i'm surprised to see they just reissued the (extremely ODD) '60s cartoon version of this on dvd.
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 08:28 (twenty years ago) link
what's it like?
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 09:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 14:30 (twenty years ago) link
― Silly Sailor (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 14:54 (twenty years ago) link
― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:15 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 16:09 (twenty years ago) link
well, it's like the comic strip, only it's a cheap-looking cartoon (made by the same studio that made the later made-for-TV Popeyes, if that tells you anything). and Krazy Kat is a gurl cat from Texas who lisps a lot. and there's a lot of stupid old-cartoon-type plots - Ignatz trying to give up throwing bricks at Krazy, western parodies, that kind of thing. it's really, really, really weird. i have a bargain-bin videotape with about 10 of them.
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 17:07 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 5 February 2004 11:37 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 5 February 2004 11:38 (twenty years ago) link
― hmmm, Thursday, 5 February 2004 12:59 (twenty years ago) link
― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 5 February 2004 13:04 (twenty years ago) link
I've two collections of the cartoons, and they aren't much like the strip. They're inoffensive, but everything that made the strip great, for me, is missing.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 6 February 2004 19:58 (twenty years ago) link
― dave k, Saturday, 7 February 2004 05:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Douglas (Douglas), Saturday, 7 February 2004 07:03 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 7 February 2004 07:05 (twenty years ago) link
― Speedy Gonzalas (Speedy Gonzalas), Sunday, 8 February 2004 09:03 (twenty years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 8 February 2004 09:23 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 8 February 2004 10:57 (twenty years ago) link
― R the bunged up with jollop of V (Jake Proudlock), Sunday, 8 February 2004 13:47 (twenty years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 8 February 2004 23:27 (twenty years ago) link
― Sym (shmuel), Sunday, 8 February 2004 23:34 (twenty years ago) link
weird I have been a Krazy Kat fan since I was a kid, have read tons of collections, seen photos of him, etc. and yet I had never realized before yesterday that he was black.
― the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 October 2010 20:34 (thirteen years ago) link
in the running for the NBA - http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2010_p_youn.html
more details to dig into (& more fun) than John Ashberry's fantasia on Henry Darger, but if you are a big Krazy fan you will definitely enjoy this book regardless of your orientation concerning modern poetry
― Milton Parker, Monday, 18 October 2010 20:49 (thirteen years ago) link
gah, such a weird combo of loudmouth bullshit and intelligent discussion upthread (was thinking the same after reading that old erykah badu thread on ILM). ilx these days seems so much more civilized, in ways both good and bad. less dumbass flexing, but a lot less unguarded intellectual exploration, too.
particular incensed by ethan's, "i can't stand this wave of shitty indie cartoonists endorsing to their adoring fans which old comics are cool to like..." so fucking myopic and self-centered. i grew up with crazy kat cuz my stepdad (a cartoonist in his heart) had adored herriman all his life. of all the shit he collected, it was the crazy cat stuff that, for teenage me, resonated most immediately and intensely. i think that if you've spent any portion of your life putting pen to paper in hopes of stealing images from other planets, then you can't help but love what herriman did. has nothing to do with what's "cool to like" or whatever. sometimes people just love things, you know?
― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer), Monday, 18 October 2010 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
particularLY
monica youn book sounds intriguing. thanks for the tip MP, will look for it this afternoon...
― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer), Monday, 18 October 2010 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't miss ethan a bit
xp
― the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 October 2010 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
or momus
― the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 October 2010 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link
i interviewed youn for an article about a KK-related reading she was giving at my university several years ago. i remember nothing about what she was like on the phone (nice, i guess, otherwise i'd remember), but the poetry was decent.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 18 October 2010 21:00 (thirteen years ago) link
You've seen photos of a comic strip character?
― Tuomas, Monday, 18 October 2010 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link
he means George Herriman, the creator of Krazy Kat.
― elephant rob, Monday, 18 October 2010 21:55 (thirteen years ago) link
and it was in something famously shitty indie cartoonist Bill Watterson wrote that I first heard about Krazy Kat. Though I didn't get to read much of it until Ware and Fantagraphics reissued them, so thank god for indie comics i say.
― elephant rob, Monday, 18 October 2010 22:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Ah, okay. Now that I think of it, I remember reading an article about Herriman's racial identity... IIRC he was a light-skinned black man and was able to pass as white for most of his adult life.
― Tuomas, Monday, 18 October 2010 22:01 (thirteen years ago) link
(x-post)
― Tuomas, Monday, 18 October 2010 22:02 (thirteen years ago) link
[/Tuomas]
― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer), Monday, 18 October 2010 22:04 (thirteen years ago) link
Michael Tisserand is working on a book about Herriman's race, which is a complex subject I gather. More here: http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2010/10/15/festival-of-cartoon-art-keynote-on-george-herriman/
― elephant rob, Monday, 18 October 2010 22:08 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, according to this article it didn't even become common knowledge his parents were "colored" until 1971:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3666365/Herriman-Cartoonist-who-equalled-Cervantes.html
― Tuomas, Monday, 18 October 2010 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
weird I have been a Krazy Kat fan since I was a kid, have read tons of collections, seen photos of him, etc. and yet I had never realized before yesterday that he was black
After all these posts I figure out that you mean George Herriman was black. I thought you meant Krazy was. I just thought I'd whistle past that one. I mean, I was surprised you were this comfy out & out calling Krazy a "he"! Oh, me.
― 17th Century Catholic Spain (Abbbottt), Monday, 18 October 2010 22:38 (thirteen years ago) link
i know monica and heard a reading of that book with matmos performingdunno if i can recommend the poetry? the music was awesomei think herriman is generally thought of as mestizo or black depending on what point you're trying to make.
― Brick Frog! (forksclovetofu), Monday, 18 October 2010 22:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Herriman always seemed like a very mysterious guy to me. I knew he was Creole before this thread but I'm not sure where I learned that.
― 17th Century Catholic Spain (Abbbottt), Monday, 18 October 2010 22:42 (thirteen years ago) link
stonar
― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer), Tuesday, 19 October 2010 04:19 (thirteen years ago) link
all that "tiger tea" i mean really
― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer), Tuesday, 19 October 2010 04:20 (thirteen years ago) link
What else is good in the way that Krazy Kat is?
― Pizzataco Five (admrl), Thursday, 1 September 2011 21:47 (twelve years ago) link
lionel fyninger's work?
― thank got forks showed up (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 1 September 2011 21:51 (twelve years ago) link
ok...who is that?
― Pizzataco Five (admrl), Thursday, 1 September 2011 21:51 (twelve years ago) link
I just want to say that I reread my Krazy Kat anthology book a couple months ago and I grew a new found appreciation for Herriman's works. The black and white era has some great art. It's still not a very funny strip (like how Tom & Jerry never had any real laughs for me) but it's a hell of a lot better than Tom and Jerry and much more creative
― that's cute, but it's WRONG (CaptainLorax), Thursday, 1 September 2011 21:55 (twelve years ago) link
― Pizzataco Five (admrl), Thursday, September 1, 2011 4:47 PM (11 minutes ago)
I know there are dissenters on ilx, but Richard Thompson's "Cul de Sac".http://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/
― Halal Spaceboy (WmC), Thursday, 1 September 2011 22:02 (twelve years ago) link
Martin Skidmore loved Krazy Kat, as he says above, and wrote a long and thoughtful piece on Herriman and Modernism late last year, at FA. There's things in it I wanted to argue about with him, a bit, but of course he became ill round about then, and somehow after that there was never the time :(
― mark s, Thursday, 1 September 2011 22:07 (twelve years ago) link
cliff sterrett's polly and her pals is prob the closest contemporary strip to herriman's style, tho the setting is v. different:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lPBRHZBGm-M/SfCV8l5Y-RI/AAAAAAAAA98/qq5cp_iDRPk/s400/sterett_water.gif
pogo by walt kelly has some of the same linguistic play as herriman, tho' it is v. deeply embedded in then-contemporary political satire. fantagraphics will start issuing a complete Pogo later on in the year.
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 1 September 2011 22:43 (twelve years ago) link
I'm tempted to say Gasoline Alley/Walt & Skeezix after about Year 2.
― 50,000 raspberries with the face of Peter Ndlovu (aldo), Friday, 2 September 2011 20:12 (twelve years ago) link
Huh, that is pretty eerie/poignant -- kind of follows from the one the week before as well.
― How Suarez's biting affects housing prices, in 3 charts (WilliamC), Thursday, 26 June 2014 23:06 (nine years ago) link
found it:
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3229/2704014905_1fb85b89c1.jpg
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 26 June 2014 23:49 (nine years ago) link
of the available collections, what would be a good place for a Krazy Kat neophyte to begin?
― The Littlest Boho (stevie), Friday, 27 June 2014 08:11 (nine years ago) link
Krazy and Ignatz 1916-1918 is a pretty good starting point imo.
― cwkiii, Friday, 27 June 2014 12:03 (nine years ago) link
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.
― JoeStork, Friday, 27 June 2014 17:09 (nine years ago) link
^^^ 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.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 27 June 2014 17:32 (nine years ago) link
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.
― cwkiii, Friday, 27 June 2014 18:53 (nine years ago) link
lovely, thanks for the recommendations!
― The Littlest Boho (stevie), Friday, 27 June 2014 22:25 (nine years ago) link
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
― ro✧✧✧@il✧✧✧.c✧✧ (sleeve), Friday, 29 July 2016 05:17 (seven years ago) link
new Herriman bio
http://www.nola.com/arts/index.ssf/2016/11/krazy_kat_herriman_tisserandne.html
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, 19 December 2016 18:24 (seven years ago) link
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
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 4 April 2020 23:53 (four years ago) link