparently predates this one by ten years.

[paw broon]

Claims are made that the first "comic" was The Glasgow Looking Glass,
https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/june2005.html
Another short review, this time in Scots:-
https://wee-windaes.nls.uk/glasgow-looking-glass/
GLG was more illos with accompanying text, whereas London Out of Town seems to have at least 2 word balloons. Although we're back to the hoary old chestnut of whether you need word balloons to be a "proper" comic.
If you want a look at GLG, there are lots of illos available

[The Australian Panther]

I think I have posted about this before (As has Paw) but to my knowledge the first comic strip with regular repeating characters was Max and Moritz [written and illustrated by Wilhelm Busch and published in 1865], of which the argument can be made  that it is also unquestionably the longest continually running strip of all time.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_and_Moritz

Max and Moritz: A Story of Seven Boyish Pranks (original: Max und Moritz

[Andrew999]

Interesting stuff Crash/Panther - many thanks for the info.