{"id":143675,"date":"2020-03-19T14:59:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T18:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=143675"},"modified":"2020-03-19T15:56:10","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T19:56:10","slug":"krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/","title":{"rendered":"Krazy Kat Gets the Spanish Flu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>George Herriman\u2019s <\/em>Krazy Kat <em>ran in the Sunday papers from 1913 until 1944. The strip\u2019s offbeat poetry and idiosyncratic dialect made it one of the first comics to be taken seriously by intellectuals and praised as high art (e. e. cummings wrote the introduction to the first collection of the comic to be published as a book). The premise is a deceptively simple love triangle: Ignatz the mouse despises sweet, simpleminded Krazy Kat, who nurses an undying love for him. Ignatz hurls bricks at Krazy, who takes each one as a sign of affection (\u201cLi\u2019l dollink, allus f\u2019etful,\u201d he says, as the bricks bounce off his head). Officer Pup, in love with Krazy Kat, attempts to protect him by thwarting Ignatz and jailing him. In the strip below, from 1918, Ignatz and Krazy come down with the Spanish flu, which apparently can be contracted by dreaming of bull fights.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-143676\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu-887x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"887\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu-887x1024.jpg 887w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu-260x300.jpg 260w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu-768x887.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Page courtesy of Michael Tisserand, author of <\/em>Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White<\/p>\n<p><em>George Herriman<\/em> <em>was a cartoonist, best known for the influential &#8216;Krazy Kat.&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this 1918 strip, from George Herriman&#8217;s &#8220;Krazy Kat,&#8221; the characters all come down with the flu. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1927,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30980],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Krazy Kat Gets the Spanish Flu by George Herriman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 19, 2020 \u2013 In this 1918 strip, from George Herriman&#039;s &quot;Krazy Kat,&quot; the characters all come down with the flu.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Krazy Kat Gets the Spanish Flu by George Herriman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 19, 2020 \u2013 In this 1918 strip, from George Herriman&#039;s &quot;Krazy Kat,&quot; the characters all come down with the flu.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-19T18:59:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-03-19T19:56:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1155\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"George Herriman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"George Herriman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"George Herriman\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/77bec8eb69150417a1a009ae461ba5e9\"},\"headline\":\"Krazy Kat Gets the Spanish Flu\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-19T18:59:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-03-19T19:56:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/\"},\"wordCount\":186,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu-887x1024.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Comics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/\",\"name\":\"Krazy Kat Gets the Spanish Flu by George Herriman\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu-887x1024.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-19T18:59:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-03-19T19:56:10+00:00\",\"description\":\"March 19, 2020 \u2013 In this 1918 strip, from George Herriman's \\\"Krazy Kat,\\\" the characters all come down with the flu.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/krazy-kat-spanish-flu.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":1155},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/19\/krazy-kat-gets-the-spanish-flu\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Krazy Kat Gets the Spanish Flu\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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