HERRIMAN, GEORGE. 1880-1944.
Large 10-panel Sunday Krazy Kat strip, 560 x 365 mm, ink on artists' board, dated January 28 [1940], signed ("Herriman") in penultimate panel, with King Features Syndicate printed copyright strip to penultimate panel and "U.S. Patent" printed strip to first panel, soiling, verso stained.
Provenance: from the collection of Penny Phillips, voice of Krazy Kat in the 1962-64 animated series.
Offisa Pupp hears a moaning lament from somewhere in the distance and rushes over to find Krazy Kat singing the blues: "My poo' sad hott is breakin' an' all my corns is wile ... my kittil of soup is werra dry, my kendil has gone out," etc, reducing Offissa Pup to sobbing pleas to cease. Out of the Coconino landscape appears Ignatz, zipping a brick at Krazy's head just as Offissa rushes off. In the next panel Offissa encounters Mock Duck, and asks "I-I-I said- do you hear what I hear?" The freshly clobbered Krazy's tune has changed, amidst a cloud of dust and rising hearts: "There is a heppy lend fur, fur away."
This comic strip and the previous two lots come from the collection of Penny Phillips, who voiced Krazy Kat and other characters in the 1962-64 King Features animated series. This lot includes a copy of a French collection of Krazy Kat (Futuropolis, 1981) inscribed to Phillips by several notable cartoonists, along with original sketch of their characters, including: Jim Davis with a sketch of Garfield; Chris and Dik Browne with sketches of Hagar the Horrible; Fred Laswell with a sketch of Snuffy Smith; John Prentice with a sketch of Rip Kirby; John Cullen Murphy with a sketch of Prince Valiant; and New Yorker cartoonist Charles Saxon, with a sketch of an everyman.