With this week's reading, I've come to find another comic that I find humorous and like. That comic is George Herriman's Krazy Kat. This comic has a pretty straightforward plot and structure that focuses around a few central characters including Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse, and Offisa Pupp.
The interactions between these three characters is very... unique, shall we say. Krazy Kat is cat in love with the mouse, Ignatz. Offisa Pupp is a dog in love with Krazy Kat. Ignatz, out of the three, seems to be the most normal one in our standards as he holds no emotions for either one of them. Instead he finds joy and satisfaction through chucking a brick at Krazy Kat's head at least once a day.
This hobby of Ignatz's is what Herriman makes the most of his strips about. It's very much in line with Schultz's football gag in the Peanuts with Lucy and Charlie Brown. However, this one definitely should be said to have come first. Both effectively keep this gag fresh through variations on the same joke.
And what do I mean by variations?
Well, a different build up that leads to the same punchline. Let's take a look at the comic below, for example.
In this comic, we have a court case that details the grand scheme of Ignatz Mouse managing to not only "crease the bean" of Krazy Kat, but of Krazy Katbird and Krazy Katfish. Through Herriman devising an unlikely case with an even unlikelier solution, we get a creative and funny comic that contains the brick gag.
In another one, shown below, we have Krazy hopping onto a fence to start caterwauling a nighttime melody. Throughout their singing, many objects are thrown to silence this artiste who sings for their muse. With each thrown object, Krazy ducks and dodges before finally being bonked in the back of the head by a brick. Finally achieving their goal, Krazy can sleep knowing that they've encountered Ignatz. This variation on the brick gag displays the odd love of Krazy Kat, who only finds it acceptable to be hit by bricks as if their tokens of affection by Ignatz. This view gives this particular take on the brick gag a new type of comedy that the previous one doesn't have.
There seems to be a trend with the brick gag, right? Whether it's the two comics above or ones where Ignatz and his mouse friends play a game of hot potato (brick) until it manages to hit Krazy Kat, the outcome is always the same.
Well, until it isn't.
George Herriman had a couple of variations that could really throw one for a loop. Like this comic for example. The same scenario occurs, with it plain and straight to the point: Ignatz Mouse hits Krazy Kat with a brick--
Hold on, I seem to be suffering from a thrown wrench in the gears.
Krazy Kat is the one who creased Ignatz's bean? And is also claiming to be that Mouse too? This variation could really make your head spin, especially since no context is given for how this situation arose. Even the witnessing characters and narrator have no explanation, giving it a meta comedy as it breaks the fourth wall to express the oddity of this situation.
If that isn't a unique variation on a common theme, then I don't know what is. However, there is one comic that may take the cake in variations on the brick gag. If this one claimed second, no one would dare claim first. The most surprising part is that it isn't focused on Ignatz throwing a brick, but in fact that he hit Krazy with something other than a brick!
In the comic below, Herriman takes a variation that makes the comic feel completely unrelated by showing the progress of Ignatz dumping bricks for rocks after a price raise in the brick industry. Herriman really went over the top here in making this variation.
Creativity knows no bounds in George Herriman's imagination and it shows within these comics. The fact that he can make all of these different versions of one singular joke and take them in very drastic directions he takes them really shows this. None of them feel the same and it may even take you a moment to realize that you've read the same joke for five comic strips now.
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