The Sunday Funnies - Krazy Kat!

I have known of Krazy Kat in some way or other pretty much my whole life. Early on  I was a fan and reader of books about comics, both comic books and comic strips, and I was lucky that my local library had a few tomes about these subjects. It was of course not the avalanche of information available today about vintage work in both areas, but there was some. And in nearly all of it which felt the need to touch on George Herriman's Krazy Kat there was praise and praise and nigh near worship. The book above I bought some years ago (almost certainly from a discount table of some kind) and set it aside tor read later. I've at long last picked it up and given it a thorough going over. The essay which starts it off is by Gilbert Seldes from his 1924 The Seven Lively Arts, and it unabashedly elevates the Herriman strip into the realm of art at a time when such considerations were markedly rare. 

For me, I found I really liked the artwork by George Herriman, a scratchy minimal cartooning that reminded me of Bobby London's Dirty Duck (of course I have it backwards). But the stories often were impervious to my understanding. I just didn't "grok" what Herriman was trying to say, though I found the fashion in which he packaged his comments appealing. So for most of my life Krazy Kat has been an enigma. 

And I wish I could say that has changed with my seasoning over the decades. I "get it" more than I did way back when, but still there's something about the strip which eludes me. The complex relationship between Krazy and Ignatz and Pupp is puzzling. I get that Krazy loves Ignatz who might or might not love Krazy and that Pupp loves Krazy too, and I get that none of them seem to know how to express those feelings. Is that all there is? Is that enough? It might be. 

But I do know that as puzzling as the message might be, I do very much love looking at those grand pages depicting Coconino County, a land of imagination that twists and turns and flying bricks with every glance. Is that the point? Is that enough? It might be. 

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