Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/17/sluggo-is-truly-lit.html
One of the great moments of my adulthood was my discovery – courtesy of Mark’s posts here on Boing Boing – of the incredible work that Ernie Bushmiller did on Nancy from 1933 until his death in 1982. He was succeeded by a series of station-keeping cartoonists, some of whom were very adept at aping his unique comic timing, sense of the absurd, and confident draftmanship, but none of whom every made me have that aha moment – until 2018, when the mysterious, pseudonymous Olivia Jaimes took over, kicking off a run of astoundingly great new Nancys that have been collected into one of the greatest new comic-strip collections I’ve read in a decade.
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More on Olivia Jaimes:
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This is a great example of “nothing to lose, might as well completely redefine it”
Nancy was only noteworthy in the 21st century as a “show the last panel only” internet goof, until Jaimes took over.
Maybe Garfield, which is only relevant in “remove the dialog” variations, should get the same treatment.
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Ha, yes. I’ve had this very panel clipped to my office wall for several years. Perfect absurdity.
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Cartoon from my dream, 1992:
Chris Ware comic from 1989 or so:
EDIT:
Here’s this, from MAD Magazine, 1957 (I saw it in 1981, in a Super Special). I believe the writer was the late Paul Krassner, who described coming up with the idea, but there’s no writer’s credit in the magazine.
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Yeah, the new Nancy is really good.
“How to Read Nancy” is an essential essay for anybody interested in this medium, or just Nancy in particular: http://www.laffpix.com/howtoreadnancy.pdf
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A couple of decades back I saw an exhibit that included different artists’ takes on comic strips, including a 80’s era version of Nancy where she was on the (NYC?) subway and panel after panel had her facial features shuffled about. If I had been able to find it, this would have been the article to link to it.
ETA: nm found it.
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I never got the love for OG “Nancy,” unless you mean the really early stuff where it was more
a serial about Aunt Fritzi, and even then you’d have to be into that particular weird Roaring Twenties kind of comic. So all the rhapsodizing about the utter transcendent perfection of this one out-of-context frame, etc. (and there’s been a lot of it!) just kind of missed me.
But these are pretty funny! So that’s good.
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The examples in the article are…kinda funny? I don’t know, not bad by any means, but not worthy of the gushing praise I’m seeing either. Of course, I haven’t seen any others, so I’m sure I’m missing something.
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I’m so relevant right now
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That comic is actually BY Mark Newgarden, one of the authors of How to Read Nancy.
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Ah, the great Wally Wood, the only mad artist that came close to will elders amazing talent at aping other cartoonists’s styles
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That was supposed to be a response to the post showing sluggos Yul Brynner and Elvis Presley’s hairstyles.
Don’t make fun of me I’m old and it took me 35 minutes just can’t figure out how to do these two posts
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I have tried really hard to see the appeal of these new Nancys but I just do not for the life of me find them funny at all
I made this for a SomethingAwful.com forums photoshop thing (parts 1 2 3) a year or so ago.
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Don’t you get it? The strip mentions “social media” and even getting off it! That means it is “with it”. Never mind that Foxtrot was Net savvy for the past twenty years or so.
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People can like Foxtrot too, right?
It’s not sports teams. It’s ha-ha’s.
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No, that’s Ernie Brushfiller.
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