KRAZY & IGNATZ TP (2025)

"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. "

"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! "