A Book Review


krazy-yoe-book-2.jpg This photo is the main reason to buy “Krazy Kat & The Art of George Herriman: A Celebration” by Craig Yoe, published by Abrams Comicarts, New York in 2011. It is on page 160, and is a portrait of Garge with the family cat: “Kat Herriman”, one of the most charming pictures I’ve ever seen of the maestro. There are many things the book has to offer: the classic writings on Herriman and Krazy Kat by Gilbert Seldes, E. E. Cummings and Tad Dorgan. Newer essays by Bill Watterson, Craig Yoe, Craig McCracken, Richard Thompson and Jay Cantor, among others. Many beautiful color illustrations from the Krazy Kat strip, including some of Herriman’s hand-colored originals, several examples of “The Family Upstairs” strip which weren’t in the “Complete” Family Upstairs book edited by Bill Blackbeard some years ago.  Craig has reprinted the rare DUST JACKETS from Don Marquis’ Archy and Mehitabel books which Garge illustrated. There are many photos of George Herriman (with and without his hat), and even the last two Krazy Kat strips found on his art table after George passed away in 1944.  I tried to decipher Garge’s handwriting on the strips: krazy-kat-dice-1944.jpg (click to enlarge) 1.: Pupp: “Two ones, who threw them?” Krazy: “Ignatz” 2.: Pupp: “They call them snake eyes-” Krazy: “No” 3.: Krazy: “Smoke eye” Pupp: “Baf”. Note how Garge turned Pupp’s exit direction in the third picture to panel right, the original pencil shows him exiting panel left. krazy-azzeller-1944.jpg This is the second unfinished strip found on Garge’s drawing board: 1.: Krazy: “Hotty Kulcher” 2: Krazy: “A azzaler, (Krazy’s way of saying “azalea”) I’d say-” 3: Krazy: “No” Ignatz: (as he closes the flower pot lid) “Of Course Not-“. That’s as close as I can come to decoding Garge’s handwriting.  There is even a photo of the house that Garge designed on Marravilla Drive as it looked before all the mansions clustered around it: krazy-yoe-book-3.jpg

This book is highly recommended for those who don’t have many of the previous Krazy Kat collections. Much of the material in this book is reprinted from Patrick McDonnell’s “Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman”, published by Abrams in 1986, and various volumes of “Krazy and Ignatz: The Complete Full Page Comic Strips”, published by Fantagraphics between 2002 and 2010. If you only get one book on Krazy, you could do worse than this one. The only really negative thing I could say about this Craig Yoe/Abrams effort, is that is was printed and bound in CHINA. For a book about an American icon, Krazy Kat, to be printed in China, in these times of few jobs for American citizens, is a crying shame. Surely there are a few companies left in the United States that could do a high quality color printing job on a book like this, much better than Chinese printers can do. With jobs so scarce, the costs should be negotiable. Craig Yoe is a dedicated devotee of old American strip cartoonists, he has also done a fine book on Milt Gross’s comic book work, which was printed in KOREA by IDW publishing in 2009. With a little more digging, I’m sure that Mr. Yoe could have found an American printer for this book as well. I hope he will change his production model in the future, so that I can recommend his books without any reservations. krazy-yoe-book-1.jpg

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Speaking of KK, let’s look at this week’s batch from 1-13 to 1-18-1941. In the 1/14 strip, you will note a joke similar to the one that Frank Tashlin used in his “Porky’s Spring Planting” animated cartoon in 1938, q.v. “I’m called a watchdog, cause I’m fulla ticks.” In the 1/15, Ignatz is given a very appropriate conveyence to the jailhouse, a hod (for carrying bricks, see “Bringing Up Father” if you don’t know how they are used). There are star gazing gags in the 1/16 and 1/18 strips, and Krazy makes another brick-worthy pun in the 1/17 involving “shell fish”.

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Felix is from 3/4 to 3/10/1935 this time. Felix tries to assist the crew in their hunt for the rare Dodo fish, but he is called a jinx by the sailors, then Felix’s catch of a prize Dodo fish is broiled by the Chinese cook. Felix then finds another Dodo fish as he holds his breath for a couple of days undersea! In the Sunday page, Felix continues his adventures in Dreamland, riding on the Nightmare. It turns into a very funny dragon wearing a top hat, and a shark, putting Felix undersea again. Felix is caught by a fisherman who wants to cook the cat for the King. Felix gets out of that situation with two kernels of giant popcorn.

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Patrick is from 11-14 to 11-19-1966. Patrick’s crib-bound little brother is named in the 11/14 (“Nathan”, reminds me of Fanny Brice’s hit, “Oy, How I Hate That Fellow, Nathan”) and Patrick and his Mommy are at daggers drawn over his need for a dog. In the 11/19, Partick rips Elsa’s favorite movie magazine to shreds at her birthday party, what a guy! We’ll see y’all next time.

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