A New 'Golden Age' (IV)

This is my first post in a while, and I noticed that some cobwebs have gathered on this blog. I left them alone on account of Halloween coming soon.

Anyway, in honor of National German Heritage Month, this special edition of ANGA will feature The Katzenjammer Kids. Wunderbar!



This comic is the oldest surviving comic strip, meaning that new strips are being produced. The comic was created in mid-December 1897 by German immigrant Rudolph Dirks. The principal characters included two misbehaving (and non-identical) twins Hans and Fritz; their rotund mother 'Mama'; der Kapitan (the Captain); and der Inspektor (the local truant officer). The Captain and the Inspektor were often the victims of the twins' malevolent pranks, and usually the comic ended with the twins in tears after a spanking. (Mama was usually oblivious to her sons' impudence.) But sometimes the twins put their cunning to practical use against actual antagonists who would bully the twins' foils--just to show that Hans and Fritz weren't beyond redemption, I'm guessing. That, or to provide a change of pace and a much-needed break for der Captain and der Inspektor.

In 1912, Dirks went on sabatical to pursue other hobbies for a time and returned to find that he had been replaced by another German-American cartoonist, Harold Knerr. William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate and Dirks' boss refused to give Dirks back his job, and a court battle ensued. The issue was settled where Hearst kept the strip (continued under the steady hand of Knerr), whilst Dirks kept the characters but had to use another title, The Captain and the Kids.

Thus in 1914, Hans and Fritz lived under two simultaneous incarnations for the next 65 years. Jeez.

World War I broke out and in 1917, all things German became verboten. (Stupid America.) As a result the Germans of the strip became Dutch until 1920, then reverted back to Deutsch.

Dirks continued to work on The Captain and the Kids with his son John, until Dirks' death in 1968. Knerr continued to work on The Katzenjammer Kids until his death in 1949, after which followed a succession of artist/writers up to the present day. Meanwhile, The Captain and the Kids lasted until the end of 1979.

Both are first-rate comics, and I'd like to point out that Harold Knerr to his credit (and through no fault of his own becoming Dirks' replacement) had superb talent and mimicked the style of Dirks admirably. He even introduced a mini-comic strip called Dinglehoofer und His Dog in 1926. But the dog was named Adolph (!) and was replaced by a dachshund named 'Schnappsie' in 1936. This was a good comic in and of itself and ran alongside Knerr's comic until 1953, a few years after his death.

Here's a comparison of Dirks (below) and Knerr (also below, but then some):





It's comforting to think that the strip still lives on (if a little mediocre), but it's confounding that in the midst of this great era of comic strip reprint collections being steadily churned out by several publishers, that not one is reprinting (or has yet announced) any reprint at all of either The Katzenjammer Kids or The Captain and the Kids. I can only slowly shake my Teutonic head in annoyance and resignation...

Tag der deutschen Einheit: 3. Oktober 2009

Today is the Day of German Unity, when everyone of German heritage is reminded of the Fatherland that is theirs.

I thought it best to include this 2001 song by the German group Die Prinzen. I don't like this band, so I made sure to find a video containing the music without the stupid images that accompany the original video.

[I couldn't post the video for some reason, so copy and paste the following address in your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqydj2zW-Wo&feature=related ]

German Heritage Month

Gruess Gott! Today marks the start of October, which marks the start of German Heritage Month. (It's also Italian Heritage Month, or so I'm led to believe. Which is awesome--that covers 2/3 of the Axis Powers! Right on, paisan! :] )

That said, this is the month where I will get anything German-related blog ideas out of my system. But note that not every post during this month will be German-related. This simply means that come November, there won't be much said about Germany or anything that smacks of German-ity posted on this sorry blog. Except for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November. I can't just let that go by unnoticed...

Bis dann!

Happy reading

...

The End.

Eine neuer Aera fuer Deutschland

Today has marked a great victory for the German people in their own country. This victory was not the struggle between Germany and the nation it has been antagonising (yes, that was a sarcastic comment), but rather the decent German voters over the idiotic German voters. For today, Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany and leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, has claimed victory along with its brother party, the Christian Social Union, and its new coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party. The CDU/CSU's old coalition partner, the Social Democrat Party suffered a glorious defeat at the polls, indicating that Germans are wary of socialism--which we are in danger of having in the (not so) good old USA.

What makes this victory even greater is that the German people (by and large) refused to be intimidated by the warning it had received from Al Qaida, due to Germany's role in the Afghanistan War. By not changing governments, Germany has shown that it does has some backbone after all, unlike Spain, which caved in to terrorist threats during its 2004 general election.

Being of German lineage, I take pride in the old country today and pray for the success of Angela Merkel's new government, which I believe is well suited to lead Germany through the rest of 2009 and into the next decade. If only we were so fortunate to be rid of the leftist morons in our government, as well.

A new 'golden age' (III) (for realsies)

Alright, I've made up my limited mind and decided to go with Krazy Kat for this week's blog post on the comics of yore. Sorry to end the suspense.

Krazy Kat started as bit player as the family cat in George Herriman's zany strip 'The Family Upstairs'. (Sounds kinda creepy, now that I think of it.) The titular family was never shown, and always caused grief to the strip's protagonist, the head of the Dingbat family. Their cat appeared in a miniature strip at the bottom of the page, along with a prickly mouse named Ignatz (apparently the pet of the family that lived upstairs). In 1913, Krazy and Ignatz were given their own comic strip and The Family Upstairs faded into oblivion.

Krazy and Ignatz were joined by the new antagonist, 'Officer Bull Pupp, the constable. And a new, bizarre triangle was formed. For you see, Krazy was in love with Ignatz, who hated her; he often threw a brick at her head, which Krazy took as a sign of affection and always enjoyed getting hit with a brick now and then. But Officer Pupp was fond of Krazy, so he usually made life miserable for Ignatz by throwing him in jail at every opportunity. What kind of nutso world was this?! And the setting for all this was the southwestern American desert.



The American public didn't like it all that much, though the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, who owned the syndicate, loved it. So it stayed until Herriman's death in April, 1944. History has been very kind to this comic strip, as several in the industry have regarded it as the greatest comic strip ever made. I disagree as it's not one of my favorites, but I do like it, still. And Fantagraphics (them again) has reprinted every Sunday page from 1925-1944, and is now preparing to publish three more volumes covering 1916-1924's Sunday pages (which were printed years back and now out of print).

A.M.D.G.

A new 'golden age' (III, sort of)

Readers, I haven't come up with a new post topic (but I guess THIS counts as a post), because I haven't decided to write about Krazy Kat next, or Gasoline Alley next, and the fact is that I'd rather listen to 80s music on iTunes right now (I don't have an iPod). I'll get to both eventually. But I thought I owed both of you an explanation.

[With that said, I'll retire this 'low readership' running joke. That kind of humor has been done time and again by the likes of Bob Hope and Jack Benny, et al. (Maybe some of you have heard of those guys...) And if such a joke rears its ugly head again in the future, I assure you it's because I will have forgotten about the pledge I made in this blog post.]

A.M.D.G.