[[wikipedia:Image:Katzenjammer1901.jpg|thumb|right|350px|Rudolph Dirks' The Katzenjammer Kids (1901)|]] The Katzenjammer Kids is an American comic strip created by the German immigrant Rudolph Dirks and drawn by Harold H. Knerr for 37 years (1912 to 1949). It debuted December 12, 1897 in the American Humorist, the Sunday supplement of William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. Dirks was the first cartoonist to express dialogue in comic characters through the use of speech balloons.