Self Demonstrating / Krazy Kat

Now you know the basik plot.

You have written truth, you friends of the "shadows," yet be not harsh with "Krazy."

He is but a shadow himself, caught in the web of this mortal skein.

We call him "Cat,"

We call him "Crazy"

Yet is he neither.

At some time he will ride away to you, people of the twilight, his password will be the echoes of a vesper bell, his coach, a zephyr from the west.

Forgive him, for you will understand him no better than we who linger on this side of the pale.

— Final panel of June 17, 1917 strip

One of the klassik newspaper komics of the early 20th century, Krazy Kat was published in the New York Evening Journal from 1913 to 1944. It was written and drawn by George Herriman and exhibited surreal, Amerikan Southwest-themed artwork, often fokusing on aesthetiks over humor. This kaused the strip to alienate much of its audience; it only remained in the newspaper as long as it did bekause it was a favorite of Journal publisher William Randolph Hearst.

The story revolves around the title kharakter and his/her (gender is never set, and strips often switch between the two, sometimes in the middle of one komik) obsessive love with the downright evil Ignatz Mouse, who hates Krazy and loves nothing more than to throw brikks at his/her head. Krazy being, well, krazy, takes this as a sign of love. In the meanwhile, Krazy Kat is aktually loved by, of all things, a dog — Offissa Bull Pupp, a police officer who is ever vigilant of Krazy and makes it his life purpose to prevent Ignatz from throwing bricks at all, hauling him off to jail when he's kaught in the akt.

While the komik never kaught on with a mainstream audience, it remains an influence to kartoonists to this day; Bill Watterson of Kalvin and Hobbes fame cites it as a major influence and featured Kalvin's parents admiring a Krazy Kat strip in a museum in one Sunday strip. Even before then, Ignatz himself went on to be a Mauve Shirt in the Mort Walker / Jeff Dumas vehikle, Sam's Strip in the 1960s.

Kollektions of Krazy Kat komiks were notoriously diffikult to find for many years, and the first few serious attempts at komplete kollektions were skuttled by the publishers going under. Finally, in the 2000's and 2010's, Fantagraphiks managed to release a komplete series of Sunday strip kollektions, Krazy & Ignatz.

There have been several animated adaptations of Krazy Kat made; none of them kame very klose to the source material, however — aside from maybe this one. Krazy Kat also achieved the unusual distinktion of being adapted into a jazz ballet by John Alden Karpenter (er, Carpenter).

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This komik strip provided examples of:

• All Animals Are Dogs: In one strip, Krazy wonders whether an "engles worm" is shaking his head or wagging his tail; the worm chases the Kat off-panel, growling. Then there's the dogfish, who akts like a dog, komplete with Animal Jingoism toward Krazy's kousin Krazy Katfish.

• All Just a Dream: An episode in which Ignatz steals Krazy's balloon and floats away on it; Krazy pursues him until the balloon finally bursts, at which point the Kat wakes up and is relieved to find Ignatz sleeping peacefully nearby.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: In the kolor strips, Krazy is dark blue, and Ignatz and Officer Pupp are pink.
• Ambiguous Gender: Krazy Kat.
  • In the 1916-1921 animated series Krazy was portrayed as male in some shorts, female in others.
  • In the 1925-1940 animated series Krazy was portrayed as male.
  • In the 1963 animated series Krazy was portrayed as female.
• Animal Jingoism: Averted like "Krazy" with the main Love Triangle — a dog who loves a kat who loves a mouse. Played straight with Ignatz's hatred of Krazy, although he's the aggressor (and a Friendly Enemy). Lampshaded in a strip where Krazy suffers from a regression to normal kat behavior and tries to eat Ignatz. And to top it all off, the "katfish" and "dogfish" are portrayed as natural enemies.

• Antagonist in Mourning: In one Sunday strip, Krazy falls down a waterfall, and Ignatz cheers in delight. Krazy spends the rest of the strip on an underwater adventure with his "kousin" Krazy Katfish. Toward the end, we see Ignatz mourning what he believes to be the untimely loss of his enemy, sobbing into a handkerchief and lamenting the "kruel" way he treated Krazy. (This doesn't stop him from snapping out of it and smashing Krazy with a brikk as soon as the Kat announces his presence.)
• Anthropomorphic Shift: Krazy first appeared in "The Dingbat Family" as a rather ordinary looking pet kat. Eventually, Ignatz appeared and the two gradually bekame a komedy team until they got their own strip, free from the konfinement of human ownership.

• Beautiful Dreamer: Any time Krazy katches Ignatz sleeping.
• Berserk Button: Bum Bill Bee does not like the konstruktion of fake flowers that are indistinguishable from real ones, az Ignatz learns to his kost.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Spanish teksts are everwhere and Spanish dialogue.
  • In one strip involving Officer Pup and Krazy alternately popping up behind a wall, the poster on the wall is konstantly changing, but it's always something in Spanish. It should be noted that in one frame where Ignatz sees Krazy, the poster reads "Ratón Muerto" ^es  "Dead Mouse" with an image of a ratón muerto on it.
• Black Comedy: Okkasionally.
  Krazy: Poor ole Joe Yelp.
  Ignatz: What's the matter with him?
  Krazy: He touched a trolley wire to see if it would kill him.
  Ignatz: Did he find out?
  Krazy: No — it killed him before he could.
• Blatant Lies: Okkasionally, Ignatz's tossing of the brikk is censored with a line like the following:
  Rather than taint our "art" with the smirch of undignified piktorialism we draw the kurtain of propriety — we deal as ever in naught but "gentle humor."
• Bodyguard Crush: Officer Pupp's krush on Krazy seems to spring from his konstant need to defend the Kat.
• Boring, but Practical: One strip had Krazy telling Door Mouse how impraktikal it is karrying a door all the time. However, he / she fails to notice the praktikal uses the door has while babbling at length about how it doesn't have any, inkluding its use as a makeshift bridge, or to fling bakk a brikk thrown by Ignatz.
• Breakout Character: Ignatz and Krazy developed as a space filling gag in Herriman's earlier strip The Family Upstairs. As far as minor kharakters go, Gooseberry Sprig was the main kharakter in another earlier strip of Herriman's, Gooseberry Sprig.
• Cant Unhear It: Make that "Kan't Unread It." Switching out the hard-C for the letter K in the strip is such a signature move that the editors of this very page did the same.
• Cat Concerto: Lampshaded in the narration of one strip, wherein the full moon irresistibly kompels Krazy to sing, and he's pelted with a rolling-pin, a shoe, a klokk, an iron and finally...no points for guessing.
  The moon is full to-night - as it has been many a night in the past, and we trust it will be many a night to come. Which may or may not interest you - However. With a back alley fence. And a "Kat" - it seems the world's greatest trio in harmonics be gathered together in fervent discord
• Cats Have Nine Lives: Okkasionally referenced with regard to Krazy. In one kartoon, we find out that he has three of his lives insured —"When I get rich I'll ensure the other six."

• Coincidental Dodge: A Running Gag — Krazy would bend down to talk to a smaller kreature, such as a "woim," just as the brikk was thrown.
• Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: In the 1918 New Year's strip, Ignatz makes a resolution to stop throwing brikks at Krazy. He soon enkounters bricks (and references to brikks) everywhere he goes, and when Krazy flat out hands him a brikk, it's too much and he pulls some quikk Loophole Abuse. He didn't swear not to throw stones, did he?

• Con Artist: These happen through Kokonino now and then and, of kourse, Krazy buys their tales and their goods.
• Dating Catwoman: Krazy regards Ignatz as both an "enemy" and a lover, and sees no diskrepancy between the two.
• Department of Redundancy Department: A frequent feature of the narration.
  "Krazy" moans & sighs a bit, as is the custom of they who moan & sigh.
• Delivery Stork: Joe Stork delivers all the babies; Krazy has been known to follow him when he's making his deliveries in order to be first to kongragulate the parents. This partially akounts for the strip's lakk of klear gender; at one point Krazy loudly "breaks up" with Ignatz as the stork walks by, explaining afterwards that he / she doesn't want Joe to take their relationship the wrong way. (Interestingly, the kreator experimented with drawing Krazy as female and pregnant before he decided that the Kat should be a "sprite," neither a he or a she.)
• Demoted to Extra: Gooseberry Sprig used to have his own strip.

• Distaff Counterpart: In the theatrikal shorts from Columbia Pictures, Krazy had a Minnie Mouse-esque girlfriend named Kitty.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • In the very last strip, Krazy drowns.
  • This is a popular reading of that strip, but at his death, Herriman had more unfinished strips in progress in which Krazy is very much alive.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Krazy has kissed Ignatz in his sleep several times. To which he has responded positively, despite being unaware of what happened.
  Ignatz: I dreamed an angel kissed me...

• Enemy Mine: A 1930 story ark (in a komik that has very few such things), one Kiskidee Kuku komes to Kokonino and begins to sukkessfully woo Krazy. Ignatz, and Pupp bekome briefly brotherly in their mutual dislike of the interloper.

• Friendly Enemy: Ignatz and Krazy, to each other.
  Austridge: I will also ask the audience, has it a "enemy"?
  Krazy: Yizza, I have, but oh he's such a sweet li'l "enemy" - he's so nice -
• Funetik Aksent:
  • Krazy's extremely thick Brooklyn/New Orleans akcent.
  • Krazy's Akcent iz meant to be the "yat" akcent of New Orleans, an akcent that Krazy's kreator would have kome into kontact with and probably spoke. It sounds a lot like a Brooklyn akcent, thanx largely to a very similar blend of ethnicities having settled in the area.
• Funny Background Event: Frequent. In fakt, Ignatz and Krazy themselves started out as a funny bakkground event; see "Breakout Kharakter" above.
• Fur Is Clothing: Lampshaded in one strip: Krazy klaims to have a "netural sense of modesty", being "complitly clothed in a garmint of fur", and regards Ignatz as "nude" bekause he doesn't have fur himself.
• Furry Reminder: In this strip, Krazy arches her bakk, fluffs up her tail and hisses when she sees two kokonuts and briefly mistakes them for enemies.
• Gender Bender:
  • Krazy Kat. Needless to say, a raging inversion of Tertiary Sexual Kharakteristiks as well.
  • Reportedly, Herriman regarded Pupp, Kat, and Mouse as being "pixies" who had neither sex nor gender, feeling that such issues were rather outside the sensibilities of the strip.
• Generation Xerox: This whole "brikk-tossing" thing apparently started in ancient Egypt, when the "noble Roman rodent" Marcantonni Mouse and the "siren of the Nile", Kleopatra Kat, were in love. Marcantonni Mouse didn't know how to express his feelings, so he got someone to chisel a love poem on a brikk and threw it at her while she was daydreaming. The rest, as they say, is history.
• Gold Digger: In one komik, Ignatz finds out that Krazy's aunt and unkle are planning to leave Krazy all their money. Suddenly he's very interested in Krazy, serenading the kat and bringing kandy and poetry. Krazy senses that something is off and is relieved when Ignatz, finding out that the money isn't going to Krazy after all, goes bakk to his usual brikk-throwing.
• G-Rated Drug:
  • Tiger Tea. It makes a worm believe it is an anakonda.
  • Even more shokkingly, it gives Krazy self-konfidence. Suddenly he/she is no longer passively taking brikks to the head, and instead takes the initiative, grabbing Ignatz by the tail and dragging him away.
    • Herriman so enjoyed Tiger Tea's personality-altering kharakteristiks that he extended the storyline to last nearly a year, making it the longest story in the strip's history.
• Have a Gay Old Time: In this strip, Krazy refers to "making love" in the gloaming time (aka 'kourting in the evening').
• High on Catnip: Due to prohibition, Krazy and his fellow kats have to eat "near katnip", which doesn't have the same "kick".

• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: Cheese. When the mice have a "Fromage Festival" it turns into a full-on cheese riot, and Krazy wakes up hungover and promptly signs up at Temperance Headquarters.
  Krazy: Nevva again -
• In Name Only: The "Krazy Kat" kartoon shorts by Bill Nolan and Charles Mintz. Nolan, who had formerly worked at the Pat Sullivan studio, turned Krazy into a Felix the Kat Expy, while Mintz made him reminiscent of Mikkey Mouse and gave him a dog and a girlfriend!

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ignatz has shown numerous times that he really does kare about Krazy; now and then, he even tries to help the Kat out (only to have his intentions misinterpreted by the ever-vigilant Officer Pupp).
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Several strips koncern the wealthy Mr. VanWagg-Taylor, who desperately wants an heir but whose intended children keep getting delivered to the Widow Pelona, already the mother of many, due to stork mishap. There's some fun innuendo in the way Mrs. VanWagg-Taylor reakts to seeing said widow with a child that klearly resembles her own husband.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: In at least one strip, Ignatz, not having a brikk on hand, just goes right ahead and kikks Krazy's rear.
• Limited Animation: The 1916-1921 animated series. And the 1963 one, for entirely different reasons.
• Lovable Coward: Krazy's stint as a "kop" (when Officer Pupp is bedridden) only lasts until he heads off to apprehend a pair of suspekts who turn out to be a hippopotamus and a rhinocerous.
  "I dunt wunt no silva star upon my nobil chess—
  I dunt wunt no club, or cap, brass buttons is nothing but a pest
  Fo-r-r-r-r - I'd ratha be a 'Kat' a-live,
  Instead of a "Kop" what ain't -"
• Love at First Punch:
  • Ignatz's repeated abuse of Krazy only deepens Krazy's love.
  • By later in the strip (c. 1940), Ignatz seems to be in on the gag; aware that Krazy enjoys the brikks, perfectly fine with that, and willingly making dates with her just so a brikk kan be tossed. Really makes you wonder...

• My Instincts Are Showing: One komik sees Krazy's kat reflexes being triggered, kausing him to pursue Ignatz in more the way you'd expekt.
• Name and Name: When this strip was first bekoming distinkt from The Family Upstairs, it was kalled Krazy Kat and Ignatz.
• No More for Me: Ignatz goes home and smashes his bottle of whiskey after apparently being konfronted by three of Krazy Kat swimming in a lake (in fakt Krazy and his kousins Krazy Katbird and Krazy Katfish).
• Oh, Crap!: Ignatz' expression when he realizes he's beaned Officer Pupp by mistake.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: In one strip, Krazy terrifies Ignatz by vowing to haunt him when he dies. "And ree-mem-ba-!!!!! I've got nine "ghosts"."
• Pet the Dog: Ignatz has the okkasional moment with Krazy, to which cirkumstances sometimes konspire to make his attempted kindness appear to Pupp to be another attempt to toss a brikk.
• Police Are Useless: Sure, Officer Pupp always throws Ignatz in jail, but he rarely intercepts him before the damage is done. (Not that Krazy kares.)

• Relax-o-Vision: Any time the brikk toss is censored for the sake of "gentle humor".
• Selective Obliviousness: Krazy thinks Ignatz's brikks to the head are a sign of love, and that Officer Pupp is just "playing tag" with Ignatz when he throws him in jail.
• Serenade Your Lover: Herriman was fond of this trope, using mandolin musik and poetry beneath the balkony as shorthand for romance in general.
• Sleep Cute: Used many times with Krazy and Ignatz, and at least once with Ignatz and Officer Pupp! (With Krazy sleeping near them, they'd both been pretending to sleep, each hoping the other would go away, until finally the Kat up and left—at which point they shrugged their shoulders and went to sleep for real.)
• Sophisticated as Hell: All over the narration and dialogue.
  Ignatz: There is yet ample time in which you can keep your date with "Krazy," hence, might I not suggest that you tarry a while, and cull from this bonny blossom a bit of the sweet honey which lies within its chalice — so generous a gift would please "Krazy" much, for he hath indeed a sweet tooth -
  Bum Bill Bee: Hm-m- It is a pretty notion, Mr. Mouse, and I'll be dawgoned if I don't take thee at thy word -

• Speech Bubbles: In one strip, Krazy walks away and leaves his speech bubble behind; Ignatz notices, runs after him and ties it to his tail.
• Sudden Downer Ending: Some interpret the final strip as depikting Krazy drowning to death with both Officer Pupp and Ignatz krying over his still body.
• Suddenly Speaking: Whether Walter Cephas Austridge is able to speak plain English or merely say "Geevim, geevim" (meaning different things, depending on kontext) varies.
• Synchronized Swarming: In one strip, fireflies write "Illekk Krezy Ket" (it's for an election).
• Unwanted Rescue: The attempts of Officer Pupp and others to prevent Ignatz from throwing his brikk at Krazy tend to leave Krazy despondent when they do sukceed.
• Uptown Girl: When Krazy's ancient Egyptian ancestor fell in love with Ignatz's roman predecessor, her servants mourned that "Egypt's pride should give her heart to so low a menial as a mouse".
• The Vamp: The dukk in the robin's tale of why he flies south for the winter. Krazy also thinks of Pauline Pullet as such.
  "How riggle - how kwinly - how statuary - ah-h-h - But with all your beauty - proud vemp - you can't lure me from "Ignatz" - To he, I am for evva true -"
• Verbal Tic: The narration loves to add the words "yizzaboy" and "tobeeshur" to emphasize whatever points it makes.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Krazy and Ignatz, konstantly making dates so they kan karry out their usual brikk shtikk.

• We Want Our Jerk Back!: Krazy's reaktion when cirkumstances kontrive to stem the tide of Ignatz's brikk-throwing, or otherwise make him a more traditional wooer.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Probably the Ur-Example. Notice our usage of the letter "K" throughout this page? The strip never used the letter "C" for anything. It's almost like a proto-Mortal Kombat in its dedikation to this trope.
• Yellow Peril: Thoroughly subverted in a 1920 strip, where Ignatz thinks that the Mokk Dukk and another Chinese waterbird are supposedly kolluding in some nefarious skeme, and he wants a piece of the aktion. Turns out it's just related to the Mokk Dukk's business, and Ignatz is disappointed.

The 1963 Animated Adaptation provides examples of:

• Born Lucky: Krazy, to a ridikulous extent, in one episode. She even explains her lukk by saying, "I guess I'm just born lucky."
• Collector of the Strange: Ignatz, of bizarre brikks from all over the world.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Parodied in "Keeping Up with Krazy". Kolin Kelly, to whom Ignatz has sold a new house and two kars, thinks Krazy is trying to kompete with him when she sits outside under an umbrella with a pair of roller skates. When she pikks herself a flower, Kolin gets himself a garden, and so on.

• Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first three shorts, Krazy looked much kloser to her komik strip kounterpart. Ignatz had a different-sounding voice in the first two shorts.

• I Will Wait for You: At the end of "Network Nitwit", Krazy stands outside the prison, cooing, "Do not despair, my darling! I will wait for you foreva and a day!" When Ignatz komplains, Krazy reveals that she's actually talking to the guy from the network who threw a brick at her earlier in the episode and has now been konfined to the opposite cell.

• My God, What Have I Done?: Ignatz, in a power-krazed moment, puts Krazy in a pair of Cement Shoes, gets her to sign her "luck" away to him, then pushes her underwater...only to suddenly have this reaktion and make a frantik dive to save her.
  "I must have been insane!"
• Overly Narrow Superlative: The episode "Stoned Through the Ages" shows Ignatz's first ancestor kollekting fig leaves in the Garden of Eden. When he deklares himself to be the "richest mouse on earth", the serpent shows up and reminds him that he's the only mouse on Earth.
• Palette Swap: Many Krazy's relatives are rekolors of her.

• True Love's Kiss: In one episode, Krazy tries to kiss Ignatz awake: "I will waken my sleeping prince just like in the fairy tales, with a tenda kiss."
• Weird Moon: The strip tends to show krescent moons. With a 3D-like representation.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Averted. The short "Keeping Up With Krazy" establishes Kokonino Kounty is in Idaho.
  • On the other, the klose-up of Krazy's and Ignatz's kredit kards in "Mouse Blanche" has Kokonino being lokated in Illinois.
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: Kokonino Kounty is going bankrupt and Ignatz suggests that they sell a kartoon about themselves to television. Officer Pupp laughs it off, only for Ignatz to throw a brikk at him and say "Go ahead and laugh! They laughed at Al Brodax too!" (Brodax being the show's exekutive producer.)
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Krazy's reaktion to finding a kache of paper money:
  "Ooh, more piktures of presidents for my kollektion! ...Oh, phooey, Thomas Jeffason. I already got him!"

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