Kratts from Veiko Tammjärv’s graphic novel version of Andrus Kivirähk’s Rehepapp (the same novel the above movie is based on):
One of the alternative names for kratt is ‘tulihänd’ or ‘firetail’ - it’s been believed that falling stars might actually be kratts rushing through the sky…
Here’s a poor kratt trying to complete an impossible task of building a ladder from bread…
… and coming to a fiery end.
But the actual biggest and most impressive item of Kratt Representation is Eduard Tubin’s ballet:
It’s pretty weird and intense. It’s also at least a little bit cursed, and by cursed i mean that the original run in 1943-4 only manged a few performances before it got an air raid bomb dropped on it. Apparently all these dancers in devil costumes rushing out of the theatre really added something to the general panic. So don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Oh and for bonus, here’s Kratt Katta from my first grade reading textbook:
(Not pictured: the little kratt i remember from my childhood, who was given three drops of red watercolour instead of blood and only ever wanted to paint ;__: Now if only i could remember the story!)
My best friend melted her wii while playing Okami for over 24hrs cause she didn’t let it ventilate well enough. It’s the best dog and the most destructive.
Jackie Ormes, the first Black American woman cartoonist
When the 14-year-old Black American boy Emmett Till was lynched in 1955, one cartoonist responded in a single-panel comic. It showed one Black girl telling another: “I don’t want to seem touchy on the subject… but that new little white tea-kettle just whistled at me!”
It may not seem radical today, but penning such a political cartoon was a bold and brave statement for its time — especially for the artist who was behind it. This cartoon was drawn by Jackie Ormes, the first syndicated Black American woman cartoonist to be published in a newspaper. Ormes, who grew up in Pittsburgh, got her first break as cartoonist as a teenager. She started working for the Pittsburgh Courier as a sports reporter, then editor, then cartoonist who penned her first comic, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, in 1937. It followed a Mississippi teen who becomes a famous singer at the famed Harlem jazz club, The Cotton Club.
In 1942, Ormes moved to Chicago, where she drew her most popular cartoon, Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, which followed two sisters who made sharp political commentary on Black American life.
In 1947, Ormes created the Patty-Jo doll, the first Black doll that wasn’t a mammy doll or a Topsy-Turvy doll. In production for a decade, it was a role model for young black girls. "The doll was a fashionable, beautiful character,“ says Daniel Schulman, who curated one of the dolls into a recent Chicago exhibition. “It had an extraordinary presence and power — they’re collected today and have important place in American doll-making in the U.S.”
In 1950, Ormes drew her final strip, Torchy in Heartbeats, which followed an independent, stylish black woman on the quest for love — who commented on racism in the South. “Torchy was adventurous, we never saw that with an Black American female figure,” says Beauchamp-Byrd. “And remember, this is the 1950s.“ Ormes was the first to portray black women as intellectual and socially-aware in a time when they were depicted in a derogatory way.
One common mistake that erased Ormes from history is mis-crediting Barbara Brandon-Croft as the first nationally syndicated Black American female cartoonist. “I’m just the first mainstream cartoonist, I’m not the first at all,” says Brandon-Croft, who published her cartoons in the Detroit Free Press in the 1990s. “So much of Black history has been ignored, it’s a reminder that Black history shouldn’t just be celebrated in February.”
ALT
