George Herriman, Pop Culture Bad Boy.

George Herriman is a goddamn genius. I don’t mean the E=MC2rd kind. I mean this dude totally understood the time he lived in. He just “got it” and I think this understanding of popular culture combined with his tireless creativity is what made him stand out among other comic strip artists/writers at the time.

Let’s rewind a bit. I read some Krazy and Ignatz earlier in the semester and didn’t really comprehend what I was reading and seeing. Rarely does this happen to me, and when it does it INFURIATES me!!! I didn’t get why I didn’t get it. I thought things like what’s so funny about this? Why is George Herriman considered one of the best comic artists of all time? I must be an idiot, I understand less than half of these. I made a mental note to visit Mr. Herriman again later in the semester when I had the time.

Fastforward to last week. Thesis is over, I have all the time in the world to do whatever it is I want. My free time is usually spent reading, playing video games, or hanging out with my friends. This week, however, I had a mission. It’s time to reclaim my ego from that brick-throwing mouse.

I did what any man on a mission would do. I slithered into the library as soon as it opened. I walked right over to the shelf that stored the comic books, grabbed all the Krazy and Ignatz I could find, and sat down on shiny leather chairs that love to make fart sounds every time you shift your position.

Then finally, under a cacophony of leather made farts, I understood Herriman. Here’s the exact thought that went through my mind: My god, this dude is the pop culture know-it-all of his time.

I shall try my best to explainsies. His writing jives off of contemporary knowledge. Whether it is a poem, or a verse from the bible, or some sort of colloquial jargon—the readers of the time would’ve got the reference immediately.  Here’s an example of Officer Pupp riffing off a phrase from the bible as he addresses Ignatz: “Whither you go, ‘Mouse’, there do I also go. That I do for the good of the law. And if my eyes offend you, I bud you bind them, seal them.” (April 20, 1941).

What Herriman did was fuse two different biblical passages into one. The first being Ruth’s striking words to Naomi: For wither thou goest, I will go: and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” (Ruth 1:16) The second part of this passage reminds me of a warning from Jesus: “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” (Mark 9:47).

You see allusions to other work all the time in George Herriman’s work. I’ve read that he often went as far as making comic strips about new articles within the paper, really riffing on the content that was given to him. As I said, the dude was a pop culture genius.