Who invented the speech bubble and when was it first used?

One of the earliest antecedents to the modern speech bubble was the speech scroll - wispy lines that connected first person speech to the mouths of speakers in Meso-American art. In Western graphic art, labels that reveal what a figure is saying have appeared even in the 13th century. Word balloons began appearing in 18th century printed broadsides and political cartoons from the American Revolution often used them.