Editing George Herriman (section)

===1910–1922: New York again, and ''Krazy Kat''===

{{wide image
|1 = Krazy Kat 1917-12-24.png
|2 = 600px
|3 = ''[[Krazy&nbsp;Kat]]'' daily strip&nbsp;— Krazy&nbsp;Kat kisses a sleeping Ignatz&nbsp;Mouse, who then dreams of cupids. (December&nbsp;24,&nbsp;1917)
|alt = In a five-panel cartoon strip, a cat and a mouse are sleeping. The cat awakens and kisses the mouse, and the mouse dreams of cupids.}}

In 1910, the sports editor of the ''New York Evening Journal'' called Herriman back to New York to cover for Tad Dorgan who was in San Francisco covering the [[Jack Johnson (boxer)#"Fight of the Century"|"Fight of the Century"]] between [[Jack Johnson (boxer)|Jack Johnson]] and [[James J. Jeffries|Jim Jeffries]].{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=50}} Six days after arriving in New York, Herriman began ''[[The Dingbat Family]]'', starring E. Pluribus Dingbat and his family.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=51}} Herriman used typed lettering on the strip on July 26, 1910, but quickly went back to hand-lettering.{{sfnm|1a1=Nel|1y=2012|1p=284|2a1=McDonnell|2a2=O'Connell|2a3=Havenon|2y=1986|2p=55}} On August 10, 1910, Herriman retitled the strip ''The Family Upstairs''.<ref name=toonopedia>[https://archive.today/20150404112356/http://toonopedia.com/dingbat.htm ''The Dingbat Family'' a.k.a. ''The Family Upstairs''] at [[Don Markstein's Toonopedia]]. Archived from [http://toonopedia.com/dingbat.htm the original] on April 24, 2015.</ref> The original title returned after the strip of November 15, 1911, when the Dingbats' building was demolished to make room for a department store and they and their upstairs nemeses parted paths.<ref name=toonopedia />

Critics do not regard the strip highly, but it provided the vehicle for a fruitful situation: in the July 26 episode, a mouse threw a brick at the family cat—called "Kat"—which hit the cat on the head.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=51}} The antics of this mouse and "Kat" continued to appear in the bottom portion of ''[[The Dingbat Family]]''. Herriman said he did this "to fill up the waste space".{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=51}} About a month after its first appearance, the "Kat" crept up on the sleeping mouse and kissed it loudly. The mouse awoke saying, "I dreamed an angel kissed me", while the "Kat" crept away and said, "Sweet thing".{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=52, 54}}

[[File:New York Evening Journal cartoonists photo 1911-01-31.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A black and white photograph of six young-to-middle-aged men, all wearing white shirts, dark ties and waistcoats.|The cartoon staff at the ''[[New York Evening Journal]]'' (January&nbsp;3,&nbsp;1911)<br />Top, from left: [[Gus Mager]], Charles Wellington, Herriman<br />Bottom, from left: [[Harry Hershfield]], Ike Anderson, [[Tad Dorgan]] ]]

The gender of "Kat" was unclear from the start. Herriman experimented with a decision about the character's gender, but it remained ambiguous and he would refer to "Kat" as "he" or "she" as he saw fit. Herriman incorporated unusual details into the mini-strip's backgrounds such as [[cacti]], [[pagoda]]s, fanciful vegetation, or anything else that struck his fancy; this became a signature of the later ''Krazy Kat'' strip. The cast grew and soon included the mainstay character Bull Pupp and characters from the ''Gooseberry Sprigg'' strip.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=54}} The strip's characters, relations and situations grew organically during its lifetime, encouraged by Herriman's colleagues.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=54, 56}}

The cat-and-mouse substrip was gaining in popularity; instead of filling up space in the bottom of ''[[The Dingbat Family]]''{{'}}s panels, it began to occupy a tier of panels of its own.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=57}} In July 1912, while Herriman had the Dingbats on vacation, Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse took over the strip, which was retitled ''Krazy Kat and I. Mouse'' for the duration.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=59}} On October 28, 1913, ''Krazy Kat'' debuted as an independent strip on the daily comics page.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=57}}

Only Hearst's personal support allowed the strip to continue, as the reception from the readers showed zero interest or enthusiasm according to comics historian [[Bill Blackbeard]].<ref>[https://www.apollo-magazine.com/george-herrimans-krazy-kat-revisiting-an-abstruse-but-charming-comic-strip/ George Herriman’s Krazy Kat – revisiting an abstruse but charming comic strip]</ref> But it was liked by famous artists and writers such as [[Willem de Kooning]], [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]] and [[Edwin Denby (poet)|Edwin Denby]], and later by [[E. E. Cummings]], [[Jack Kerouac]] and [[Umberto Eco]].<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/13/magazine/krazy-kat-highbrow-burlesque.html ''KRAZY KAT'': HIGHBROW BURLESQUE]</ref>

During the first few years of publication, ''Krazy Kat''{{'}}s humor changed from slapstick to a more [[Vaudeville|vaudevillian]] kind. The shifting backgrounds became increasingly bizarre, presaging things to come. The strip expanded to a full-page black-and-white [[Sunday strip]] on April 23, 1916.{{efn|April 23, 1916, was actually a Saturday.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=58}} }} Herriman made full use of his imagination and used the whole page in the strip's layout.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=58}} The strips were unlike anything else on the comics page; spontaneous, formally daring, yet impeccably composed.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=61}}

Herriman visited [[Monument Valley]] in [[Arizona]] and similar places in [[New Mexico]] and southern [[Utah]], and incorporated the distinct forms of the desert landscape into his strips. The [[Enchanted Mesa]] of New Mexico first appeared in ''Krazy Kat'' in the summer of 1916. Herriman may have visited after reading an article by [[Theodore Roosevelt]] in 1913, but he may have gone earlier—the desert [[Coconino County, Arizona|Coconino County]], Arizona, that became the backdrop to ''Krazy Kat'' was first mentioned in a 1911 ''[[The Dingbat Family]]'' strip,{{sfn|Harvey|2010}} though the real Coconino County was located further southwest than Herriman's fanciful version.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=69}}

{{wide image
|1   = Monument valley.jpg
|2   = 600px
|3   = Herriman was enamored with the impressive rock formations at [[Monument Valley]] in Arizona.
|alt = Panorama of rock formations at Monument Valley in Arizona. A red, barren, desert landscape with several mesas and gigantic, unusual rock formations.}}

''The Dingbat Family'' finished in 1916 and was replaced by ''Baron Bean''{{'}}s debut the next day. The strip's title character, The Baron, was an impoverished English nobleman, a tramp inspired by [[Charles Dickens]] and [[Charlie Chaplin]]. He and his valet Grimes would plot ways to get by. Herriman later introduced the main characters' wives, and after a run as a domestic strip, with occasional appearances of characters from Krazy Kat's world, it ended in January 1919. It was replaced the next day by ''Now Listen Mabel'', which was about a young man courting a young woman; he would be caught in a compromising situation, which he would try to explain away with "Now listen Mabel ..." The strip lasted until that December.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=57–58}}

{{quote box|It happens that in America irony and fantasy are practised in the major arts by only one or two men, producing high-class trash; and Mr Herriman, working in a despised medium, without an atom of pretentiousness, is day after day producing something essentially fine. It is the result of a naive sensibility rather like that of the douanier Rousseau <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Henri Rousseau]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>; it does not lack intelligence, because it is a thought-out, a constructed piece of work.|--[[Gilbert Seldes]] in ''The Seven Lively Arts'' (1924){{sfn|Seldes|1924|p=231}}|width=40em|align=right}}

''Krazy Kat'' gained an appreciative audience in the world of the arts. The character debuted in film in 1916. The first animated films starring a cat were produced by Hearst's [[International Film Service]], though without Herriman's direct involvement.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=65}} In 1922, [[Adolph Bolm]] choreographed a jazz-pantomime ''Krazy Kat'' ballet written by [[John Alden Carpenter]]. It was first performed in New York in 1922 by [[Theatre Intime|Ballet Intime]], and Herriman illustrated the libretto and designed the costumes and scenario. While it was not a great success, the critics [[Deems Taylor]], [[Stark Young]]{{sfnm|1a1=McDonnell|1a2=O'Connell|1a3=Havenon|1y=1986|1pp=65–66|2a1=Pollack|2y=2001|2p=205}} and Henrietta Straus wrote favorably about it.{{sfn|Pollack|2001|p=205}} The strip itself was the subject of an article by literary critic [[Gilbert Seldes]] called "Golla, Golla the Comic Strip's Art", which appeared in the May 1922 issue of ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]''. Seldes expanded this article as part of his book on the popular arts, ''The Seven Lively Arts'' (1924), in which Seldes argued against conservative tendencies that excluded artists in the popular arts, such as Herriman and Chaplin, from being considered alongside traditional artists.{{sfnm|1a1=Gorman|1y=1996|1pp=77–78|2a1=Beaty|2y=2005|2p=57}} ''Krazy Kat'' was the subject of a chapter entitled "The Krazy Kat That Walks by Himself", which is the most famous piece of writing about the strip{{sfnm|1a1=McDonnell|1a2=O'Connell|1a3=Havenon|1y=1986|1p=66|2a1=Gabilliet|2a2=Beaty|2a3=Nguyen|2y=2010|2p=286|3a1=Petersen|3y=2011|3p=108|4a1=White|4y=1963|4p=12|5a1=Schulz|5y=2010|5p=114}} and the earliest example of a critic from the world of high art giving legitimacy to the comic strip medium.{{sfn|Gabilliet|Beaty|Nguyen|2010|p=286}} ''Vanity Fair'' inducted Herriman into its Hall of Fame in the April 1923 issue.{{sfnm|1a1=McDonnell|1a2=O'Connell|1a3=Havenon|1y=1986|1p=66|2a1=Mostrom|2y=2010}}