Krazy Kat was one of the most important comic strips of the early 20th Century and many people today are aware of the comic. But few people realize that Krazy Kat was actually a spinoff from another comic strip.
George Herriman (b. 1880 - d. 1944) was working for the Los Angeles Hearld-Examiner as a cartoonist when, in 1910, he started work on a domestic comedy strip named The Dingbat Family. Though it was apparent early on that the story revolved around the unseen family upstairs. Just a few weeks into its run, the name of the strip was changed to The Family Upstairs.
During this time, Herriman used a small space at the bottom of the strip to chronicle the adventures of the family's cat and an unnamed mouse. Those two would eventually be spun off into Krazy Kat and Ignatz mouse. The Dingbat Family/The Family Upstairs ended in 1916.
It should be noted that Herriman helped popularize the use of "dingbat" to reference someone who is foolish. It was a term for the sound made when a typographical symbol was struck on a typewriter, "ding" and "bat." Its use for someone foolish originates from the early days of the 20th Century.
