DanielBenoit
08-04-2010, 10:24 PM
I have a joyful love for this most lovely and ingenious comic, which was named the number #1 comic of the century by Comics Journal (yes, it beat Peanuts) and has been praised in its time by such numerous thinkers and writers such as e.e. cummings, James Joyce and art critic Gilbert Seldes who called it in 1924 ""the most amusing and fantastic and satisfactory work of art produced in America today."
It is a beautiful and utterly unpretenscious work of American art which lasted from 1913 to 1944, created by George Herriman with such humanity and humour, that I am willing to call Krazy Kat and Ignatz the Don Quioxte and Sancho of the century.
Okay well, what is this supposedly brilliant comic about? Well it is based on the simplest and slapstick premise: "The strip focuses on the curious love triangle between its title character, a carefree and innocent cat of indeterminate gender (referred to as both male and female); the cat's antagonist, Ignatz Mouse; and the protective police dog, Officer Bull Pupp. Krazy nurses an unrequited love for the mouse; however, Ignatz despises Krazy and constantly schemes to throw a brick at Krazy's head, which Krazy takes as a sign of affection. Officer Pupp, as Coconino County's administrator of law and order, makes it his unwavering mission to interfere with Ignatz's brick-tossing plans and lock the mouse in the county jail." (from Wikipedia)
It's style and format: "Krazy Kat takes place in a heavily stylized version of Coconino County, Arizona, with Herriman filling the page with landscapes typical of the Painted Desert. These backgrounds tend to change dramatically between panels even while the characters remain stationary. A Southwestern visual style is evident throughout, with clay-shingled rooftops, trees planted in pots with designs imitating Navajo art, along with references to Mexican-American culture. The descriptive passages mix whimsical and often alliterative language with phonetically-spelled dialogue and a strong poetic sensibility ("Agathla, centuries aslumber, shivers in its sleep with splenetic splendor, and spreads abroad a seismic spasm with the supreme suavity of a vagabond volcano."). Herriman was fond of experimenting with unconventional page layouts in his Sunday strips, including panels of various shapes and sizes, arranged in whatever fashion he thought would best tell the story." (also from Wikipedia)
Throughout the years, Krazy Kat remained for the most part unpopular by an indifferent public, most likely disenchanted by the comic's wordplay, surrealism and complex characterization, as well as its lack of obvious ending punchlines and increasingly complex and non-linear structure.
By the late-twenties, Krazy Kat started to run into a more experimental and avant-garde turn that it came under almost constant threat of being canceled from the newspapers. But newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst had such faith in Herriman's genius that he demanded printers to keep it in, and did so until Herriman's death in 1944.
Alright, enough blabbing from me. The power of Herriman's work can only be comprehended from an increasing familiarity with the characters, storyline and style, so a few example will do little to help, as Krazy Kat is with little doubt, one of the least accessible of comic strips, but here are some of my favorites.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/1922_0121_krazykat_det_650.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hn8n88RMOr8/S7QNc2M5BNI/AAAAAAAAENc/3iI6yXBOFXA/s1600/hs_krazy-kat-1916-04-231.png
http://arflovers.com/Blog/images/04_13_07_krazykat1.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WFU1z0D2UFM/S8EkA9PrziI/AAAAAAAADjI/oSp_8Yph6W0/s1600/atavism.JPG
http://www.pollsb.com/photos/o/77440-krazy_kat.jpg
EDIT: Here are two great introductions to the comic:
http://krazy.com/cummings.htm
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/SELDES/ch15.html
It is a beautiful and utterly unpretenscious work of American art which lasted from 1913 to 1944, created by George Herriman with such humanity and humour, that I am willing to call Krazy Kat and Ignatz the Don Quioxte and Sancho of the century.
Okay well, what is this supposedly brilliant comic about? Well it is based on the simplest and slapstick premise: "The strip focuses on the curious love triangle between its title character, a carefree and innocent cat of indeterminate gender (referred to as both male and female); the cat's antagonist, Ignatz Mouse; and the protective police dog, Officer Bull Pupp. Krazy nurses an unrequited love for the mouse; however, Ignatz despises Krazy and constantly schemes to throw a brick at Krazy's head, which Krazy takes as a sign of affection. Officer Pupp, as Coconino County's administrator of law and order, makes it his unwavering mission to interfere with Ignatz's brick-tossing plans and lock the mouse in the county jail." (from Wikipedia)
It's style and format: "Krazy Kat takes place in a heavily stylized version of Coconino County, Arizona, with Herriman filling the page with landscapes typical of the Painted Desert. These backgrounds tend to change dramatically between panels even while the characters remain stationary. A Southwestern visual style is evident throughout, with clay-shingled rooftops, trees planted in pots with designs imitating Navajo art, along with references to Mexican-American culture. The descriptive passages mix whimsical and often alliterative language with phonetically-spelled dialogue and a strong poetic sensibility ("Agathla, centuries aslumber, shivers in its sleep with splenetic splendor, and spreads abroad a seismic spasm with the supreme suavity of a vagabond volcano."). Herriman was fond of experimenting with unconventional page layouts in his Sunday strips, including panels of various shapes and sizes, arranged in whatever fashion he thought would best tell the story." (also from Wikipedia)
Throughout the years, Krazy Kat remained for the most part unpopular by an indifferent public, most likely disenchanted by the comic's wordplay, surrealism and complex characterization, as well as its lack of obvious ending punchlines and increasingly complex and non-linear structure.
By the late-twenties, Krazy Kat started to run into a more experimental and avant-garde turn that it came under almost constant threat of being canceled from the newspapers. But newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst had such faith in Herriman's genius that he demanded printers to keep it in, and did so until Herriman's death in 1944.
Alright, enough blabbing from me. The power of Herriman's work can only be comprehended from an increasing familiarity with the characters, storyline and style, so a few example will do little to help, as Krazy Kat is with little doubt, one of the least accessible of comic strips, but here are some of my favorites.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/1922_0121_krazykat_det_650.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hn8n88RMOr8/S7QNc2M5BNI/AAAAAAAAENc/3iI6yXBOFXA/s1600/hs_krazy-kat-1916-04-231.png
http://arflovers.com/Blog/images/04_13_07_krazykat1.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WFU1z0D2UFM/S8EkA9PrziI/AAAAAAAADjI/oSp_8Yph6W0/s1600/atavism.JPG
http://www.pollsb.com/photos/o/77440-krazy_kat.jpg
EDIT: Here are two great introductions to the comic:
http://krazy.com/cummings.htm
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/SELDES/ch15.html