HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DON MARQUIS, CREATOR OF ARCHY AND MEHITABEL

Origins of the characters and of illustrations by comic artist, George Harriman, creator of Krazy Kat

Donald Robert Perry Marquis was born on this day, July 29, 1878.

In 1916, Don Marquis started publishing poems supposedly written by a cockroach named Archy in his Sun Dial column in the New York Sun newspaper. A cat named Mehitabel was mentioned during that first column, but it was only later that her character was developed from a menace who was threatening to eat Archy into Archy’s best friend, a racy feline who put on airs and who claimed to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra.

Marquis parodied many aspects of the culture of his day, including poets who wrote free verse and were insufferably arrogant and competitive, and gullible people who were believers in the transmigration of souls after death.

The first illustration of Archy. Seen in an advertisement in the New-York Tribune on September 11, 1922, introducing the new column (after Marquis changed publishers). Wikipedia.

Here is the first column

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A scan of the editorial page of The (New York) Evening Sun. This is the first column to feature the characters Archy and Mehitabel, the latter remaining unnamed in this work. Wikipedia.

After I learned about Archy the cockroach poet, I googled a bit and found that E.B. White wrote this marvelous review of The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis.

“Among books of humor by American authors, there are only a handful that rest solidly on the shelf. This book about Archy and Mehitabel, hammered out at such awful cost by the bug hurling himself at the keys, is one of those books. It is funny, it is wise, it is tender, and it is tough. . . ."

Even though Archy was characterized as a writer of free verse, E. B. White notes “Marquis moved easily from one form of composition to another. In this book you will find prose in the guise of bad vers libre, poetry that is truly free verse, and rhymed verse.”

Marquis’s poems and stories were later published in several books, and the characters were later dramatized in a musical, a play, and an animated film.

Here’s the opening to the film, starring Carol Channing as Mehitabel.

The characters live in on the culture in many other ways. For one example, a Facebook search reveals scores of post about cats named Mehitabel.

George Herriman’s Illustrations

Starting in 1927, after Marquis’s poems and stories about Archy and Mehitabel were published in several highly popular books, illustrations were added by cartoonist George Herriman.

Herriman’s illustration of Don Marquis’s discovery of Archy the cockroach hurling himself against the typewriter keys, while the as-yet-unnamed cat looks on.

You can view the book and see the rest of Herriman’s terrific illustrations at the Internet archive here.

Herriman was also the creator of the newspaper comic Krazy Kat, about the love/hate slapstick relationship between a cat and a mouse.

Herriman’s Krazy Kat comic strip ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, loved the strip and made sure it continued to appear in his syndicated newspapers, even though the public didn't like it much. Many others of a more literary and artistic bent such as e. e. cummings, hailed Krazy Kat as distinctive American art.

Krazy Kat is in love with Ignatz, a mouse, who does not return Krazy's affections. One secondary character Officer Bull Pupp, a dog, also falls in love, with Krazy. The strip elaborates on this krazy premise of interspecies love, sappy naivete, misunderstanding, and irritation.

Ignatz is often so annoyed by Krazy's simple-mindedness that he throws a brick at Krazy. Krazy characteristically misinterprets the brick-throwing as evidence of Ignatz's love, and calls the mouse his little angel (lil anjil) and other endearments when the brick meets his dumb skull. Officer Pupp is often shown chasing Ignatz around trying and sometimes succeeding in arresting him.

The delightfully absurd cleverness mixed with social commentary of archy and mehitabel and of Krazy Kat reminds me of P. G. Wodehouse's work. Wodehouse published his first comic piece in 1900 and continued to write to increasing fame until the middle of the 20th century. But that's a whole other digression.

Herriman has been credited as an influence on many famous cartoonists that came after him. In Herriman’s strips, the backgrounds change between panels, even when the characters don't move. Herriman also used odd page layouts, with panels of various shapes and sizes.

A rare full-page Saturday Krazy Kat comic in which Krazy tries to understand why Door Mouse (a minor character from the early strips) is carrying a door. Krazy expounds upon the door as a useless object while Door Mouse uses it as a bridge, a raft, and a table, and to protect them from the elements. Ultimately it is used to block one of Ignatz's bricks from hitting Krazy. Wikipedia.

The image shows the oddities of Herriman’s style and his use of language. Krazy tells Door Mouse (obviously a play on dormouse) all the reasons when he should not be carrying a door, up to the point where the mouse uses the dooras a shield to deflect one of Ignatz's bricks aimed at Krazy—so it boomerangs back to knock Ignatz in the head.

Below is a copy of a column titled, “Father of Krazy Kat Admired as Mild Mannered Genius.” It was written by Damon Runyon, who called Herriman the “cartoonists’s cartoonist.”

That’s all she wrote. Today has turned into tomorrow. Make of that what you will. Or ask Kamala Harris.