George Herriman's Krazy Kat as Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan, in a tribute to the latter character's habit of getting konked on the head. Originally posted on Scipio Garling's fantastic "Absorbascon" blog, on October 31, 2007. I based the cartoon on this panel from the book "America's Great Comic-Strip Artists" by Richard Marschall (Abbeville Press):
My penciled version also had Offissa Pupp, as Hawkman, standing disapprovingly in the background, but it made the composition too busy. At one point I tried casting the anonymous bystander in Herriman's original as the Flash, but again, it distracted from the main idea of the parody. Herriman was a master of pen-and-ink. I have nothing even approaching his facility. Thankfully, I was able to achieve a similar look with a brush.
2 comments:
If it weren't for the Lantern symbol (and noticing the "PWN"), I would assume this actually was Herriman. You made the background more dynamic and surreal, and more in a style I associate with Krazy Kat.
Thanks, Bill! I did a lot of "editing" on that back ground with a big ol' ink brush. I think you're totally right about it; when I think of Herriman, I imagine those weirdly-shaped outcroppings versus the vast plateaus he used in that particular panel. Of course, he knew exactly what he was doing, in regards to the visual "rhythm" of the entire strip, but for a single panel I needed something more iconic. The crescent moon is copied from another Herriman panel, and I merely doubled it to signify the setting was an alien world.
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