In 1999, The Comics Journal named Krazy Kat the greatest example of the artform in the history of the medium.
"Krazy Kat has been the acknowledged greatest comic for so long, by so many esteemed critics, that it becomes tempting to knock it from its perch," wrote the editors of The Comics Journal in 1999. "At a casual glance, George Herriman's long-running strip seems quaint and antiquated. But to immerse yourself in Krazy Kat, to yield to Herriman's looping verbal rhythms and lovingly-depicted desert backgrounds, to experience his perfectly-realized triptych of unspoken and unconsummated love, yields a very, very different result. Herriman's creation is not only great comics, with a wonderful command of the medium's possibilities and strengths, but is also great art—an affecting exploration of some of life's most basic issues in a way that enlightens and thrills. Every cartoonist who turns to comics as a medium of personal expression follows in Herriman's path, and that is why his is the greatest comic of the 20th Century."
Fantagraphics is proud to re-present Krazy Kat to a new generation of readers, collecting what many consider to be Herriman's prime: all 104 full-page, B&W Sunday strips from 1925 and 1926 (Herriman did not incorporate color into the strip until 1935).
Krazy Kat is a love story, focusing on the relationship of its three main characters. Krazy Kat adored Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz Mouse hated Krazy Kat, the expression of which was in throwing bricks at Krazy's head. Offisa Pup loved Krazy and sought to protect "her" (Herriman always maintained that Krazy was genderless), mostly by throwing Ignatz in jail. Each of the characters was ignorant of the other's true motivations. This simple structure allowed Herriman to build entire worlds of meaning into the actions, building thematic depth that led critics like Gilbert Seldes and e.e. cummings to recognize Herriman's genius almost immediately.
Krazy & Ignatz is designed by Chris Ware, creator of the wildly successful graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan (Pantheon Books, 2000).
]]>As Chris Ware puts it, "Our new chapbook promises the densest array of foolish quips, gags, and muddle yet. The 'Book of Jokes II' attempts to adhere the broken narratives of favorites like 'Rocket Sam,' 'Big Tex,' 'Quimby the Mouse,' and 'Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth' while introducing new favorites like 'Rusty Brown' and our scientific survey of the world of the future, 'The Tales of Tomorrow.' The volume is printed in full color with special pull-out bonuses, including a painfully complicated cut-out three-dimensional motion picture viewer, and two only slightly less cumbersome flip books. Taller than most bookshelves, this will be one of the first things you throw away the next time you move."
]]>Krazy Kat is a love story, focusing on the relationships of its three main characters. Krazy Kat adored Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz Mouse just tolerated Krazy Kat, except for recurrent onsets of targeting tumescence, which found expression in the fast delivery of bricks to Krazy's cranium. Offisa Pup loved Krazy and sought to protect "her" (Herriman always maintained that Krazy was genderless) by throwing Ignatz in jail. Each of the characters was ignorant of the others' true motivations, and this simple structure allowed Herriman to build entire worlds of meaning into the actions, building thematic depth and sweeping his readers up by the looping verbal rhythms of Krazy & Co.'s unique dialogue. As Lingua Franca once wrote, "Herriman was a rare artist who bridges the gap between high and low culture. His surrealistic strip was admired by popular entertainers like Walt Disney and Frank Capra yet also had a highbrow fan club that included E. E. Cummings, Willem de Kooning, and Umberto Eco."
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