Despite its monumental 31-year run, and far-reaching effects on comics and animation, George Herriman’s Krazy Kat is remarkably unsung. The comic is cited as one of the primary influences of cartoon greats from Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) and Charles Shultz, (Peanuts) to classic animators like Chuck Jones (Looney Tunes). In 1924 Krazy Kat was called “the most amusing and fantastic and satisfactory work of art produced in America today,” by art and literary critic Gilbert Seldes. Thankfully, Fantagraphics Press has been hard at work recollecting the long out-of-print strip in recent years, focusing on the epic full-page Sunday strips. This new collection, Krazy and Ignatz: The Kat Who Walked in Beauty, also highlights the oft-overlooked dailies, specifically the panoramic strips produced during a year of particular editorial freedom in 1920.

Herriman’s genius is on full display page after page, in what still remains the largest daily newspaper comic ever printed. The backgrounds of the strip are lavish and surreal, with a wild dream-like variance between panels. There’s a great deal of experimentation with the layouts as well, and you can easily see the seeds for some of the less conventional Calvin and Hobbes strips. The language is the true highlight of the comic. Herriman’s wordplay and bizarre use of dialect coalesce into a wonderful, harmonious poetry even as it creates utterly uproarious punch lines.

Krazy’s dialogue can, at times, be almost indecipherable, a drawling phonetic complicated by his utter ignorance. In one of my favorite exchanges, Ignatz refers to a tight rope walker as “a very clever funambulist” to which Krazy replies, “Poddin’ was that rimmokk a lengwidge—or wot?” Such creative spellings likely contributed to its failure to catch on with popular audiences, but the musicality it adds to their speech when you take the time to get to know it is really a treat. Herriman was also multi-lingual and often incorporates foreign dialogue into the strip, further complicating its text. Likewise, the strip can be a bit off-putting to newcomers. I recommend reading it out loud.

The premise of Krazy Kat is essentially Tom and Jerry or Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote—only it predates them by about 30 years. Each strip represents another permutation of Ignatz Mouse’s attempts to beat Krazy with a brick, while Offissa Pupp misguidedly attempts to prevent it. Ironically, Krazy amorously seeks out pummelings. With the simple twist of Krazy’s affection for his seeming tormentor, Herriman managed to fuel 30 years of strips, and find a means to deal with far more complex issues than simply slapstick animal abuse. Herriman subtly worked what could be called a sado-masochistic, adulterous, inter-racial, homosexual love-triangle that lends itself to innumerable alternative readings onto the Comics page of all places, and this was during a far more conservative time. Poet e.e. cummings found in it an allegory for the proper functioning of Democracy. The finesse with which he slowly built such implications into the strips left him a good deal of space to deny it was anything more than its face value. Herriman often told those curious about Krazy’s sex that he was somewhat of a sexless pixie.

There’s really no question as to why it’s become disjointed from comics and launched straight into high art—how often do you see dialogue like, “Beneath me, a good earth / a gracious glebe lies in beauty / shifting sands dusts its cheeks in powdered beauty / and now will I turn my eye to the empyrean / where stars’ gleam moon’s beam / and sun’s sheen abides in beauty,” in the funny pages? Adding to the artistic merit of Krazy Kat is Herriman’s mastery of pen and ink drawing. It is astonishing that Herriman could do so much with infinite permutations of the same gag for so long, yet still manage to be completely hilarious. Any Krazy Kat strip hardly seems to differ from the cartoon violence that we’re used to today, even if it vastly predates the Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny prototype. When you get used to Herriman’s sometimes-bizarre workings and start to notice subtleties in the strip, you really appreciate the comic as an art form. As the strip evolved, Ignatz appeared far less oblivious to Krazy’s affection and was even occasionally seen to return it (nursing the sick cat to health with a warm brick instead of beaning him for example). At times, the choice of words, or even the way a strip is drawn, can have vast implications.

Fantagraphics has done a bang-up job of presenting the strip in book form with Krazy and Ignatz: The Kat Who Walked in Beauty. When my copy came in the mail, I was veritably stunned at the size of the book. The hardcover design is perfect, and its foil-embossed cover depicts Krazy strolling through the desert of Coconino County with a cigarette. Bonus materials include some of the earliest appearances of the characters in a strip pre-dating Krazy Kat, a brief introduction, a reprint of the program for a Krazy Kat musical, and an amazing picture of the creator in a suit and sombrero smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. While some of the strips appear a bit muddy, they represent the cleanest existing copies—newspapers actually destroyed masters after the strip stopped being published in 1944.

At a scant $20, the book is essential for anyone with even the slightest interest in comics or animation history. If you enjoy that, UB actually offers a class on Comedy using The Kat Who Walked in Beauty as one of its core texts (ENG 421 with Professor Schmitz).

It’s always pleasant to remember that the Comics page used to be respectable and enlightening, despite what trash like Family Circus might make you think.