{"id":50229,"date":"2016-11-25T23:08:07","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T23:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=50229"},"modified":"2016-11-26T00:19:40","modified_gmt":"2016-11-26T00:19:40","slug":"krazy-racial-rules-new-biography-of-cartoonist-george-herriman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=50229","title":{"rendered":"Krazy racial rules: New biography of cartoonist George Herriman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Krazy racial rules: New biography of cartoonist George Herriman<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Times-Picayune<\/a>
\nNew Orleans, Louisiana
\n2016-11-25<\/p>\n

Doug MacCash<\/strong><\/a>, Arts and Entertainment Writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nNew Orleans<\/a>-born Krazy Kat<\/em><\/a> cartoonist George Herriman<\/a> (Photo by Will Connell, courtesy Michael Tisserand<\/a>)<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

“Krazy: A Life in Black and White<\/a>,” the biography of Crescent City<\/a>-born newspaper cartoonist extraordinaire George Herriman<\/a> (1880-1944) is an absorbing study of a genius with a secret.<\/p>\n

Herriman’s equally compelling and confounding “Krazy Kat<\/a>” cartoon is considered a milestone in modern art. As New Orleans<\/a> author Michael Tisserand<\/a> deftly points out in his 549-page volume, the illogic of Herriman’s ink-on-paper drawings mirror the absurdity of the racial divide in early 20th-century America.<\/p>\n

After 10 years of scouring microfilm archives, yellowed newspapers and public records, Tisserand has pieced together Herriman’s journey from his humble birth in the Treme<\/a> neighborhood to heights of fame in Jazz-era<\/a> New York<\/a> and Los Angeles<\/a>. It wasn’t easy.<\/p>\n

“I had to teach myself to be an historian,” Tisserand said. “I didn’t anticipate the amount of difficulty it would be finding Herman’s work.”<\/p>\n

Like a snake handler, Tisserand uncoils the confusing racial politics of New Orleans in the Jim Crow<\/a> era, where the descendants of slaves and the descendants of so-called free people of color suffered segregation, discrimination and violence at the hands of the white population.<\/p>\n

As Tisserand explains, when Herriman was 10 years old, his parents fled the South<\/a> for a new beginning in California<\/a>, where personal reinvention was possible. As Tisserand wrote, “Herriman was a black man born in New Orleans.” But upon reaching the Pacific, Herriman’s parents “had obscured their identity and ‘passed’ for white<\/a>.”…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Krazy racial rules: New biography of cartoonist George Herriman The Times-Picayune New Orleans, Louisiana 2016-11-25 Doug MacCash, Arts and Entertainment Writer New Orleans-born Krazy Kat cartoonist George Herriman (Photo by Will Connell, courtesy Michael Tisserand) “Krazy: A Life in Black and White,” the biography of Crescent City-born newspaper cartoonist extraordinaire George Herriman (1880-1944) is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,1196,369,8,6462,20],"tags":[25543,9929,9930,25524,1438,25541,25542],"class_list":["post-50229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-literary-criticism","category-louisiana","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-doug-maccash","tag-george-herriman","tag-krazy-kat","tag-michael-tisserand","tag-new-orleans","tag-the-times-picayune","tag-times-picayune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50231,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50229\/revisions\/50231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}