Krazy & Ignatz 1937-1938: Shifting Sands Dusts Its Cheeks in Powdered Beauty (Krazy Kat)
The seventh volume ofKrazy Katreprints further verifies that Herriman's strip constitutes a pinnacle of comics art. As throughout the strip's three-decade run, these installments, offered in full color, focus on the eternal triangle of indeterminately gendered Kat; disdainful Ignatz Mouse, whom Kat adores; and Kat's unrequited worshipper, Offissa Pupp, a dog. The triangle is complemented by a rectangle: the ever-present bricks Ignatz hurls at the noggin of hapless Kat, who perceives them as love offerings. Along with the other inhabitants of Coconino County, the trio speaks a droll patois, Yiddish-influenced in the mouth of Krazy, who, for instance, laments, "I are illone. Jetz me." But most crucial toKrazy Kat's exalted status are the remarkable, idiosyncratic backdrops that place the breezily sketched characters in a surrealistically ever-shifting desert. This volume also contains several pieces Herriman drew for friends, including a spectacular, oversized Coconino landscape. Like its predecessors, the book was designed byJimmy Corrigancreator Chris Ware, one of the few present-day comics artists whose work approaches the brilliance of Herriman's.Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved