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Krazy Kittens.
To the extent that this essay will be personal – accounts
of a “Crowded Life in Comics” – it will be an account of lifelong journeys and
inquiries and contacts, and questions solved and unsolved, accepted wisdom and
disputed history. All about a man we wish we knew better, but know well enough
through his work… which seemed to suit the famously reclusive George Herriman
just fine.
When I was young I knew his work from a couple glimpses in
the few comics-history books then published, The Comics by Coulton Waugh
and Cartoon Cavalcade by Thomas Craven; precious few examples. The rare
1946 Holt anthology, found in a used-book shop. Then some reprints from Woody
Gelman; then some reprints from the Netherlands (Real Free Press) and France
and Italy.
In 1959 Stephen Becker wrote Comic Art in America
and I received a copy as a Christmas present. Steve (we eventually became
friends and I acquired his collection of illustrations for the book) devoted
most of one chapter to Herriman and Krazy Kat. Steve was an
award-winning fiction writer and translator and the passage was so eloquent
that it floored me. Not needing to, I memorized it as a 10-year old.
Fast-forward to a few years ago. I helped with Michael Tisserand’s
biography of Herriman, sharing archival material and hosting him far from his
New Orleans so he could pick my brain and pick through old papers. I asked only
two things in exchange: to address, even if he disagreed and dissented from, my
thesis in several of my books that the key to Herriman’s creative expressions,
his thematic preoccupations, could be understood as “comic obsessions.” Of the
many, many strips he created, they were not merely funny characters in humorous
situations and comic endings. They were variations on a theme – characters with
bizarre, even surreal, motivations; played out against an unsuspecting world or
putative (and “normal”) antagonists.
These comic obsessions were Herriman’s treasure map, from
Major Ozone’s fresh-air crusade to Ignatz’s brick. Essential facets of
Herriman’s creative genius, not crutches. Seemingly, every other scholar’s
views on every other subject were debated in the book, including the obligatory
genealogical speculations, but not this. Oh, well, such is my comic
obsession, I suppose. And not my book.
The other favor I asked was to include that wonderful brief
assessment by Stephen Becker. Surely it could find a place. For those who
unfortunately lost the opportunity, too, to read it, I would like to quote it
here:
Here, if ever, was a marriage of the man and the
material. It was poetry – i.e., thought – that made Krazy Kat great; and
no other human being could have been expected to think like George Herriman. In
the truest sense of the word he was a genius. Between him and the universe of
men there was a kind of love affair, and the allegory he gave the world was
unique. With him the world took on a new dimension; without him it was reduced
to reality. There will be no more Krazy Kat, and we are all of us the
losers; but how much we have gained because he existed at all!
If I could understand a comic strip, and its creator, and
explain them like that… I could die happy.
But in the meantime I will describe some of the routes I
have taken on my pilgrimage. Of course I started collecting all the old
material I could find. I asked old-timers like Harry Hershfield and Rube
Goldberg what Herriman was like. Through Ron Goulart, who knew Herriman’s
daughter, I acquired drawings and proof sheets of her father. I acquired
photographs and letters that Herriman shared with Louise Swinnerton, Jimmy’s
ex, whom George courted. In the course of building a library of Judge
and the Sunday funnies of the New York World and the World Color
Printing Company (no relation) and the McClure syndicates I unearthed
hundreds of drawings still unreprinted
.
One of the sources of the theory about Herriman’s black lineage
was the fedora he always wore, allegedly ashamed of his “kinky hair.” And one
of Herriman’s friends I asked was Karl Hubenthal, who knew Herriman when he
began his own career in Los Angeles. As everyone else has, he expressed
astonishment and made clear he was not bigoted. But he said it was common
knowledge among friends that Herriman had a “wen” on the back of his head. I
had to ask what that was – a random but prominent lump, perhaps a sebacious
cyst, one Herriman never chose to have surgically removed. He wanted to cover the
wen, Karl said, but not cover an African-American background.
And I guess some readers know that I have written about
Herriman in books and articles (never yet as a big-game hunter, till here); a
chapter in my book about America’s Great Comic-Strip Artists (I forget the
title); and two full-color anthologies of Krazy Kat Sunday pages.
(Regarding an artist whose genius was so associated with color, on the page that
is, it is strange that a full biography has not one color panel.) But my Sunday
kolor reprints were co-published in the UK, Germany, France, Portugal, even
Finland. I was privileged to “spread the gospel”; and there was one
contemporary cartoonist, virtually everyone’s favorite, who told me he
discovered Krazy Kat through my projects. A life well lived, there…
From the superb to the meticulous: what illustrations to
run with these recollections? I have pulled out some early and obscure Herriman
work featuring cats. Not yet kats; I understand. But beyond his comic obsessions in the
various themes of his various strips, it can be noticed that Herriman made
characters of cats with some frequency. Sometimes in corners, peeking from
behind furniture; sometimes as a focus of a gag; sometimes as the star of its
own strip.
Alexander the Cat was a long-running feature
(bequeathed to Frink, of Slim Jim fame), and he was about as “normal” –
non-speaking – as Herriman ever drew. But some of his cats spoke… occasionally
in dialog apart from the main strip… and once, under The Family Upstairs
and George Dingbat, a kat poached its own place in the funnies.
And history.
1. George Herriman and
his best friend – on the steps of his studio on the Hal Roach movie lot
2. Major Ozone, the Fresh
Air Fiend – frightened by a cat
3. Rosy Posy, Mamma’s Girl, 1906
4. The Dingbat Family’s Joke Book, 1912
5. Rosy Posy, 1905
6.
7. The Dingbat Family, 1911 – Krazy and Ignatz banished by the Family Upstairs
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