Krazy Kat

This book stands as the best introduction to one of the best comic strips ever produced. Not only is it packed with hard to find "Krazy Kat" strips, but it also includes a biography of the artist, George Herriman. Some consider Herriman the first African-American mainstream cartoonist. His colleagues didn't know his ethnicity (and Herriman didn't tell them) so some called him "the Greek". He felt he had to hide some of his features from the public. For example, he kept his very curly hair closely cut and hidden under a hat. Not only that, his birth certificate shows his parent's ethnicity as "colored". The prejudices of the time likely would not have allowed an African-American the mainstream status and freedom allowed to George Herriman. So through "Krazy Kat" we get a glimpse of what early 20th century American culture may have missed out on due to its racial myopia. For "Krazy Kat" stands as an absolute masterpiece of its genre. Herriman found some modicum of fame in his lifetime. William Randolph Hearst (the newspaper magnate) loved Herriman's work and rewarded him with a lifetime contract (according to the biography in the book, Hearst once read a "Krazy Kat" Sunday page and immediately demanded a raise for the artist). Herriman's success didn't come quickly, however. His first big break came in 1897 with the sale of a sketch to the Los Angeles Herald. Around 1901 he landed his first job as a "Staff Cartoonist" (a person who literally reported to the office every day and rattled off strip after strip; very different from today's cartoonists). Between 1901 and 1916 Herriman penned numerous strips (the book includes samples of many of these strips - many in color), including: "Musical Mose" (this strip's overt racial humor would not fly today), "Professor Otto and His Auto", "Acrobatic Archie", "Two Jolly Jackies", "Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade", "Home Sweet Home", "Baron Mooch", "Mary's Home From College", "Gooseberry Sprig" (considered to be a direct forerunner to "Krazy Kat"), "Alexander the Cat", "Daniel and Pansy", and finally, in 1910, "The Dingbat Family" (which changed its name briefly to "The Family Upstairs"; it was Herriman's first hit). It was in a "Dingbat Family" strip in 1910 that a mouse first "beaned" a "Kat" with a projectile (in the "running boards" of the strip). Eventually the Kat and mouse sideshow surpassed the main strip's popularity, and "Krazy Kat" debuted as a daily in October 1913 (the famous Sunday pages began in 1916). Herriman kept experimenting with other strips through 1923 when he finally placed his focus squarely on "Krazy Kat". From roughly 1913 to 1944 (when Herriman passed away leaving a week's worth of unfinished Krazy Kat's on his drawing table) "Krazy Kat" developed from a "Kat" and mouse game (filled with puns, misunderstandings, and musings on the imperfections of language) into a complex love triangle between Krazy (the "Kat"), Ignatz (the mouse) and Offisa Pupp (the dog). Ignatz's entire being

This is what all popular art forms should be. A social commentary as love poem. And poem this is. There is very little that someone can write about the Krazy experience without treading in the same terran as this wonderful book. This is were your Krazy love afair begins. And unlike Ignatz you don't show your love with a brick.

fine anthologies like this will have to do.compiled principally by patrick mcdonnell (artist and author of "mutts" -- the finest contemporary comic strip) this is a good introduction to the best comic strip of all time. for some thirty years in the first half of the american century, george herriman created one of the greatest works of american art and literature. based almost entirely on variations on a theme (cat loves mouse, dog loves cat, mouse throws brick, cat deems said abuse [rightly?] as a sign of love), herriman caught the essence of a country barely growing up, as well as love in all its potential manifestations."krazy kat" can be appreciated as allegory, or it can be enjoyed simply as damned funny. this volume will allow you to have a bit of both.but oh dear, when will some brave publisher issue the entire run?

KRAZY KAT IS THE FUNNIEST, MOST LUNATIC PIECE OF COMICLITERATURE. The mechanics of Krazy Kat are time-honored anddeceptively simple: there is a cat, a mouse, a dog, and the hurling of a brick. HERE ARE A FEW COMMENTS MADE BY OTHER FAMOUSE PEOPLE IN TRIBUTE TO HERRIMAN: "an immediate progenitor of the Beat Generation and its roots could be traced back to the glee of America, the honesty of America, its wild, self-believing individuality", Jack Kerouac I discovered Krazy Kat when a large anthology of the strip was published in 1969. The book is an editorial disaster, but it did show a lot of Krazy Kat strips, and I admired the work immediately. Krazy Kat seems to be one of those strips people either love or don't get at all. Krazy Kat is nothing but variations on a simple theme, so the magic of the strip is not so much in what it says but in how it says it. Ignatz Mouse throws bricks at Krazy out of contempt, but Krazy interprets this as a gesture of affection instead. Meanwhile, the law - Offissa Pupp - futilely tries to interfere with a process that's completely satisfying to all parties for all the wrong reasons. This weird, recycling plot can be interpreted as a metaphor for love or politics - or it can just be enjoyed for its own lunatic charms. The strip constantly plays with its own form, and becomes a sort of essay on cartoon existentialism. The background scenery changes from panel to panel, and day can turn to night and back again during a brief conversation.Similarly, Herriman played with language and dialect, inserting Spanish, phonetically spelled mispronounced words, slang, and odd, alliterative phrases, giving the strip a unique atmosphere. The drawings are scratchy and peculiar, but they provide a beautiful visual context to the equally idiosyncratic writing. Krazy Kat's sparse Arizona landscape, like Pogo's dense Georgia swamp, is more than a backdrop. The land is really a character in the story, and it gives a specific mood and flavor to all the proceedings. The constraint of Krazy Kat's narrow plot seems to have set free every other aspect of the cartoon to become poetry, and the strip is, to my mind, cartooning at its most pure. The wonderful dialects and wordplays of Krazy Kat are as impossible now as the beautiful draftsmanship that characterized that strip and others. Bill Watterson(Creator of "Calvin and Hobbes") " As `Cholly Kokonino' would put it ~ The Whoest of the Whos were There. The Dimless Dames of Coconino, the Merry Wives in Full Galaxy, The Representatives of the "Desierto Pintado's" Social Apex. Drifting now to a Lower Social Level, We find `Krazy Kat' Propelled by a Great Sense, and urge of Kuriosity on his Way to the Enchanted Mesa, on Whose Topside, `Joe Stork' The Bird of Destiny, Makes his Home." - George Herriman, April 21, 1918 ... be not harsh with "Krazy" -- He is but a shadow himself, caught in the web of this mortal skein. We call him "cat", We call him "crazy", Yet he is neither. At some time he will

This is a wonderful introduction to George Herriman's great comic strip Krazy Kat that ran for several decades in the early twentieth century. This introduction provides biographical background to Herriman's art, a survey of some of his influences, and a very healthy dose of Krazy Kat panels, both color and black & white. It also discusses the way that Krazy Kat became a cultural phenomenon, easily one of the most highly regarded comics of the century, and permeating many other arts as well. The Krazy Kat strip is utterly insane, surreal stuff. Here is the premise: Krazy Kat (who is usually female but is sometimes apparently male) is in love with Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz loathes Krazy, and to prove it konstantly kreases that kat's krown with a brick. Incredibly, Krazy sees this as proof of Ignatz's affection, and falls even more deeply in love (many panels show hearts rising from Krazy's heart when she is hit by one of Ignatz's bricks). Officer Pup, the town constable, is in love with Krazy and frequently throws Ignatz into jail for hitting Krazy, which causes Krazy to pine for her would-be lover. This is merely the barest sketch of this weird and wild world. The town of Concocino is populated by a host of equally outrageous characters, though the focus continually comes back to the three principals. Though even the most recent of these strips are over sixty years old, Krazy Kat has stood up magnificently over the years. Part of the reason surely lies with Herriman's enormous gifts as an illustrator. The Sunday strips in particular are things of great beauty, with the frames arcing around the page in spectacular designs of considerable innovation and complexity. The content of the comics reflects a genuine wit and substantial intelligence, while the bizarre love triangle possesses endless possibilities for both humor and pathos. This truly is one of the most unique comics in the history of the medium, and even those who do not usually respond to the genre are apt to find this enormously entertaining.