professor of rhetoric and belle-lettres at the Academy of Geneva, Töpffer not only wrote popular fiction (graphic novels, novels, plays) but also a host of scholarly works addressing the relationship between aesthetics and poetics. Pulling from Töpffer's scholarly corpus, Figueiredo argues that Töpffer's invention of graphic novels was the manifestation of a much broader media theory, one that engaged with the social, cultural, political, and technological shifts accompanying the Industrial Revolution in the early- and mid-nineteenth century. While Figueiredo's primary focus is to situate Töpffer in the histories of rhetoric, media studies, and the emergence of what Gregory L. Ulmer has called the apparatus of electracy, these essays also resonate with affect theory, apparatus theory, art history, graphic novels, literary studies, philosophy, sensory studies, and writing studies. About the Editor and Translator Sergio C. Figueiredo is Assistant Professor of Media and Rhetoric in the Department of English at Kennesaw State University. He received his PhD in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design from Clemson University, and his MA in English from Marshall University. His research focuses on the intersections of rhetorical theory, media studies, and electracy. His work has appeared in Textshop Experiments, ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, Journal of Visual Literacy, and In Media Res: A Media Commons Project. He serves as a Fellow with the Global Art and Ideas Nexus, contributing to the organization's e-Magazine, Esthesis, and special programs, including the Critical Conversations series.