Harold Knerr

Harold Knerr
Born	Harold Hering Knerr September 4, 1882 Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	July 8, 1949(1949-07-08) (aged 66) Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Area(s)	Artist, writer
Notable works	The Katzenjammer Kids

Harold Hering Knerr (September 4, 1882 – July 8, 1949), who signed his work H. H. Knerr, was an American comic strip creator. He was the writer-artist of the comic strip The Katzenjammer Kids for 35 years.

Knerr was born September 4, 1882, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.¹ His father Calvin B. Knerr, was a homeopath and colleague of Constantine Hering, a pioneer in homeopathy.²

He attended the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art.³

Knerr worked as a newspaper illustrator. He recalled, "My first newspaper work was drawing pictures of gravestones atop the oldest graves in a local cemetery for The Philadelphia Record. These were paid for at the fee of three dollars each."⁴

According to Knerr authority James Lowe, Knerr was extremely prolific, producing more than 1,500 Sunday comic pages between 1901 and 1914 for a half-dozen continuing features in three different Philadelphia newspapers.⁵

He created his first comic strip, Zoo-Illogical Snapshots, for the Public Ledger. In 1902, he worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer and drew comic strips Mr. George and his Wife and Scary William.⁶ From 1903 to 1914, he drew The Fineheimer Twins, an imitation of The Katzenjammer Kids by Rudolph Dirks.⁷

Knerr took over The Katzenjammer Kids Sunday strip in November 1914 when Dirks left the Hearst-owned New York Morning Journal after a legal dispute.⁷ During World War I, some newspapers retitled the strip as The Shenanigan Kids, and the nationality of the characters was changed to Dutch instead of German because of World War I anti-German sentiments. It changed back to its original name and contents in 1920.⁷⁸ He continued to write and draw the strip until his death in 1949, when it was taken over by Charles H. Winner.⁹¹⁰

Knerr's continuation of The Katzenjammer Kids has been praised as "a particularly brilliant job... true to the spirit of the original, and yet stylistically his own."¹¹

On May 16, 1926, Knerr started Dinglehoofer und His Dog (sometimes titled Dinglehoofer und His Dog Adolph during the early 1930s),¹² a topper that accompanied The Katzenjammer Kids until two years after Knerr's death.⁷ By 1936, to avoid any association with Adolf Hitler, the dog's name was changed to Schnappsy.¹²

Knerr never married. In New York during the 1940s, he lived in the Hotel Blackstone at 50 East 58th Street. He died July 8, 1949,¹ in Manhattan from heart disease.¹³ He was interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.¹⁴

• Zoo-Illogical Snapshots
• Mr. George and His Wife (1904–14)
• Hard Luck Bill (1903–04)
• Die Fineheimer Twins (1903–14)
• Scary William (1906–14)
• The Irresistible Rag (1913–14)
• The Katzenjammer Kids (1913–49)
• Dinglehoofer und His Dog (1926–49)