Krazy Kat

I have to admit that I was pretty entertained by animator vs. animation. I don’t think that I really need to explain to anyone what was going on, it was pretty simple: animator creates stick-figure, and then tries to kill it. What made A vs. A different and entertaining was that it broadened the dimensions of the story. Instead of the discourse and story space being restricted to the simple plane white canvas of the processing screen, the story was expanded to include the tool bar and the boarders. Every icon and button was in play. For some reason, A vs. A reminded me of the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I know, sounds dumb, but there are scenes in that movie in which the characters simple draw objects and they appear, much like A vs. A when the stick-figure (or perhaps the protagonist) draws lines and shields, only to have them suddenly part of the story, in the form of protection and weapons. The same idea can also be said for Krazy Kat. There are frames in the strip in which a character would draw something (or erase something) and it would affect the story. For example, Officer Pup drawing Ignatz in jail, or Ignatz erasing a brick in mid-flight.  read more »

Chatman’s depiction of time clearly defined the elements that compose most narrative forms: summary, ellipsis, scene, stretch, and pause. The most remarkable part of identifying these elements is the distinctive role they play in different forms of narratives. The stretch element occurs when discourse time is longer than story-time. One of the most prominent ways I have seen this manifest itself in cinema is during momentous events, like the winning of a state championship in Remember the Titans or the making of the final shot in Hoosiers to win the game.

The stretch technique helps build anticipation or suspense in the viewer which is valuable when a whole film has been based on the victory of a team. If the gaming winning shot occurred as it does in real time, in a few seconds, the viewer would not have the time to feel nervous or excited. The drawing out of these moments gives us a chance to see the player’s intensity, the coach’s passion, and the mother’s worried lines on her face.  read more »

I haven't seen a lot of people do their blog entries on Krazy Kat so that's what I'm going to tackle. In particular I think I'll focus on a common interpretation that I disagree with; viewing Krazy Kat as a female. It is true that Krazy is madly in love with Ignatz but this does not mean that Krazy is female. George Herriman never makes Krazy's gender clear (referring to Krazy as both a she and a he) but as I read the strip I found myself picturing Krazy as a male simply because of the role that Krazy has in the narrative. To put it simply Krazy is the one doing all the chasing.  read more »

Krazy Kat, in my (probably limited) view of comics, is truly unique in its form of narrative. My interest is specifically in the discourse of Krazy Kat, the way in which Herriman presents the story. The story itself is fairly straightforward, the plot revolving mainly around Krazy, Ignatz and Officer Pupp; and yet somehow Herriman manages to create entertainment, seemingly out of nowhere, in his style, his method of presentation...

For one thing, the landscape within each strip seems to constantly be shifting. Krazy and Ignatz are especially viewed from what would be considered in film, differing "camera angles." The backgrounds often seem abstract or even unnecessary, but still offer a certain amount of either interest or amusement, in their confusing shapes and shifting points-of-view. This is an achievement in securing the attention of the reader, and made my experience of the comic on black-and-white all the more enjoyable.  read more »

This is my first time reading the Krazy Kat coming by George Herriman. And, although at first it seems confusing, after a few strips, I fell in love with it. It plays not only with image, but also with text and the audience's understanding of the text. It also plays on the particular medium of the drawn comic strip and our understanding of how the medium works as a narrative device.

Take, for instance, the September 13, 1940 strip at the top of page 113 of our course pack. The first frame introduces the three main characters of the comic: Officer Pup, Krazy Kat, and Ignatz Mouse. Pup stands nearby, watching Kat and Mouse discuss Mouse's black brick, his typical throwing device that is also usually not black. Kat asks him why it is black, to which Mouse replies that he will throw the brick (presumably at Kat -- his usual victim of choice) in the "third picture." By this he is referencing an upcoming frame in the comic strip. In the second frame, Kat asks Mouse why he doesn't throw the brick in "this pitcha," the second frame. Mouse says the third picture/frame will be black.  read more »