Krazy Kat

I would if I had any money.

Just to return to Feininger for a moment. The history confuses me a bit. Born in New York. Moved to Germany. Started doing political stuff in germany, then comic strips that appeared in american newspapers. Then he was a major player in expressionism, an instructor at Bauhaus. Then after being declared "degenerate" by the Nazi's he moved to NY where he continued to paint. He made a few wooden models for a german toy train company that weren't produced, but kept making them, and one of the best parts of the exhibit at the Whitney is the huge collection of wooden toys he made for his family over 40 years. Trains, little train depots, tiny people that look like they're right out of an early comic strip. Pretty great.

the last strip ran 70 years ago today. can't find it online, but if you've never seen it it's one of the eeriest and most poignant endings to any comic i've ever seen.

I've been slowly making my way through the Sundays chronologically over the past few years but I couldn't resist peeking at the last one and yeah, it's pretty damn eerie! Wish it was online...

Huh, that is pretty eerie/poignant -- kind of follows from the one the week before as well.

found it:

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3229/2704014905_1fb85b89c1.jpg

of the available collections, what would be a good place for a Krazy Kat neophyte to begin?

Krazy and Ignatz 1916-1918 is a pretty good starting point imo.

This collection has a nice overview of his work. If you just want the comics, any of the collections from 1916 to 1924 or 1925 will be great, they tend to have his most expansive and experimental work, before the his pages got more standardized.

^^^ yeah that book is terrific. really you can't go wrong with any of the collections, but the earlier ones are best to start with -- the later color sunday pages are so stripped-down and succinct that they're almost opaque at times if you don't already know the characters and their relationships.

nb my post from this morning was made before I had any coffee so I totally forgot about that book, which was actually the first one I owned, too, and is a great starting point, probably better than a collection because there's a pretty good bio and tons of examples of his pre-KK stuff.

lovely, thanks for the recommendations!

If you just want the comics, any of the collections from 1916 to 1924 or 1925 will be great, they tend to have his most expansive and experimental work, before the his pages got more standardized.

working my way through these and they are so endlessly entertaining, love the Herbert Hoover jokes

new Herriman bio

http://www.nola.com/arts/index.ssf/2016/11/krazy_kat_herriman_tisserandne.html

remarkable thread here

During this time I want to offer you one of the purest expressions of grief and faith I've ever seen, which is a Krazy Kat comic by George Herriman. 1/7 pic.twitter.com/31NtwwWiIf

— Michael Tisserand (@m_tisserand) April 3, 2020