The great George Herriman rarely passed up an opportunity to draw smoke coming from a chimney. He seemed to add smoke to a picture the way a hat designer might place a feather in a lady's chapeau.
For art's sake, every fireplace in Coconino County must have been roaring all summer long.
Look how each example is different-- fluid, intuitive and beautiful.
You can treat each of these little abstract designs as a miniature rorschach test:
I suspect Herriman used the same standard for smoke that fine artist Ellsworth Kelly employed for his abstract drawings at the Museum of Modern Art. It's just a matter of what "feels right":
For me, the smoke from Krazy Kat's chimney is the superior work.
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