George Herriman
George Joseph Herriman was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Krazy Kat . More influential than popular, Krazy Kat had an appreciative audience among those in the arts. Gilbert Seldes article The Krazy Kat Who Walks by Himself was the earliest example of a critic from the high arts giving serious attention to a comic strip. The Comics Journal placed the strip first on its list of the greatest comics of the 20th century. Herrimans work has been a primary influence on cartoonists such as Will Eisner, Charles M. Schulz, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson, and Chris Ware.
Herriman was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to mulatto Creole parents, and grew up in Los Angeles. After he graduated from high school in 1897, he worked in the newspaper industry as an illustrator and engraver. He moved on to cartooning and comic stripsa medium then in its infancyand drew a variety of strips until he introduced his most famous character, Krazy Kat, in his strip The Dingbat Family in 1910. A Krazy Kat daily strip began in 1913, and from 1916 the strip also appeared on Sundays. It was noted for its poetic, dialectheavy dialogue its fantastic, shifting backgrounds and its bold, experimental page layouts. In the strips main motif, Ignatz Mouse pelted Krazy with bricks, which the nave, androgynous Kat interpreted as symbols of love. As the strip progressed, a love triangle developed between Krazy, Ignatz, and Offisa Pupp.
Source: Wikipedia