At age ten, George moved west to Los Angeles with his family. His father, a tailor, was likely relocating to avoid having his family classified as slaves - George's Creole background made him subject to tight segregation laws in the 1890's. Herriman worked at numerous odd jobs, among them: housepainter, barber, baker, grape seller, mandarin player, dairy farmer, and, once, a barker for a sideshow snake act. Three or four years after the comic strip was introduced, he started selling sketches to the Herald. For the first few years of the 20th century, he drew sports and political cartoons. By mid-decade, he was drawing comic strips.

He fell in love with the buttes, mesas, plants, and rock formations, and visited regularly - almost every year. Having spent his life in New Orleans, Los Angeles and New York City, it must have been a profound occassion to go out and visit the Navajo Indian land, which no more than a handful of European descendants had set foot on. The combination of canyons, mesas and expressive rock formations were clearly an inspiration. The backdrop for the wacky melodrama of Krazy Kat was a brilliant rendition of this landscape. Krazy Kat's zaniness and naivete were directly inspired by Herriman's love for the lush, chaotic, Coconino landscape coupled with the peaceful, agrarian Navajo culture, that must have contrasted immensely with his own culture.