Krazy!

"George Joseph Herriman was born in New Orleans on August 22, 1880. His father was a middle-class entrepreneur who moved his family to Los Angeles around 1886. George sold his first sketch to the Los Angeles Herald at 17, then became an assistant in the engraving departement of the newspaper.
In 1901, he started selling cartoons to Judge magazine and to the New York World. Later he also contributed to the Philadelphia North American’s color supplement and to the
McClure Syndicate.
In 1902, Herriman married in Los Angeles. Back in New York, he soon inaugurated some of his earliest comic-strip series : Musical Moses (1902), Professor Otto and his Auto (1902), Acrobatic Archie (1903), Two Jolly Jackies (1902), Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade (1904).
In 1904,
Herriman moved to Hearst’s New York American to draw sports cartoons. After working for the New York Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, he joined the Los Angeles Examiner in 1906.
During the next few years, Herriman went on producing short lived series for the Hearst journals, most notably the The Dingbat Family (1910) and Gooseberry Sprig (1909), starring a top-hatted duck surrounded by a cast of animals engaged in burlesque metaphysics, and
prefiguring Krazy Kat, his greatest creation. ..."
GEORGE-HERRIMAN.COM - The official website of Krazy Kat's creator (via del.icio.us/robbytherobot)