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    Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White
    Unavailable
    Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White
    Unavailable
    Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White
    Ebook789 pages8 hours

    Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White

    By Michael Tisserand

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In the tradition of Schulz and Peanuts, an epic and revelatory biography of Krazy Kat creator George Herriman that explores the turbulent time and place from which he emerged—and the deep secret he explored through his art.

    The creator of the greatest comic strip in history finally gets his due—in an eye-opening biography that lays bare the truth about his art, his heritage, and his life on America’s color line. A native of nineteenth-century New Orleans, George Herriman came of age as an illustrator, journalist, and cartoonist in the boomtown of Los Angeles and the wild metropolis of New York. Appearing in the biggest newspapers of the early twentieth century—including those owned by William Randolph Hearst—Herriman’s Krazy Kat cartoons quickly propelled him to fame. Although fitfully popular with readers of the period, his work has been widely credited with elevating cartoons from daily amusements to anarchic art.

    Herriman used his work to explore the human condition, creating a modernist fantasia that was inspired by the landscapes he discovered in his travels—from chaotic urban life to the Beckett-like desert vistas of the Southwest. Yet underlying his own life—and often emerging from the contours of his very public art—was a very private secret: known as "the Greek" for his swarthy complexion and curly hair, Herriman was actually African American, born to a prominent Creole family that hid its racial identity in the dangerous days of Reconstruction.

    Drawing on exhaustive original research into Herriman’s family history, interviews with surviving friends and family, and deep analysis of the artist’s work and surviving written records, Michael Tisserand brings this little-understood figure to vivid life, paying homage to a visionary artist who helped shape modern culture.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 6, 2016
    ISBN9780062098054
    Unavailable
    Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White
    Author

    Michael Tisserand

    Michael Tisserand is the author of The Kingdom of Zydeco, which won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for music writing, and the Hurricane Katrina memoir Sugarcane Academy. He served as editor of Gambit Weekly, New Orleans’ alternative newsweekly. He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. www.michaeltisserandauthor.com

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    Reviews for Krazy

    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      fascinating read and a history of a turbulent America
    • 4/5
      When I was a kid (we're talking 1960's here), I remember being introduced to "Krazy Kat" as a series of TV cartoons and thinking that there was something interesting going on here, but I really don't get it. Those thoughts basically lay fallow until this biography came out a few years ago, when it immediately went on the TBR list. My thoughts on having finished this work? As for the book itself, Tisserand is almost too careful of a writer at the start, as he lays out the family history that George Herriman was so careful to keep obscure, as having roots in the Free Black community of New Orleans would certainly have aborted the young man's aspirations to being a commercial artist. Once you get into the meat of the book, dealing with Herriman's career as a cartoonist, Tisserand treats those cartoons as a "text" to try and draw out truths about Herriman, and there's a strong argument to be made that said cartoons were a way for Herriman to vent what he was really feeling.Apart from dealing with Herriman as an artist, Tisserand also explores the ins and outs of his subject's life, with the most interesting being how Herriman struck up a relationship with the Navajo community; outside of the company of his immediate family and peers, they seem to be the people Herriman felt most at home with.