Judge #2235

History

George Herriman's relationship with Judge magazine predates Krazy Kat by over a decade: his earliest published cartoons appeared in Judge in 1901, making the magazine part of the professional crucible that shaped him before William Randolph Hearst hired him away. By 1924, Krazy Kat had been running as a Hearst newspaper strip since 1913, with a full-page Sunday edition since 1916, and Herriman held a lifetime contract granting him complete creative freedom — a virtually unheard-of arrangement. In 1924, Judge was a 32-page weekly humor magazine published by Leslie-Judge Co. in New York under editor Douglas H. Cooke, operating at a high-water mark of Art Deco illustration and Jazz Age satire; Harold Ross's brief editorship that year would directly inform his founding of The New Yorker in 1925.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse were created by George Herriman (1880–1944), a New Orleans-born cartoonist of Creole descent who held a lifetime contract with William Randolph Hearst's newspaper syndicate.
• The Krazy Kat newspaper strip debuted as a standalone daily on October 28, 1913, and expanded to a full-page Sunday format on April 23, 1916; by 1924 it was at the height of its artistic maturity.
• Krazy Kat's central dynamic — Ignatz Mouse repeatedly hurling a brick at the cat's head, which Krazy interprets as a token of love, while Officer (Offissa) Pupp attempts to protect Krazy by jailing Ignatz — was established years before this issue and remained the strip's engine throughout its run.
• Judge magazine was a weekly American satirical and humor publication founded in 1881; in 1924 it was a 32-page weekly, approximately 11¼" x 8¼" in format, published by Leslie-Judge Co., New York.
• Harold Ross served as an editor of Judge from April 5 to August 2, 1924 — the same year this issue was published — and directly leveraged that editorial experience to launch The New Yorker in 1925.
• In 1924, art critic Gilbert Seldes devoted a chapter of his book The Seven Lively Arts to Krazy Kat, marking what historians regard as the first serious critical treatment of a comic strip as a work of fine art.
• Herriman first published cartoons in Judge in 1901, meaning his work appeared in the magazine more than two decades before this issue, making his association with Judge a long-running one that predates Krazy Kat's own creation.
• The 1924 Krazy Kat daily strips were later collected by Eclipse Books as Krazy & Ignatz Vol. 9: 'Shed a Soft Mongolian Tear' (1992), edited by Bill Blackbeard, providing a modern reprint context for the strip's output during this period.

Cast · 2 characters

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