I read online that Krazy Kat was either a he or a she and it wasn’t clear.
I thought OK it’s obvious Krazy Kat was a she, because then the cartoon would be about homosexuality and in the 20s and 30s you wouldn’t have that.
Then I looked and found old cartoons and sure enough they do sometimes call Krazy Kat a “he” and I’ve seen old cartoons where Krazy Kat is a “she.”
Did people in the 20s just not care or did they say “it’s just a cartoon,” or say “It about animals.” It seems now-a-days people would say someone is trying to push a homosexual adgenda.
I even found one explinaton where they said Krazy Kat is more of an elf or pixie so has no gender and the “he” is in the generic term.
“I don’t know. I fooled around with it once; began to think the Kat is a girl - even drew up some strips with her being pregnant. It wasn’t the Kat any longer; too much concern with her own problems - like a soap opera. Know what I mean? Then I realized Krazy was something like a sprite, an elf. They have no sex. So that Kat can’t be a her or a she. Kat’s a spirit - a pixie - free to butt into anything. Don’t you think so?”
According to Frank Capra, the cartoonist himself said Krazy was a gender-neutral Kat, so that would seem to be as close to a definitive answer as you’re likely to get.
According to Don Markstein, Krazy Kat was never a very popular strip. It survived as long as it did because among its select group of fans was news mogul William Randolph Hearst. If it had been more widely read, perhaps there might have been more questions about the Kat’s sexual identity. Or perhaps not.
Ignatz had a wife and children, so I think he can reasonably be assumed to be male.
I’ve been Krazy-mad since I was a kid, when I found a hardback collection of Krazy Kat dailies. The gender confusion problem with Krazy never bothered me when I was a child, but maybe that’s because one of my best friends was a neighbor boy who was a cross-dresser.
Not that it should be taken as proof of anything, but when i was little i watched the cartoon in spanish and it was called “la gata loca” which would make her female. At least to the translators.
Most people assume Krazy is female (they haven’t read the Herriman quote). They can see the triangle – Krazy loves Ignatz (definitely male) and Offissa Pup (also male – a female kop would have been unthinkable back then) loves Krazy. Thus, Krazy is female. People just didn’t notice when Krazy was referred to as “he.”
