Krazy Kat & the Art of George Herriman: A Celebration [Hardcover]

Craig Yoe (Author), George Herriman (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2011

Krazy Kat & the Art of George Herriman is a tribute to one of the most influential and innovative comic strips and creators of all time. This unique collection of rare art, essays, memorabilia, and biography highlights the career of the first genius of comics, George Herriman, and his iconic creations, Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse. 

During its 31-year run, Krazy Kat was enormously popular with the public, as well as influential writers, artists, and intellectuals of the time. This book includes original essays by Jay Cantor, Douglas Wolk, Harry Katz, Richard Thompson, Dee Cox (Herriman's granddaughter), Craig McCracken, Bill Watterson, and authorized reprints of two seminal essays on Herriman by Gilbert Seldes and E. E. Cummings, alongside newly discovered vintage essays by TAD, Summerfield Baldwin, and Toots Herriman. With Krazy Kat & the Art of George Herriman, Craig Yoe reveals this influential artist and writer for a whole new generation.

Praise for Krazy Kat & the Art of George Herriman: 

“The gorgeous volume includes essays by comics historians and creators (including Calvin & Hobbes’ reclusive Bill Watterson and poet e.e. cummings) as well as generous servings of sketches, strips, original art and more.”

––Miami Herald

“Craig Yoe has dug up never-published artwork, artifacts, and letters that will bring Herriman to life for the uninitiated while giving fans something new to feast on.”

––Los Angeles Magazine

“It’s the ephemera that make this collection invaluable.”

—The A.V. Club

“Craig Yoe has crafted a book that shows as well as it tells; it’s a wonderful combination of elegant design and informed and insightful scholarship that does a fine job of conveying why the comic strip is still so fondly remembered nearly a hundred years after its creation.”

—ICv2

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Craig Yoe runs the New York design firm YOE! Studio with Clizia Gussoni, and is the author of more than 30 books, including The Art of Mickey Mouse and Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster. Yoe lives in Peekskill, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Abrams ComicArts; Reprint edition (August 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810995948
• ISBN-13: 978-0810995949
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 0.9 x 12.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #907,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vice magazine calls Craig Yoe the "Indiana Jones of comics historians." Publishers Weekly says he's the "archivist of the ridiculous and sublime" and calls his work "brilliant." The Onion calls him "the celebrated designer." The Library Journal, "a comics guru." BoingBoing hails him "a fine cartoonist and a comic book historian of the first water." Yoe was Creative Director/Vice President/General Manager of Jim Henson's Muppets, and a Creative Director at Nickelodeon and Disney. Craig has won an Eisner Award and the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A book to be enjoyed more for its insightful visuals rather than its ambiguous textual commentary August 10, 2011

By GraphicNovelReporter.com TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Primarily designed as a tribute to the early 20th century comic strip Krazy Kat, Craig Yoe's book can best be evaluated more as a collection of George Herriman art alongside appreciative essays or remembrances about the artist and the strip that made him so famous. Although little to no criticism or analysis is provided in the 15 secondary articles by both Herriman's contemporaries as well as modern-day cartoonists, the book's inherent and long-term value is more as a primer or source reader on Krazy Kat with the full-page color reproductions of Herriman's illustrations, accentuated by short, vignette observations.

The book is largely organized and structured around a brief essay about Herriman or the strip, and followed immediately by a specific gallery of Herriman's art. If the book has but one fault, it is that the essays raise far more questions about Herriman and the comic strip than they answer. Leading the collection is a reprint of Bill Watterson's 1990 appreciation from a different Krazy Kat book. This may strike some readers as bizarre, as it seems that the introductory piece to this new study should not only provide a justification for yet another book on Herriman and Krazy Kat but also explicate why the artist and the strip have remained such popular aspects in the American imagination for nearly 100 years. Unfortunately, Watterson's essay does neither, and his claim about Krazy Kat being commercially unsuccessful does not equate with its lengthy, 30-year publication history that Watterson mentions. Craig Yoe's brief follow-up also fails to address either of the above issues, and those readers with only a tangential understanding or knowledge about Herriman and the strip may turn away from the subsequent essays entirely and simply enjoy the book for its visuals rather than its textual commentary.

Following these entries, Yoe returns with a biographical sketch of Herriman. While he acknowledges the controversy surrounding Herriman's ethnic and racial heritage, and cites the death certificate as part of the confusion, no connection is made to the practice of "passing," nor does he place his discussion within the context of Jim Crow New Orleans. It is difficult to imagine that no academic study of Herriman or artists during the period has been made that addresses this very topic. Although most comic studies can slide by without such critical depth, Abrams Comicarts have shown their ability to publish semi-scholarly books such as Brian Walker's Comics, which actively engages the secondary literature on the topic. Herriman's pre-Krazy Kat achievements and strips are given as a laundry list and never tied into the evolving process that bore Krazy Kat; no explanation is provided as to the sudden appearance of Offissa Pupp in the series; Yoe does not support his claims that Krazy Kat's distinctive linguistic features were due to a concerted ethnological mix of language rather than something done for simple comedic effect. Absent any analysis or specific examples from Herriman to reinforce statements of the strip's subtleties and surrealism, Yoe's article abruptly ends with Herriman's death. The most striking and memorable feature of this piece, however, is the inclusion of very early Herriman sports and political cartoons from the 1900s.

The first of the illustrations appears after Yoe and reprints strips from the 1930s and 1940s. The reproductions are beautiful and Yoe does an excellent job of including previously unpublished materials from Krazy Kat, such as rare color printer proofs. No explanation, however, is given as to why earlier strips from the 1910s and 1920s are not present in the section. While it is quite likely that earlier, publishing-quality versions are no longer in existence, such a statement from Yoe would have been welcome.

Of the remaining essays and illustrations, a few stand out for their originality, impact, and importance. Harry L. Katz provides a much more contextualized biography of Herriman within the framework of Bud Fisher's work on Mutt and Jeff, while Summerfield Baldwin's 1917 article is a solid, engaged, and informed analysis of the strip. By far the strongest essay is Douglas Wolk's short contribution. Wolk provides a guideline for approaching Krazy Kat that is useful not only for those familiar with the strip, but newcomers as well.

The inclusion of publications about Herriman or the strip that were written during his lifetime also makes the book a nice archival collection of both comic strips and primary assessments of the strips from those who first experienced and appreciated Herriman's genius. The ambiguities generated by many of the entries, however, should provide ample fodder for additional scholarship. As such, Krazy Kat & The Art of George Herriman is a welcome text.

-- Nathan Wilson

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly, a Celebration December 14, 2011

By David Burd

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have to assume that if you're reading this you know who George Herriman was, why Krazy Kat is so important, etc. So I'll cut to the chase and talk about the book itself.

There are two things right off the bat that let you know this is a quality product. 1) It's from Abrams, a publisher known for their high-end art books, excellent printing and binding, and fine reproduction. This is published under the Abrams Comicarts imprint, a new line dedicated to the best in cartooning and comics. 2) The author/editor is Craig Yoe, who in a very short time has established himself as one of the premiere creators of books about comics. Yoe's passion for the subject and attention to detail result in a highly enjoyable book - a work of art unto itself.

Here Craig has done a terrific job of collecting impossibly rare art by Herriman, much of it having never been printed before anywhere. Not just original artwork for Krazy Kat strips but beautifully hand-colored pieces that Herriman did for friends, including one-of-a-kind birthday cards, framed artworks, and illustrated thank-you notes. Plus historic photos, posters, book covers and memorabilia.

Not quite in the category of traditional "The Art Of..." books, this volume lives up to its subtitle "A Celebration." In addition to the art are many enlightening essays by writers including Bill Watterson, Gilbert Seldes, Tad Dorgan, e. e. cummings, and Yoe himself. Each of them gives a personal perspective on Herriman's work that puts the art in a context. Plenty to read as well as look at.

Highly recommended for the Krazy Kat fan, and it makes a wonderful gift.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Twinkle in George Herriman's Eye October 3, 2011

By Brent R. Swanson

Format:Hardcover

In his essay, "The Assassination of Comic Art," Bill Blackbeard bemoaned the fact that "No creative talent...has left us a smaller record or his interior life, views, and artistic judgements than George Herriman. Virtually all we are ever likely to know in these areas will have to be garnered through the content of KRAZY KAT and other Herriman strips." Since the publication of that essay in 1989, all the "Krazy Kat" Sunday pages have been collected, and several odds and ends of Herriman ephemera have appeared. In this book, Craig Yoe gathers several of the strips and much of the ephemera to bring us perhaps an inch or two closer to the artist who might always remain distant.

The essays herein are a collection of old and new material. The "appreciation" by Bill Watterson, while perceptive and enthusiastic, is also a rerun, reprinted from the dead-ended "Komplete Kolor Krazy Kat" would-be series from 1990. The Gilbert Seldes and e.e. cummings essays might just as well have been headlined on the cover. But whatever their source or age, the essays are all good and very readable; it's great to have them available in one collection.

There are a few editorial misses that should have been caught. On page 33, Yoe tells us that Herriman carried on a flirtation with Louise Swinnerton, "Jimmy Swinnerton's widow." Jimmy Swinnerton survived Herriman by a little more than 30 years, so Louise was anything but a widow when Herriman sent his playful notes. A note on page 35 tells of a "Dingbat Family" strip created as part of a multiple-strip stunt in 1906, but the "Dingbat Family" didn't debut till 1910, so perhaps the year for the stunt was 1916.

But these are minor annoyances overshadowed by the abundance of Sunday pages, some hand colored as gifts, in addition to cards, paintings, and illustrated notes of appreciation. After returning to the west coast, Herriman seems to have spent much of his drawing time, at least till the mid-1930s, at the Hal Roach Studios, which may explain, at least in part, the easy-going pace of the strip and its heavy reliance on strong characterization rather than the slam-bang slapstick that a tossed brick would have evoked in the world of the Katzenjammers. You can almost sense Herriman's presence in the radiant cheerfulness of the sketches dedicated to his friends and cronies. In stark contrast, the odds and ends of Krazy's mostly regrettable movie career stand lifeless and hollow.

The inner man remains a mystery. And yet--take a look at Herriman's smile on page 170 and then see it reflected on Krazy's face in the cover illustration. Bill Blackbeard was right: everything that Herriman wanted us to know about himself is both concealed and revealed in "Krazy Kat."