The article deals with the problem of the emergence and wide spread a new genre form - comic strip - in magazine illustration at the turn of the 19th - 20thcenturies. The object of this study are so-called “stories without words” created by A. Willette, T.-A. Stein- len and Carand' Ache for such illustrated magazines as “Le Chat Noir”, “Le Figaro”, and some others. In the article, the particular attention is paid to the historiographic review and the problem of studying the genre of comics in Russia and foreign countries. The author claims comic strip to be the basic genre form for the formation of the stable Francophone tradition of creation and mass consumption of the bande dessinée in the 20th century.