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Krazy Kat was a comic strip created by George Herriman, appearing in both weekday and Sunday U.S. newspapers published by William Randolph Hearst. It grew from an earlier comic strip of Herriman's, The Dingbat Family, which had started in 1910. Herriman would complete the cartoons about the Dingbats, and finding himself with time left over from his 8-hour day, filled the bottom of the strip with the slapstick antics of a cat and a mouse. This "basement strip" grew into something much larger than the original cartoon, and became a Sunday-only cartoon on April 23, 1916, and before long also a daily strip. Herriman continued to draw Krazy Kat until his death in 1944.

Krazy Kat focused on the relationship triangle of its title character, Krazy, a cat of indeterminate gender (but often referred to in the feminine), his/her antagonist and love interest Ignatz Mouse, and Krazy's protector, Offisa Pupp, who nursed an unrequited love for Krazy. Most of the strips followed the formula of Ignatz throwing a brick at Krazy Kat, which while endearing Ignatz to Krazy, would usually result with Offisa Pupp putting Ignatz behind bars.

The title character's dialogue was a highly stylized argot ("A fowl konspirissy—is it pussible?") in a phonetic rendering evoking the accent of the New Orleans of Herriman's youth. The strip's descriptive passages mix whimsical language with a poetic sensibility. ("A pilgrim on the road to nowhere — pauses at the base of the Enchanted Mesa, and drops a fragment of philosophical fatuity.") In the 1940s, when the Sunday strip was printed in color, Herriman experimented with bold colors and unconventional page layouts.

Set against a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's spiritual home of Coconino County, Arizona, Krazy Kat was a strip unlike any seen in newspapers before or since. Public reaction at the time of its appearance was largely negative, due to its iconoclastic refusal to conform to comic strip conventions and simple gags. But Hearst loved it, and it continued to appear in his papers throughout its run, sometimes only by his direct order. It was also praised by intellectuals and critics, most notably Gilbert Seldes, who wrote a lengthy panegyric in The New Yorker calling the strip "the most satisfying work of art...in America today." In the 1920s, a stage musical based on Krazy Kat was even produced.

The comic strip was animated several times, ranging from 1916 to 1964. The one with closest connection to the comic-strip is the 1962-64 animated adaptation that was made in Prague. However, because censors wouldn't allow a male cat to have a homosexual relationship with a male mouse, Krazy was made explicitly female. The background art was very similar to Herriman's, however.

Legacy

In 1999, Krazy Kat was rated #1 in a Comics Journal list of the best comics of the twentieth century. The list included both comic books and comic strips.

Bill Watterson has mentioned Krazy Kat as one of his inspirations for his own cartoon series, Calvin and Hobbes. The work of Hunt Emerson is strongly influenced by Herriman's style. Patrick McDonnell, author of the acclaimed comic strip Mutts, also cites Krazy Kat as a major influence. (McDonnell wrote the introduction to Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman.) Larry Gonick's comic strip Kokopelli & Company is set in "Kokonino County", an homage to Herriman's exotic locale. Herriman has also influenced Chris Ware, who has designed a series of reprint volumes of the strip for Fantagraphics Books.

In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative US postage stamps.

External links

• A suggested interpetation of the comic strip
• Coconino County: History, bios, strip archive, bibliography and more about George Herriman and Krazy Kat

• Fictional cats
• Comic strips
• Comics characters