When I was putting together my post about George Herriman's
Krazy Kat Specialty Pieces, I came across this piece by
Ron Campbell, who was the director of the Krazy Kat television cartoons. While it's clearly not up to George Herriman's impossibly high standards, it's not a bad-looking piece, and it puzzled me that it looks more like Herriman's classic cartoon strip than the animated series ever did. True, Herriman's line is more frenzied, imparting a vital energy to even static figures. In the specialty drawings, Herriman saturates his landscapes in deep orange often contrasted with black ink, and he usually imparts some color to the ground and even the speech balloons as well. This piece seems just a little off. For example, the overpowering yellow used here seems to be Campbell's own stylistic choice; indeed all the colors are fairly flat and way too bright, almost psychedelic. It's nice as a tribute, but it's not the Kokonino I remember.
The second image here, a Sunday comic strip, goes a long way toward explaining the first:
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Ron Campbell after George Herriman, Krazy Kat Jail Mirage
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From Krazy Kat & the Art of George Herriman: A Celebration by Craig Yoe, Abrams ComicArts, 2011, page
20: May 15, 1938. Credit: KRAZY KAT™ Hearst Holdings, Inc. Courtesy of
Craig Yoe’s collection of Herriman images and ephemera.
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Now it becomes apparent that Campbell copied this from the final panel of a Krazy Kat Sunday strip, and it is perfectly clear how the piece came about and why it appears to capture a few elements of Herriman's classic style. Possibly Campbell used a lightboard to get this drawing started.
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Ron Campbell after George Herriman, Krazy Kat Jail Mirage
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From Krazy Kat & the Art of George Herriman: A Celebration by Craig Yoe, Abrams ComicArts, 2011, page
20: May 15, 1938. Credit: KRAZY KAT™ Hearst Holdings, Inc. Courtesy of
Craig Yoe’s collection of Herriman images and ephemera.
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Note: My post on Krazy Kat specialty pieces remains my most popular post of all time and continues to be updated occasionally as I find more amazing material to include. You can see it all here and I believe you will feel better immediately, if not sooner.
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