George Herriman



1922 self-portrait

Born: George Joseph Herriman; August 22, 1880; New Orleans, Louisiana
Died: April 25, 1944 (aged 63); Los Angeles, California
Notable works: Krazy Kat (1913–1944)

George Joseph Herriman (August 22, 1880 – April 25, 1944) was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Krazy Kat (1913–1944). More influential than popular, Krazy Kat had an appreciative audience among those in the arts. Gilbert Seldes' article "The Krazy Kat Who Walks by Himself" was the earliest example of a critic from the high arts giving serious attention to a comic strip. The Comics Journal placed the strip first on its list of the greatest comics of the 20th century. Herriman's work has been a primary influence on cartoonists such as Will Eisner, Charles M. Schulz, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson, and Chris Ware.

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Personal history

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1900–1905: Early career in New York



Herriman's earliest published work was humor and editorial cartoons. (September 7, 1906)

When he was 20, Herriman snuck aboard a freight train bound for New York City, hoping his chances as an artist would be better there. He was unsuccessful at first, and survived by working as a barker and billboard painter at Coney Island, until one of the leading humor magazines of the day, Judge, accepted some of his cartoons. Between June 15 and October 26, 1901, eleven of his cartoons appeared in that magazine's pages, in the heavily crosshatched style of the day. He often used sequential images in his cartoons, as in the emerging comic strip medium. On September 29 that year, his first real comic strips were published, one in the Pulitzer chain of newspapers on a non-contractual, one-shot basis and another on a continuing basis in the Philadelphia North American Syndicate's first comic strip supplement. His first color comic strips appeared in the T. C. McClure Syndicate beginning October 20.

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Race and identity



Though Herriman had mixed ethnicity, he partook in the ethnic humor that was typical at the time. (Musical Mose, February 16, 1902)



Herriman, who was of mulatto heritage, kept his "kinky hair" under a hat (1902).

Herriman was born to mixed-race parents, and his birth certificate lists Herriman as "colored". In the post–Plessy v. Ferguson U.S., in which "separate but equal" racial segregation was enshrined, people of mixed race had to choose to identify themselves as either black or white. Herriman seems to have identified himself as white. According to comics academic Jeet Heer, his early work is "replete with black caricatures", such as Musical Mose, in which the lead character, an African-American musician, wishes his "color would fade". Racial ambivalence crept into Krazy Kat, such as on two occasions where Krazy's black fur was dyed white. Ignatz falls in love with the whitened Krazy, only to return to hatred and brick-throwing when the truth is revealed. Similarly, in an oft-repeated joke, Ignatz would accidentally become covered with coal dust and would be spurned by the normally love-struck Krazy. In one such episode, a brick thrown by the blackened Ignatz hits Krazy, who declares, "A lil Eetiopium Mice, black like a month from midnights. Fuwi!" Once Ignatz reverts to his white self, Krazy loves him again.

Herriman's ethnic heritage was unknown to his colleagues. Fellow cartoonist Tad Dorgan nicknamed him "the Greek", a label which stuck and was taken up by his biographers and the press, who called him the son of a Greek baker. At other times, he was identified as French, Irish, and Turkish. He told a friend that he was Creole, and speculated that he may have "Negro blood" in him, as he had "kinky hair". The friend said that Herriman wore a hat to hide his hair, which may have been an attempt to pass as white. Herriman said that he dreamed of being reborn a Navajo. On his death certificate, he was listed as "Caucasian", and his daughter Mabel had his father's birthplace listed as Paris and his mother's as Alsace-Lorraine.

Sociologist Arthur Asa Berger made Herriman's mixed-race heritage known in 1971. While researching for Herriman's entry for the Dictionary of American Biography, Berger discovered the cartoonist's race was listed as "colored" on his birth certificate obtained from the New Orleans Board of Health. The 1880 census for New Orleans listed his parents as "mulatto". On reading this, African-American poet Ishmael Reed dedicated his 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo to "George Herriman, Afro-American, who created Krazy Kat". Herriman came to be identified as Black or Creole in comics literature, including his first book-length biography, Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman (1986), while the "Greek" label stuck with some biographers, and was used by Bill Blackbeard in his introductions to the Krazy and Ignatz volumes in the early 2000s. Later research at the New Orleans Public Library by cartoonist Brian Nelson showed that Herriman's maternal grandmother was born in Havana, Cuba, that all his relatives were listed as "mulatto" on the 1890 census, and that Herriman may also have had Spanish or Native American ancestry.

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