Cartoonist George Herriman...and my Wife?

Cartoonist George Herriman created one of the first true comic strips published in major daily newspapers in the early 20th Century. I would say he's the father of sequential art storytelling, from Will Eisner to the folks who toil for Vertigo/DC, Marvel, etc. today.

Now, the video below is the most recent iteration of "Krazy Kat & Ignatz." It was from the 1950s-Bugs Bunny vintage animated cartoon, featuring my favorite mouse Ignatz (me of course) and the ultra lovish Krazy Kat--who reminds me of you-know-who. Yes, Mrs. Nat...

FYI, Herriman was born in New Orleans in 1880; later he emigrated to L.A. as Jim Crow begain to swallow up even the privileged gens de colour. Make no mistake, fanboys & girls...this fellow--the father of American comics--was a light-skinned black man, and Krazy, Offisah Pup and Ignatz were based on black folk he knew [though recent scholarship pushes the notion of Ignatz and Krazy in an interracial tryst]. Herriman "passed" whenever possible...travel around the country, meeting fans, meeting publishers, agents, newspapermen (like William Randolph Hearst, who assumed Herriman was "Sephardic" owing to his kinky-wavy air. Hmmm...). Then he'd quietly visit his own folk. There is evidence--alluded to by authors like Ishamel Reed--that his wife knew he was a brother...and that she, too may have been caramel rather than pink-toe, on the down low.

Frankly I don't judge Herriman too harshly. Post-Reconstruction (the late 19th Century) through the 1920s were possibly the worst time to be an African American other than the thirty years prior to the Civil War (not that the previous 200-odd years before that were a picnic, but things leading up to the war were particularly dicey, thanks to, well, reaction to the real Nat Turner). If Herriman had jumped bad, his work would have been quashed at best, his ass quashed at worst.

And here's another notion you might chew on: almost a generation before Mickey and Minne and Pluto, there was Ignatz and Krazy. Couple with that: Walt Disney's early work appears to have "borrowed" Herriman's artistic style. One of the first animated cartoons ever produced for the cinema was in 1913--the same year as "Birth of A Nation"...featuring my gurl Krazy. Krazy was already an established comic strip character by then--over 10 years before Disney supposedly made history with Mickey's movie debut in "Steamboat Willy." So it's not just American sequential art which owes something to this brother. Next time you go to Orlando or Anaheim or spend your cash on yet another Snow White DVD or spring for Lion King ticks on Broadway, think about George Herriman as well!

Anyhow...this how me and Mrs. Nat hooked up, below. Those of you who know us personally feel free to snicker. I was thin as Ignatz back in the day...