Editing George Herriman (section)

===1922–1944: California again, later career and death===

Hearst, an admirer of ''Krazy Kat'', had given Herriman a lifetime contract with his company [[King Features Syndicate]],{{sfnm|1a1=Wolk|1y=2008|1p=353|2a1=McDonnell|2a2=O'Connell|2a3=Havenon|2y=1986|2p=68|3a1=Gabilliet|3a2=Beaty|3a3=Nguyen|3y=2010|p=}} which gave Herriman the security to live anywhere he wanted. In 1922, he moved back to Hollywood,{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=68}} into a two-story Spanish-style home at 1617 North Sierra Bonita,{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=76}} from where he made frequent visits to the Arizona desert.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=68}} Herriman developed ties with members of the film industry; he knew [[Hal Roach]] Studio members [[Tom McNamara (director)|Tom McNamara]] and [[H. M. Walker|"Beanie" Walker]] from their newspaper days. Walker, Herriman's best friend, was the head writer on the ''[[Our Gang]]'' shorts. In the early 1920s, Herriman occasionally drew his strips at the Roach Studio. He met celebrities, including [[Will Rogers]] and [[Frank Capra]], and presented them with hand-colored drawings.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=76}} He loved Charlie Chaplin's films, and reviewed ''[[The Gold Rush]]'' in the magazine ''Motion Picture Classics'' in October 1925.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=77}}

[[File:Stumble Inn 1922-12-23 panel 4.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A comic strip panel. At the top, a middle-aged caucasian male, leaning over the railing to a staircase, says to an African-American male, "I've looked everywhere for 'Owl-Eye', 'Soda'—do you know where he is?" The African-American, carrying a broom over his shoulder and descending the staircase, replies, "No, Boss, Ah ain't laid eyes on him fo the lass half hour".|''Stumble Inn'' ran from 1922 until 1925 (December 23, 1922).]]

Autumn 1922 saw the first daily installment of ''Stumble Inn'', the first non-''Krazy Kat'' strip Herriman had drawn since 1919. A verbose strip whose Sundays were often overrun with prose, its lead characters were Uriah and Ida Stumble, who rented rooms to an assortment of strange characters. The daily strip was short-lived, but the Sundays edition lasted three years.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=67–68}}

From August 1925 until September 1929, King Features required that Herriman design the ''Krazy Kat'' Sundays so that they could be run either as a full Sunday page or as two four-panel dailies. Herriman lamented intrusion on his page designs, and the artwork of the period took on a rushed look. He was made to focus on the strip's characterization, and during this period, the Krazy—Ignatz—Offisa Pupp love triangle for which the strip is remembered became fully developed. Pupp pined for Krazy, Krazy loved Ignatz, and Ignatz hated Krazy and pelted the annoying "Kat" with a brick, and Pupp imprisoned Ignatz.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=77–78}}

Throughout the late 1920s, Herriman made frequent trips to [[Kayenta, Arizona]], in [[Navajo people|Navajo]] country about {{convert|25|mi|km}} from Monument Valley.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=69}} He also made winter trips to Mexico. The desert, Navajo artwork, and Mexican pottery and architecture became more prominent in Herriman's strips, and he sometimes used Spanish vocabulary in the dialogue. Herriman did little work on these excursions, and it is likely that he drew his strips in hurried bursts when in Hollywood.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=78–79}}

''Stumble Inn'' finished in late 1925, and it was replaced with the domestic strip ''Us Husbands'' (with ''Mistakes Will Happen'' as a "[[Topper (comic strip)|topper]]" strip), which ran until the end of that year.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=80}} In 1928, Herriman took over the strip ''Embarrassing Moments'', which had begun in 1922 and had been drawn by several cartoonists. The strip eventually became ''Bernie Burns'', in which embarrassing moments would happen to the title character. The strip appeared in few papers, and after it ended in 1932, Herriman worked only on ''Krazy Kat'', although he provided illustrations for Don Marquis' popular ''Archy and Mehitabel'', a series of books of poetry about a cat and a cockroach.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=80}}

In 1930, Herriman sold his first Hollywood home to a friend and moved his family to 2217 Maravilla Drive, a Spanish-style mansion atop a hill. It was adorned with paintings of Southwest and Native themes, and had a Mexican-style garden paved with [[flagstone]]s and decorated with painted pots and tropical plants. Herriman later bought the lot across the street and turned it into a public park.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=80–81}}

The 1930s were a period of tragedy for Herriman. On September 29, 1931, his wife Mabel died after an automobile accident,{{sfnm|1a1=Los Angeles Times staff|1y=1931|2a1=Chicago Daily Tribune staff|2y=1931}} and in 1939, his youngest daughter Bobbie died unexpectedly at 31.

After his wife's death, Herriman never remarried and lived in Los Angeles with his cats and dogs.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=81}} He developed a close relationship with cartoonist James Swinnerton's first wife Louise, with whom he frequently exchanged letters. Herriman underwent a kidney operation in spring 1938, and during his ten-week convalescence King Features reran old ''Krazy Kat'' strips.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=86}}
[[File:1937 1107 kkat brick 500.jpg|right|thumb|alt=In a color comic strip panel, a brick thrown by a mouse through an open window hits a cat on the head. The cat says, "L'il ainjil" (little angel).|Starting in 1935, ''Krazy Kat'' ran in color. (November&nbsp;7,&nbsp;1937)]]

''Krazy Kat''{{'}}s popularity fell considerably over the years, and by the 1930s it was running in only thirty-five newspapers, while its contemporaries such as ''[[Bringing Up Father]]'' were reportedly running in up to a thousand. By some accounts, Herriman's salary from Hearst's King Features Syndicate was $750 a week, and, realizing that this was far more than the revenue the strip could be generating, Herriman once offered to take a pay cut, which Hearst refused;{{sfn|Sorel|1992|p=24}} however, according to Michael Tisserand's biography on Herriman from 2016, there exists no evidence of the story that Herriman ever suggested to take a pay cut, or that his salary was $750 a week.

From 1935, ''Krazy Kat'' appeared in color, of which Herriman made bold use. He reduced the amount of hatchwork and used larger, more open panels.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=81}}

Herriman died in his sleep in his home near Hollywood on April 25, 1944, after a long illness.{{sfnm|1a1=New York Times staff|1y=1944|2a1=Time staff|2y=1944}} An incompletely inked penciling of a week's worth of daily strips was found on his drawing board. On his death certificate, the cause of death was listed as "[[Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease|non-alcoholic]] [[cirrhosis]] of the liver",{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=219}} and despite his mixed-race heritage, he was listed as "caucasian".{{sfnm|1a1=Elam|1y=2011|1p=79|2a1=Heer|2y=2005}} The ''[[New York Journal-American]]'' ran a front-page obituary.{{sfn|Sorel|1992|p=25}} His funeral at Little Church of Flowers at [[Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)|Forest Lawn Memorial Park]] was attended by few. Cartoonist [[Harry Hershfield]] spoke at the funeral, saying, "If ever there was a saint on earth, it was George Herriman".{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=88}} According to his request, his body was cremated and his remains were scattered over Monument Valley.{{sfnm| 1a1=McDonnell |1a2=O'Connell |1a3=Havenon |1y=1986 |1p=88 |2a1=Harvey |2y=2010}}

On June 25, 1944, two months after Herriman's death, the last of his completed ''Krazy Kat'' strips, a full-page Sunday, was printed.{{sfn|Boxer|2012}} At the time, Hearst usually engaged new cartoonists when the artists of popular strips quit or died, but he made an exception for Herriman, as he felt that no one could take his place.{{sfn|Lyons|1944}}