some phenomena in the media are older than is generally recognized

Again, some of the conventions of the 20th century comic books draw directly or indirectly on an even longer visual tradition:

• speech balloons can be found in the eighteenth century prints, which are in turn an adaptation of the 'text scrolls' coming from the mouths of the Virgin and other figures in medieval religious art.

Anon, The Vision of St. Bernard, Book of Hours c. 1470