Who says comics can’t be educational and hilarious?
Today, I’d like to share a very special online comic I admire very much! Please, let me introduce you to…
Pre-Raphernalia: The Pre-Raph Sketchbook Cartoons of Raine Szramski!
Raine Szramski is the awesome (and, not to mention, super nice) artist/illustrator of Pre-Raphernalia as well as another amazing series called Heaven & the Dead City, which can be either read online here or purchased here.
Pre-Raphernalia centers around the Victorian avant-garde artists known as The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including the likes of John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. These artists were quite eccentric, even by today’s standards, and lived oftentimes rowdy and scandalous lives.
What’s so wonderful about Pre-Raphernalia is that Raine takes the true historical events/relationships/facts and depicts them to the full extent of their eccentricity. When reading, I often find myself laughing out loud! Furthermore, she takes the time to write a full historically-accurate explanation of each comic, thoroughly detailing the backgrounds of each individual involved.
I highly recommend Pre-Raphernalia for anyone who wants to learn a little bit of history while having a fun time doing so. 
Below are a number of my favorite images/pages from Pre-Raphernalia.
The following images belong to Raine Szramski.
For more Pre-Raphernalia and Raine Szramski, please check out the following websites…
www.facebook.com/raine.szramski
www.co2comics.com/pages/co2_heaven_and_the_dead_city.html
www.lulu.com/spotlight/co2comics
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Copyright 2013 by G. E. Gallas
January 7th, 2013 at 12:59 pm
Thanks so much for this post. The Watcher Tree blog spot is brilliant.
I must confess to being a great fan of Edward Burne-Jones. He made a series of strange, fairly crude paintings which have been published as ‘The Flower Book’ – based upon the old names of flowers but using mythological and Christian imagery, a lot of it very dark. I never get tired of looking at these images because they are so unique and intense.
January 7th, 2013 at 1:51 pm
No problem, I’m glad you enjoyed this post!
I’m a tiny bit familiar with Edward Burne-Jones, especially as William Morris’s buddy. Thanks for pointing out “The Flower Book” to me — seems definitely up my alley! Best, G. E.
January 7th, 2013 at 11:33 pm
I love it, thank you so much for bringing this to my attention
January 8th, 2013 at 12:40 am
No problem, that is wonderful to hear!!!
–G. E.
January 8th, 2013 at 9:29 am
I oove it! Thanks for steering me towards it!
January 8th, 2013 at 10:58 am
Yay, that’s wonderful!! So glad!!
–G. E.
January 12th, 2013 at 10:08 am
This is brilliant! Funnily enough, I spent the last two days taking part in a conference on the Pre-Raphaelites and one of the papers was about the Pre-Raphaelites in the media (most of it dreadful, e.g. a BBC miniseries called Desperate Romantics which the speaker described as ‘Entourage with easels’!). If only other popular books and tv shows were as funny AND as historically accurate as Pre-Raphernalia…
January 12th, 2013 at 11:58 am
Thanks for the awesome comment! Sounds like a fascinating conference! Now that you mention it “Entourage with easels” does sound like an accurate description of “Desperate Romantics,” ha ha ha.
I’m glad I could introduce you to such an amazing webcomic! Best regards, G. E.
January 19th, 2013 at 10:26 pm
Love Pre Raphs and reading about their complicated lives .. I have way too many books about them .. but this made me laugh ! and so to the point
January 19th, 2013 at 11:32 pm
Always nice to meet a fellow Pre-Raph enthusiast! Glad you’re enjoying Raine Szramski’s wonderful humor!
Best regards, G. E.