Comments on: Comics: A Beginner’s Guide: Old Comedy Newspaper Strips

By: DV

DV — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:05:23 +0000

I might give KK another go now that I realise that many people like it but do not find it funny.

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:32:46 +0000

better to say ignatz is monomaniacally obsessed with krazy — he is TROLLING him

By: Dan M.

Dan M. — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:23:51 +0000

Does Ignatz HATE Krazy? I never thought of it that way, even though the mouse seems to live solely for throwing a ‘brick’ at the cat. Which would, I admit, in most cases, be evidence enough of hatred. But here, I am not so sure.I may be ignorant, because I haven’t read all of Krazy Kat, especially the dailies.

By: aldo

aldo — Thu, 29 May 2008 09:41:50 +0000

I used to think I kind of agreed with Tom, and could only do small bursts of Krazy Kat, but I have raced through 1937-1940 which are fantastically readable. 1940, in particular, seems more about prevention than punishment with Offisa Pupp more concerned with stopping Ignatz getting hold of bricks or keeping him from Krazy than locking him up. OH NOES, CURRENT SOCIAL COMMENTARY.

My heart belongs to Popeye though, the current Fanta reprints are the comics thing I would recommend to absolutely anyone. Two years in and it’s still as much about Castor as it is about Popeye, although the sequence where Popeye opens the reverse bank is one of my favourite things ever.

I will reserve my opinions on Dick Tracy and Gasoline Alley till/if they come up.

By: a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit

a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:50:19 +0000

i love krazy kat but i am not remotely a “serious comics fan” as all kno

By: james

james — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:49:03 +0000

On the difficulty of enjoying “Krazy Kat” — Agreed, “Kat” is brilliant, but also pretty inaccessible and dense and not particularly humourous.

If you’ve always wanted to like it, but don’t, then you might do well to check out Herriman’s earlier daily strip “Baron Bean,” which has less rule-breaking genius in it, but benefits significantly from actually being FUNNY, which “KK” almost never is. “Baron Bean” often makes me laugh out loud more than once per page.

Unfortunately, it’s hopelessly impossible to find, and there doesn’t seem to be any interest in reprinting it. I discovered it through the few strips that are reprinted in the legendary Smithsonian Anthology of American Newspaper Comics, which is also very difficult to find, but which is basically the Best Book Ever.

http://www.comixology.com/articles/20/Bill-Blackbeard-Paper-Savior-Part-2-i-The-Smithsonian-Collection-of-Newspaper-Comics-i-

By: Martin Skidmore

Martin Skidmore — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:36:26 +0000

The KK Sundays are genuinely the comics I love most ever, of any kind. Those daily Segar Popeyes are the only things that come close to it, for me. I love the visual and verbal poetry of Krazy Kat enormously.

By: The Dirty Vicar

The Dirty Vicar — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:32:04 +0000

mind you, this is what I think about all things I do not like.

By: The Dirty Vicar

The Dirty Vicar — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:28:36 +0000

I’ve never really got Krazy Kat either (though in fairness I have only ever tried to read a page or two). I have this suspicion that no one really likes it, but when people become Serious Comics Fans they sign a covenant in which they promise to pretend to like it.

By: Dan M.

Dan M. — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:47:12 +0000

I believe Rarebit Fiend was printed in color just as Nemo was, though I’ve never seen a color reproduction of one. But it seems reasonable to assume that the use of color couldn’t have been as glorious as in Nemo.

I understand what you say about Krazy Kat being hard to take in larger doses — for me, though, that’s an effect of the strip’s strangeness that doesn’t diminish its greatness, after all they were designed to be read one a week. I think that Herriman’s mindscape is just too weird and, somehow, dense (as well as repetitious, though probably no more so than most strips) to encourage reading the strips as though it were either a) a continuous story, or b) a bunch of gags.

On the other hand, if I’m looking at the strips — particularly the Sundays — for their visual/layout creativeness (ie. not so much reading as — what, viewing?), I can appreciate a whole lot of them in one sitting… except that it gets a little overwhelming.

I love the phrase “guilty displeasure,” though!

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:13:35 +0000

One of my, I guess you could say, ‘guilty displeasures’ is that I find Krazy Kat really really hard going taken more than maybe a strip at a time. Every time I ever read anything about it I think “yes this is genius”, and even when I read it I think “yes this is genius”, but it’s the kind of genius I find weirdly hard to lose myself in, despite its boundless creativity.

The one Popeye sequence I’ve read - introducing Alice the Goon - is unabashedly marvellous so I must try and track down the reprints.

My favourite early strips are the Winsor McCay dream sequence strips - Rarebit Fiend and obviously Little Nemo, though Rarebit Fiend is funnier and odder in many ways even if it doesn’t have the outbreaks of incredible visual joy the colour Nemo does.