George and Mabel Herriman, Wedding Portrait, 1902

This formal studio portrait captures George Herriman—later the creator of Krazy Kat—and his bride Mabel Bridge on their wedding day. Herriman, then twenty-two, had already begun his newspaper cartooning career, working the grind of dailies that were simultaneously inventing the comic strip's visual language: recurring characters, sequential panels, the speech balloon as dramatic architecture. Krazy Kat (1913–1944) would become the form's first critical touchstone, its surreal Coconino County landscapes admired by Gilbert Seldes and e.e. cummings alike. This quiet domestic image captures a moment in the early life of one of comics' most innovative artists.