Sorry Jazzgirl I don't understand ;0).
My Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, (15th edition) does not call penny-dreadfuls comics.
My OED, Second Edition, Vol 111, CHAM- CREEKY, p536, has the entry, under the sub-heading 'comic papers:' 1910, H.G. Wells, Mr Polly, "one of those inspiring weeklies that dull people used to call 'penny dreadfuls, admirable weeklies crammed with imagination that the cheap boys' 'comics' of today have replaced."
Vol X1,of the OED, OW- POISANT, p484, gives five examples of the historical use of penny-dreadful and not one defines it as a comic.
In Eric Patridge's A Dictionary of Slang, 1974 Edition, it is defined as a sensational story or print, and was obsolete by 1910 .
Comics to me are The Dandy, Beano, Viz and so on.
The nearest in form to Victorian penny-dreadfuls were the boys' comics of the 40s and 50s, Rover, Wizard, and Hotspur, being largely textual with few illustrations. Penny dreadfuls were not meant to induce mirth, which is what I take comics to be.
And having read over what I have just written, I can't help thinking that I shoulda stood in bed.