Krazy Kat Collection: Selected Sunday Strips 1918–1919 by George Herriman

This is up for request on NetGalley till the 11th of February 2020

When I first started reading this, I did not get it. Only when I came back to it, I realised what I was doing wrong. I was treating it like a more modern comic strip which makes sense, is funny and profound within a second of scanning very few panels. Each of these full-length pieces spans more than five panels on average, and they are not patterned in the same uniform manner throughout. In this regard, I have to mention that the very suave method of commenting on the panels and story progressor by the artist. I found that very hilarious. Reading them requires more time and attention than I gave it the first time around.

I had not heard of or read these strips before, but they must be popular with people who live in the US. The cast of characters are introduced in the beginning and even with that information, I think more connections can only be made by wading through this collection. Krazy Kat with a propensity for mispronouncing words, more than the other animals is a black cat. He is forever getting hit with a brick by a white mouse, but it does not reduce the effort he puts into making the mouse happy even with no reward. He has people/animals on the lookout for him who sometimes help by preventing the brick-throwing mentioned above. I think I got a lot of the subtle depths in the narrations, but I still had the niggling feeling that there were more hidden beneath the surface as most good comic strips do. This would entertain people who like comic strips and see beyond the primary punch line.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.