When one goes back to the graphic roots of what Hoberman called vulgar modernism the influence of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy on the first albums drawn by Cham and Gustave Doré in the romantic age appears particularly significant. As it happens, both authors, during the 1840s and 1850s, introduced typically Sternian gestures of facetious reflexivity into the genre of picture stories invented by Töpffer. While identifying the factors that contributed to the robust inscription of this spirit of playful reflexivity in the tradition of humoristic drawing (up to the modern comic strips of the 20th century), we will try to understand why no visible trace of reflexive humour appears in the stories drawn by the “inventor of the comic strip” in spite of the fact that he was himself a dedicated reader of Sterne’s work.