GEORGE HERRIMAN

"KRAZY KAT & IGNATZ MOUSE"

George Herriman - Krazy Kat cartoonist

“It happens that in America irony and fantasy are practiced 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; it does not lack intelligence, because it is a thought-out, a constructed piece of work.” – Gilbert Seldes in The Seven Lively Arts (1924)

“If ever there was a saint on earth, it was George Herriman” – Harry Hirshfield

I am intrigued by these quotes about Herriman who was a lifelong hero to me as one of the weirdest cartoonists and way ahead of his time and unique without peer and universally adored by many many fine artists of informed and intelligent sensibilities, But "Saint"? Why I wondered. Likening him to Henri Rousseau? Wow!