Today the earliest known comic book is called The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck. Originally published in several languages in Europe in 1837, among them an English version designed for Britain in 1941. A year later it was that version reprinted in New York on Sept. 14, 1842 for Americans, making it the first comic book printed in America. Odadiah Oldbuck is 40 pages long and measured 8 ½" x 11". The book was side stitched, and inside there were 6 to 12 panels per page. No word balloons, but there is text under the panels to describe the story. A copy of it was discovered in Oakland, California in 1998.
The comic was done by Switzerland's Rudolphe Töpffer, who has been considered in Europe (and starting to become here in America) as the creator of the picture story. He created the comic strip in 1827 and the comic book/graphic novel. Rudolphe Töpffer created several (7 is known) graphic novels that were extremely successful and reprinted in many different languages, several of them had English versions in America in 1846. The books remained in print in America until 1877. There are an unknown amount of Victorian Age Comic Books, this era of comic book history is still being discovered, researched and recorded. When more information is available I'll be writing about this as well.
TheComicsBooks.com - The History of Comic Books