George Herriman's Stumble Inn

Never-before collected masterpieces from the creator of Krazy Kat.

George Herriman is legendary for his Krazy Kat series (whose Sunday strips Fantagraphics finished collecting last year), but not many people realize that even during Krazy’s 30-year-run, Herriman branched out and produced several other comic-strip features, any one of which would have landed him in the pantheon of all-time greats.

Stumble Inn, which ran daily for over three years (from 1922 to 1926), featured humans rather than animals and centered around the comedic occurrences in a hotel populated by one Uriah Stumble and his dysfunctional group of lodgers. (If you always wanted to see Herriman’s avant-la-lettre version of Fawlty Towers, this is what you've been waiting for.) Less dreamy and surreal than Krazy Kat’s desert-bound romantic triangle, Stumble Inn is a more robust, “classical” comic strip from the 1920s with wisecracks and pratfalls galore, all of course delineated with Herriman’s usual charm and elegance, and his slangy/poetic dialogue.

Reproduced from the best newspaper tear sheets available (from the legendary Bill Blackbeard San Francisco Academy of Comic Art), buttressed with fascinating historical essays and even-more-rare art, Stumble Inn is yet another Herriman masterpiece, and a crucial addition to any classic comic-strip fan’s library.