Mixed Race Studies

Symphony in Black and White: Krazy Kat Kontinued

The Albany Times-Union
Albany, New York
2008-11-20

Alexander Stern

Don’t Touch My Comics: The Times Union Comics Panel takes a critical look at the funny pages.

Some months ago, I wrote an appreciation of George Herriman’s classic strip, Krazy Kat; a strip frequently lauded as one of the greatest achievements in the comics medium. Omitted from that article—whether by design or by accident—was a biographical detail that has become increasingly controversial in recent years. It concerns George Herriman’s racial background. While some might argue that such considerations should be irrelevent in art, it seems particularly pertinent in this specific time and place: It seems only fitting to note—here, in the year 2008—when a man with African heritage has just been elected to the highest office in the land—that Krazy Kat (arguably the greatest American comic strip) was authored by a man with a similar background. It is significant to note, however, that while the world celebrates the election and the history of Barack Obama, the world was never told the history of George Herriman during the artist’s lifetime.

Throughout his life, Herriman’s racial and ethnic background remained shrouded in mystery. His collegues weren’t sure exactly what the olive-complexioned Herriman was. Some of his friends and fellow cartoonists began referring to Herriman as “the Greek.” ”I didn’t know what he was, so I named him the Greek,” recalls cartoonist Tad Dorgan in Jeet Heer’s essay “The Kolors of Krazy Kat,” the introduction to A Wild Warmth of Chromatic Gravy – The Complete Full-Page Krazy and Ignatz: 1935-36 (published by Fantagraphics Books in 2005). Much was also made during Herriman’s life of his devotion to hats. Dorgan again: ”Like Chaplin with his cane, [Herriman] is never without his skimmer. [Cartoonist Harry] Hirshfeld says that he sleeps in it.” Indeed, Herriman was seldom photographed bare-headed. Some of his contemporaries claimed that Herriman “had a growth on the back of his skull. He referred to it as a ‘wen’ and was embarassed to expose it in public.” On the other hand, those candid photos that exist of a hatless Herriman reveal a man with short wavy hair. Herriman himself referred to his hair as “kinky.” Was his refusal to be publicly seen without a hat part of a concious desire for Herriman to “pass” for white?…

Read the entire article here.

Krazy Kat and Racial Identity

Graphic Novels: ENGL 375TT (Spring 2009)
University of Mary Wahsington
2009-02-01

Zach Whalen, Assistant Professor of English
University of Mary Washington

After doing some research on George Herriman, the writer and artist for Krazy Kat, I discovered that there has been a lot of critical analysis applied to this comic looking specifically at racial identity. There seems to be some uncertainty as to Herriman’s ethnicity—his parents were listed as “mulatto” in the 1880 census, his own birth certificate says “colored” but his death certificate says “caucasian.” From what I can tell, Herriman was a person of mixed races, but it seems that he chose to “pass” as white for much of his life. Apparently many have speculated that he wore a hat all the time to cover up his “kinky” hair, which he thought was the only identifiably “black” physical trait that he had…

Read the entire article here.