Edward Rex / Keppler. - Public domain portrait engraving

Puck was founded by Austrian-born cartoonist Joseph Keppler and his partners as a German-language publication in 1876. Puck’s first English-language edition in 1877. The magazine name came from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream: “What fools these mortals be!” Puck used lithography instead of wood engraving and offered three cartoons vs. one of competitors. The cartoons were initially printed in black and white, but soon it changed into full, eye-catching color. Within a few years, Judge supplanted Puck as the leading humor magazine.

Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, introduced the subject of colored lithography in 1818. Printers in other countries, such as France and England, were also started producing color prints. The first American chromolithograph—a portrait of Reverend F. W. P. Greenwood—was created by William Sharp in 1840. Chromolithographs became so popular in American culture that the era has been labeled as "chromo civilization". During the Victorian times, chromolithographs populated children's and fine arts publications, as well as advertising art, in trade cards, labels, and posters. They were also used for advertisements, popular prints, and medical or scientific books.