Ladies and Gentlemen, a short script.
A: I have writer's block.
B: Why don't you write about having writer's block?
(cue disparaging glare)
I flatter myself I am not the only person that has been forced to endure this frustrating scenario. I promised myself, in probably 10th grade, that I would never acquiesce to this ridiculous suggestion, yet I fear I am about to do so.
Unless somebody wants to explain the mystique of Krazy Kat to me? No? Okay, here goes.
The work that art critic Gilbert Seldes called "the most amusing and fantastic and satisfactory work of art produced in America today" revolves around one central plot and three seemingly enigmatic characters: a cat, who loves a mouse, who loves throwing bricks at the cat, and a dog that want to put the mouse in jail for throwing the bricks. It's like a an off-broadway Taming of the Shrew (in reverse). Except it's not, at all.
All of my efforts to bring forth something more complex from the panels, something to which analysis adheres, have eventually fallen flat (I have a similar experience when I look at the popular work of Piet Mondrian. I sit there and go "And?".). At first I thought Krazy might be some kind of backwater socrates, but his naivete is so persistent, that becomes impossible. Is he an idiot savant? Is he a saint? Is he a he? Who can tell? The characters are so immutable, the landscape so surreal, and the dialogue so bizzare, even the wildest theory about Herriman's creation could apply in some sense. Consider the essay "A forward to Krazy" by the great poet E.E. Cummings (http://www.krazy.com/cummings.htm). Such an eloquent consideration from a world-renowned, thoughtful mind must excavate some deeper meaning. I guess? Unless, it's just about a cat who loves a mouse who throws bricks at him/her.
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