Krazy & Ignatz: The Sketchbook Strips 1910-1913

As comic strip scholars well know, George Herriman’s Krazy Kat strip made its debut as a pint-sized supplementary strip running below the Family Upstairs strip beforeemancipating itself to its own, long-running strip.

What scholars are not aware of, however, is that aspart of his work process, Herriman used to draw a complete, essentially finished version of each installment ofthe “Family Upstairs” Krazy Kat in a sketchbook before carefully redrawing it as part of the daily Family Upstairs. Whichmeans that there exist “original” versions of hundred upon hundreds of Krazy Kat strips that have literally never beenpublished anywhere... until now.

The owner of this priceless artifact would like to share the contents of it with the rest of the world, and has chosenFantagraphics for this project.

This perfect facsimile edition (so exact that an unscrupulous con man could conceivably try to resell a copy to a gullible Herriman fan as the real thing) will also include a supplementary booklet containing an essay on Herriman, anda large sampling of the final, published Krazy Kat strips, allowing readers to compare and contrast with the originalsketchbook version.

Fantagraphics plans to eventually release a complete collection of the Family Upstairs/Krazy Kat strips as partof its “Komplete Herriman” series.