Portal:Comics/Selected biography/17

George Herriman (August 22, 1880 – April 25, 1944) was an American cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Krazy Kat (1913–1944). More influential than popular, Krazy Kat had an appreciative audience among people in the arts. Gilbert Seldes' article "The Krazy Kat Who Walks by Himself" was the earliest example of a critic from the high arts giving serious attention to a comic strip. The Comics Journal placed the strip first on its list of the greatest comics of the 20th century. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to mulatto Creole parents, Herriman grew up in Los Angeles. After he graduated from high school in 1897, he got his first job in newspapers, doing illustrations and engraving. He soon moved on to cartooning and comic strips—a medium then in its infancy. He did a variety of strips until he introduced his most famous character, Krazy Kat, in his strip The Dingbat Family in 1910. Upon his 1944 death, a week's worth of Krazy Kat strips lay unfinished on the drawing table in his Hollywood home. His work has been a primary influence on cartoonists such as Will Eisner, Charles Schulz, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson, Patrick McDonnell and Chris Ware.