Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse

Krazy Kat, a critically acclaimed comic strip by George Herriman, was published in American newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal, and Hearst was a major booster for the strip throughout its run. The characters were seen earlier in a side strip with Herriman's The Family Upstairs, where the phrase "Krazy Kat" is said by the mouse toward the said cat.

Set in a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, Krazy Kat's mixture of surrealism, innocent playfulness and poetic language have made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than 80 years.

The strip focuses on the curious "love" triangle between its title character, a carefree and innocent cat of indeterminate gender (referred to as both male and female); the cat's antagonist, Ignatz Mouse; and the protective police dog, Officer Bull Pupp. Krazy nurses an unrequited love for the mouse; however, Ignatz despises Krazy and constantly schemes to throw a brick at Krazy's head, which Krazy takes as a sign of affection. Officer Pupp, as Coconino County's administrator of law and order, makes it his unwavering mission to interfere with Ignatz's brick-tossing plans and lock the mouse in the county jail.

Despite the slapstick simplicity of the general premise, it was the detailed characterization, combined with Herriman's visual and verbal creativity, that made Krazy Kat one of the first comics to be widely praised by intellectuals and treated as serious art. Art critic Gilbert Seldes wrote a lengthy panegyric to the strip in 1924, calling it "the most amusing and fantastic and satisfactory work of art produced in America today." Poet E. E. Cummings, as another Herriman admirer, wrote the introduction to the first collection of the strip in book form. Though only a modest success during its initial run, in more recent years, many modern cartoonists have cited Krazy Kat as a major influence.