An End and a Beginning
Here are the last three weeks of Herriman’s Krazy Kat from 5-13 to 6-3-1944. Joe Stork makes his final appearance in the 5-13 and 5-14 strips, bringing a “bindle” to Mrs. Coyote, who seems used to many pups. Krazy at the diner in the 5-19 and 5-20 strips seems obscure to me, especially in the 5-19, as Krazy waits outside the Diner doors, too docile to heed the first calls to Dinner, Lunch and Breakfast. Krazy is so docile that he falls asleep outside the diner, a shy and hungry Kat. Offissa Pupp avoids Krazy’s questions about the equator and the north and south poles in the 5-22 and 5-23 strips, just like a father ignoring his child’s annoying questions. The Diner series of strips ends with the 5-26, as a very fat Krazy eats everything in the diner. In the 5-27, a mysterious thing occurs, as a palm tree picks up Ignatz’s brick and hides it from Offissa Pupp. In the final week of the Krazy dailes, Ignatz brags in the 6-1, that no matter how far or how near he throws the brick, he wins! In the 6-2 strip, Herriman’s ugliest drawings of Krazy are in the last two panels as Krazy angrily discovers that what he thought was an “eggo” is actually Ignatz. In the 6-3, Garge introduces a couple of new characters, a dog and her drunken husband. Offissa Pupp is the last classic character to appear in the KK dailes. Herriman draws Krazy and the Pupp with jowls in the last strips, placing a dividing line under the noses, creating a sort of peeved expression on the characters’ faces. It’s sort of a subtle indicator of aging. For the next several posts, the Catblog features a Herriman daily strip that has never been collected before,”Now Listen Mabel”, from 7-28 to 8-2-1919, 102 years ago. The San Francisco Examiner, where these strips came from, didn’t start carrying Mabel until July, missing the earliest strips from April. They carried it all the way to the last strip, dated 1-10-1920, later than generally thought by the historians. According to Herriman’s biographer, Michael Tisserand, George McManus, creator of “Bringing Up Father”, endorsed “Now Listen Mabel” in a special ad that ran in the Hearst newspapers. Here’s a paragraph describing the strip: ” Now Listen Mabel introduced Mabel and her boyfriend, a shipping clerk named Jimmie Doozinberry. Mabel and Doozinberry’s boss, Mr. Sisstim, regularly conspire against Doozinberry until he finally cries out, “Now Listen Mabel.” Although “Mabel” was the name of both Herriman’s wife and his oldest daughter, the likely inspiration was a popular collection of gag verses with the punch line “Ain’t it awful, Mabel?” Herriman also must have noted the success of Rube Goldberg, who based several strips on catchphrases, most notably I’m the Guy. However, Now Listen Mabel was not destined to become the country’s next catchphrase, and the strip concluded before the end of the year.” That last statement is not quite true, for reasons I’ve given above. I’ve linked a video featuriing a lecture that Michael Tisserand, author of Krazy, George Herriman, a :Life in Black and White, did in 2016 about Herriman and the odd facets of his life as a man and a cartoonist. Enjoy it, and I’ll be posting again soon.
Mark Cooper says:
I’ve just spent the last half hour reading all your curated “Someday Comics” strips from this year and had a blast. I bet your “Sunday Comics” project was a blast I’m so sad I missed downloading them.
Going to have a good look through your blog now 🙂
Mark says:
Hi Mark,
Enjoy my blog, and if you want to read all the Sunday Comics I posted, just go to “I Love Comix”, Steve Cottle’s website, and they are all on there. If you have trouble just ask Art Lortie for the log-in info, he posted the contents of “Sunday Comics” to “I Love Comix” all by himself!
Thanks for your comment and for reading, Mark
Snorre (from Norway) says:
Thank you very much for this. I’ve always been curious about the last few weeks of KRAZY’s daily strips, and here I finally got to read them. The very final week of strips seems particularly cryptic to me. KRAZY had always very much stood out on the comics page, of course, and throughout its existence had something “dreamlike” about it; but here, its universe appear, well, almost gloomy, as well. Herriman was not in good shape at the time, sadly, although his drawings are still enchanting, even with a more “reserved” look.
Mark says:
Thanks Snorre, For your cogent comment. The reason some of these strips look gloomy, may be the evolving designs of the main characters. Krazy, Offissa Pupp and Ignatz really aged in the last few months of the strip, developed jowls and their eyes began to have a staring, beady look. They look crabby and annoyed, not because Garge necessarily WANTED them to look that way, but because he began to lose control of the drawing. I hope you will enjoy “Now Listen, Mabel”, I will present the next weeks of Mabel very soon.