Talk:George Herriman

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[edit] Herriman's ancestry

To the anon editing from 70.22.210.31, what is the source of your information? Your change of Herriman's ancestry to being the son of "a French father and African-American mother" seems contradicted by census information listing both parents as "colored" or "mulatto". Wondering, -- Infrogmation 20:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm new to Wikipedia so I don't know if this is showing up right...

My source of information about Herriman's parents is reading on other Web sites; unfortunately I can't cite them right now. They said that his father was a French chef and his mother an African American. The reason I removed the item about his being "Creole" is that Wikipedia's own page on Creole (Louisiana) indicates that in the Louisiana/New Orleans context, "Creole" has nothing to do with race.

Furthermore... I really don't care how Herriman's racial identity is described, but before you go immediately undoing all of my edits, why don't you check the page on Lousiana Creoles for yourself? The way you wrote this makes Wikipedia internally contradictory. User:70.22.210.31

Thanks for the reply. I think the recent edits are okay; note the census designation of his family as "mulatto". The part of town he grew up in was predominently Creole at the time, and I'm not away of anything contradictary with the info in the Louisiana section of the Creole article. Yes, "Creole" was cultural, the desination "of Color" is the racial part, to use terms of the era. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 00:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

It's also possible that "French chef" didn't mean that he was from France, but rather that he was a specialist in French cuisine. --Jfruh 03:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor points

I'm not going to bother editing this page anymore, since all my previous attempts were immediately undone. I will make a few minor points, however:

The second sentence currently reads: "George Herriman was born in a light-skinned Creole of Color family in New Orleans, Louisiana, both of his parents were listed as "mulatto" in the 1880 census."

That's a run-on sentence.

Also, since Herriman is primarily remembered (for most people, I'd say only remembered) for his creation of Krazy Kat (which I personally believe to be the greatest cartoon strip ever)... wouldn't it make more sense to somehow introduce Krazy Kat much earlier in the article? Right now it's basically chronological, which throws the first mention of Krazy Kat quite far down. Wouldn't it make more sense to put that mention right in the first sentence somehow?

Another point: I think the discussion of racial identity in Krazy Kat is fine, but it might leave a reader with the misimpression that that's primarily what the strip was about. Actually, the racial theme was only one of many in the strip; I believe that the majority of the strips had nothing to do with race.

Also, there's no mention in the article that many people consider Krazy Kat to be the greatest (or one of the greatest) strips ever done, and no explanation of what made the strip so great. Perhaps this would be too 'point of view' for an encyclopedia, but it seems that without this, why should most people (not very familiar with Krazy Kat) even care about Herriman or realize why he's so special? User:70.22.208.84

How was he able to pass as white? he's clearly part black. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.7.249.68 (talk • contribs)

"Clearly" to who? Many who knew him at the time didn't know. -- Infrogmation 16:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

okay, I guess I can see how people thought he was Greek but he looks very black. He looks like a fair-skinned black man.198.7.249.68 05:18, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] last strip

The article currently reads: "On June 25, 1944, two months after Herriman's death, the last of his Krazy Kat strips was printed; An un-inked penciling of a Sunday page found on his drawing board at the time of his death."

What does this mean? It makes no sense. It should be either "On June 25, 1944, two months after Herriman's death, the last of his Krazy Kat strips was printed: an un-inked penciling of a Sunday page found on his drawing board at the time of his death." or "On June 25, 1944, two months after Herriman's death, the last of his Krazy Kat strips was printed. An un-inked penciling of a Sunday page was found on his drawing board at the time of his death."

In other words, was the un-inked Sunday page the last strip printed, or was it left unprinted on his drawing table?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.236.220 (talk • contribs)

I interpret it as the first, otherwise it would be illogical to mention this following a "two months later"-piece of information (but accidents may happen during editing). You may be right in that a colon is the better choice to relate this. A source ought to be at hand to remove the doubt.. MURGH ^disc. 10:38, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The (partly) uninked item found on Herriman's drawing board was actually a sequence of six dailies, as verified in McDonnell's _Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman_ (1985, reprinted 1999). The incomplete dailies themselves were reprinted in _McSweeney's Quarterly Concern_ issue 13, a hardback literary journal that focuse on comics in that issue.

Murgh, with all due respect I'll make the change to your sentence about the final strip(s), as it's still ungrammatical and a bit confusing for the reasons cited. Ramapith 16:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your concern. I actually hadn't edited it in the hope that someone informed would make the appropriate fixes. Looks good, I'll just restore the MoS-T italics for the strip title ;^) MURGH ^disc. 23:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)