KRAZY & IGNATZ TP (2025)

"In 1999, the Comics Journal named Herriman's Krazy Kat the greatest comic strip of the 20th century. It's never been too well known (in the course of its 30-year run, it often survived only because of William Randolph Hearst's support), but cartoonists more or less agree it's a masterpiece. The premise couldn't be simpler: Krazy Kat loves Ignatz Mouse, who rejects the Kat's affections by throwing a brick at him? her? Krazy is both and neither whereupon Offisa Pupp arrests Ignatz. This was the plot of nearly every episode, but the beauty was in the variations Herriman could work on it and in his delirious sense of style. The primal comedy played out in thousands of ways, drawn with an incomparable design sense against a gorgeously stylized backdrop of the American Southwest and delivered with Herriman's hilarious dialogue half invented, half quasi-Joycean wordplay ('Ooy-yooy-yooy wot a goldish oak finish like a swell mihoginny piyenna l'il dusky dahlink!!!'). This first in a new series of reprints (designed by Chris Ware and edited by Bill Blackbeard) picks up where the series published by Eclipse Books left off 10 years ago; it'll cover two years in each volume. This 1925-1926 collection shows how Herriman began to stretch out, opening up his layouts and experimenting with storytelling technique and the basic conventions of the comic strip itself."

"Krazy & Ignatz 1933-1934 - 'Necromancy by the Blue Bean Bush' is the fifth in a series reprinting George Herriman's early 20th Century comic strip masterpiece. Most of these strips have not seen print since originally running in Hearst newspapers over 70 years ago. Each volume is edited by the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum's Bill Blackbeard. Krazy & Ignatz 1933-1934 is a hot-baked brickbat of a volume, adance with nearly two full years of the Sunday Krazy Kat (Herriman did not use color until 1935), snug between multiple pages of Herriman extras, not the least of which include an introduction by Blackbeard, a new 'DeBaffler' page, and a stunning layout front and back and throughout by the inimitable Chris Ware!"

"KONCLUDING THE KOMPLETE KRAZY KAT KOLOR SUNDAYS! Krazy and Ignatz 1943-1944 covers the last two years of Herriman's master-piece. With this volume, Fantagraphics and its precursor Eclipse will have reprinted the entire 29-year run of the Krazy Kat Sundays! Like Charles Schulz, George Herriman was a cartoonist to the very end. Aside from collecting the last masterful year and a half of 'Krazy Kat,' this new volume will offer a retrospective look at Herriman's life at the drawing table, offering many never before seen samples of his original art (which the cartoonist often lovingly hand-colored for friends). Gathered from many scattered collections, these pages testify to Herriman's invererate passion for drawing. Rounding out the volume are scores of Krazy Kat daily strips also from Herriman's last years, further testament to the cartoonists vitality. Series editor and veteran comics historian, Bill Blackbeard, also provides a concluding, wide-ranging essay on the life and art of Herriman. More than a simple reprint collection, Krazy and Ignatz 1943-1944 portrays the full range of a cartoonist who remained an artist all his life."

"When Fantagraphics launched its collection of Krazy Kat Sunday strips back in 2002, we picked up with the 10th and 11th years of the legendary strip (1925-1926) because another publisher had already collected the first nine during the 1980s and 1990s. But now, with that publisher long gone and their Krazy Kat collections fetching record prices (some over $100!) among collectors, it's time to go back and get every one of these masterpieces back in print - re-scanned and re-retouched from original tearsheets, using 21st century digital resources. Fantagraphics will be collecting these first nine years of Sundays into three volumes comprising three years apiece, starting with the very first Sundays from 1916 through 1918, and incorporating all the added features from the first edition. Krazy Kat, with its eternally beguiling love triangle of kat/dog/mouse, its fantastically inventive language, and its haunting, minimalist desert décor, has consistently been rated the best comic strip ever created. Krazy and Ignatz 1916-1918, the 11th of a projected 13 volumes collecting the entirety of the Sundays, brings us within a brick's throw of finishing 'The Komplete Kat Sundays' once and for all! "

"As Fantagraphics' ambitious plan to reprint every single Sunday Krazy Kat page created by George Herriman for close to three decades (this being the penultimate book) careens toward the finish line, this volume features another three years' worth of Sunday strips - over 150 little masterpieces by the greatest cartoonist of all time, featuring the greatest comic-strip love triangle of all time: 'kat,' 'mice'and 'pupp.' Each page is a hilarious, poetic masterpiece crackling with verbal wit and graphic brilliance. Those were the days! In the introductory essay, editor Bill Blackbeard chronicles Krazy Kat's ascent from its earliest days as a tiny pendant for Herriman's earlier strips 'The Dingbat Family' and 'The Family upstairs' to its own full feature. A second major article in this volume is Bob Callahan's 'Geo. Herriman's Los Angeles,' a fascinating look at Herriman's pre-Krazy Kat days as journalist/illustrator, covering such things as a Mexican bullfight (Herriman was appalled), the opening of a new 'bums' jail' (Herriman's sympathies were clearly with the vagrants), and UFO sightings - all accompanied by Herriman's virtuoso cartoons, of course. As usual, the cover is designed by Chris Ware, featuring a striking two-color look that will set this latest volume apart from the previous eleven. "