How did William Hogarth anticipate visual techniques later used in comic strips?

William Hogarth significantly advanced the narrative potential of visual art, raising the broadsheet picture story to an aesthetic level that influenced the development of the comic strip. He anticipated later comic techniques through several key innovations:1

• Purely Visual Narrative: Unlike earlier broadsheets that relied on captions, balloons, and legends, Hogarth’s storytelling was entirely visual. He integrated necessary inscriptions naturalistically into the scene, allowing the images to carry the weight of the narrative.1
• Satirical Counterpoint: He possessed an unrivaled sense of satirical counterpoint and topicality, using his work to critique social follies and the corruption of his time with both deep insight and physiognomic finesse.12
• Character-Driven Storytelling: Hogarth focused on types from all classes of society, often depicting the lives of protagonists—such as in A Rake’s Progress—with a mix of sympathy and sharp satire directed at those who exploited them.31
• Sequential Realism: By extracting instructive incidents from contemporary life, he moved toward a new kind of narrative art that prioritized vivid, honest naturalism, which served as a foundational precursor to the sequential storytelling found in modern comics.12