Ernie Bushmiller's "Nancy": C/D?

ROLLO!

Gary Groth: What's your position on Ernie Bushmiller?

Clowes: I'm pro-Bushmiller. I mean, I don't like to get up on my soapbox and pontificate about Bushmiller as much as some of these people because I think that defeats the whole purpose. But to me, Nancy had an amazing atmosphere to it that I found kind of scary and off-putting, and really interesting. So yeah, I love Bushmiller, and this new guy who does Nancy should be shot.

G: For betraying the Bushmiller ethos?

C: Yeah, that's just awful dreck.

sums up the then and now (but not the normalizer) quite well

oh, but yeah, Bushmiller was the coolest.

ihttp://www.gilchriststudios.com/nancy/celeb2/10b.gif

Okay, should I buy this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/COMIC-STRIP-NANCY-DOLL_W0QQitemZ140281671292QQihZ004QQcategoryZ723QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

cuz it's kinda awesome.

That's freaking Little Lulu.

My first thought too, Abbott.
But the "Field Enterprises" mark is the folks what own the Nancy trademark.

Perhaps this less humanized version will strike truer to home.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Old-40s-Comic-Strip-Nancy-Doll-Georgene-Averill_W0QQitemZ280285480083QQihZ018QQcategoryZ36549QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

THERE we go. That is the Nancy I would buy.

srsly when did Nancy ever wear Moccasins?

Maybe it's like a Tijuana-style Lulu ripoff, that first one.

I like the weird hydrocephalic Nancy; my gut tells me it's a licensed piece from the strips nuttier period.
Why is there no reprint set of Nancy material? It's certainly as marketable as Pogo.

Even '20s-'30s strips when it was Fritzi Ritz before Nancy spin-off, she didn't look like that.

Now i really want to buy this just to be sure.
But I can hardly justify it.

I have a great Nancy compendium from eBay ($8) that has commentary from Art Spiegelman & others. v. good!

Yeah, Kitchen Sink did a buncha reprints that I would buy used if I could find them at the Strand. You know the whole Griffith "Three Rocks" philosophy, right?

That whole strip is in there.

potential tattoo for when I just don't care anymore:
http://www.rdrop.com/%7Ehalf/Personal/Hobbies/Comics/Nancy/3Rocks.gif

and is AWESOME and true

haha forks I would get that

next tat I have lined up (hopefully as an xmas gift!) is a tat of the old Comics Code of Authority seal of approval

"Art Spiegelman explains how a drawing of three rocks in a background scene was Ernie's way of showing us there were some rocks in the background. It was always three. Why? Because two rocks wouldn't be 'some rocks.' Two rocks would be a pair of rocks. And four rocks was unacceptable because four rocks would indicate 'some rocks' BUT IT WOULD BE ONE ROCK MORE THAN WAS NECESSARY TO CONVEY THE IDEA OF 'SOME ROCKS.'"

Okay, a girl with a comic code authority seal gets love forever.

I am thinking my inner arm between pit & right elbow.

Those Kitchen Sink compilations are great. I wish I'd picked up more than the two I have -- they were cheaper than dirt for a while in the mid 90s.

Did that publishing company die? They put out Cages, right?

Denis Kitchen got caught in the speculator bubble-bust, sold out to Kevin Eastman...limbo.

I would think the tramp stamp comics code would be the classy way to go.
All that Kitchen Sink stuff seems to have more or less disappeared from used book stores and comic shops in the city.
I think Tundra did Cages?
Kitchen Sink did fold, yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Sink_Press
A shame, cause they were simply a decade or so ahead of their time.

The Lil' Abner reprints are the most priceless stuff they did; I'm often tempted to blow a shitload of money and buy up a bunch of em.

I am lucky, they have them at my public library.

I know it's not fashionable to like Al Capp so much these days, but boy he could really tell a bigoted, wingnut story!

Fucking Comics.com keeps interrupting their Lil Abner Classics in the middle of storylines!

I know it's not fashionable to like Al Capp so much these days, but boy he could really tell a bigoted, wingnut story!

maybe in the 60's, but I wouldn't call stuff like the Shmoo and the Bald Iggle the products of a bigoted wingnut.

He could also tell hilarious slapstick nonsense story.

And is obv better (in quality, art & bigotry level) than say Katzenjammer Kids or Bringing Up Father.

Katzenjammer Kids never made me anything other than confused and bored.

Nancy, the voice of sanity in 1970

Coming soon.

I liked the floral hipsters joke

"bad gus"

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller 1.8.50 pic.twitter.com/OJcJu1b0FR

— Nancy Comics by Ernie Bushmiller (@JohnnyCallicutt) January 8, 2023

Bad Gus

Gas Bud

https://i.imgur.com/L7SP2GU.png

nancy duchamp

Classic three-rock placement there.

Nancy Panel By Ernie Bushmiller pic.twitter.com/tyFR5zv8OL

— Nancy Comics by Ernie Bushmiller (@JohnnyCallicutt) February 6, 2023

that’s how it was supposed to be

This could be us but you playing

what

https://assets.amuniversal.com/05503420daa801345620005056a9545d

People used to take their shoes off at the movies, and Nancy was in a theater of adult men, thus explaining her now-hilarious looking footwear

i think they look cool

Did they really though?

After 1,674 slight variations on the same joke, jaimes confounds expectations by combining it with her other joke

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2023/08/26

goddamn smirky eyebrow-raised badass poochie cartoons nowadays

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/08/26/ernie-bushmiller-biography-nancy-three-rocks/

Ah i totally forgot that was coming out... thanks!

Wow! Perfect

Fantagraphics trying again:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/coming-soon/products/nancy-wears-hats

The first volume in a new series collecting Ernie Bushmiller’s timeless and beloved Nancy!

last year as warm-up: The Nancy Show, a history/art book edited by Maresca to accompany a Billy Ireland exhibition:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/the-nancy-show-celebrating-the-art-of-ernie-bushmiller

and a reissue of the mega-expanded book version of How To Read Nancy:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/how-to-read-nancy-the-elements-of-comics-in-three-easy-panels

Overall, I can't say I'm a Caroline Cash fan, though yesterday's "woims" thing was weird enough to keep me reading for a while longer.

Wow, I didn't even realise OJ had left. Loved the first few years of her run then I guess I got distracted and forgot about it.

Yeah i missed that news too.

People used to take their shoes off at the movies, and Nancy was in a theater of adult men, thus explaining her now-hilarious looking footwear

Still need confirmation on this

Haven't read much of her Nancy yet but Caroline Cash rules.

its been pretty amusing so far. as much as I liked some of the Olivia Jaimes strips she did do the same jokes over and over again and I got the feeling like she was getting bored with it

yeah OJ definitely burned out after the second year or so

i think the new ones are very good! and i like the artwork much more than OJ’s

Highly recommend her work:

https://okcomics.co.uk/products/peepee-poopoo-1-by-caroline-cash

"they pay me in woims" is a classic old nancy bit from when sluggo gets a job at a bait shack

trbh i think cash's strips are really quite faithful to the oblique, child-like simplicity of the OG series.. except.. EXCEPT a couple of sundays ago she did this!!

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2026/02/15

Putting yourself smoking a cigarette in a comic strip for children really is a choice in 2026

The editors probably at some time during the Gilchrist run arrived and have remained at the conclusion that children don't read Nancy anymore.

xp I'm guessing the majority of readers of Nancy in 2026 are not children.

The editors probably at some time during the Gilchrist run 20th century arrived and have remained at the conclusion that children don't read Nancy anymore.

The editors probably at some time during the Gilchrist run 20th century arrived and have remained at the conclusion that children don't read Nancy comic strips anymore.

Putting yourself smoking a cigarette in a comic strip for children really is a choice in 2026

Mary Whitehouse over here

seriously though. i assume these are actually getting printed up in the funny pages in Sunday newspapers somewhere right? if there were actually any human editors of these things (weak laugh) i'd have expected them to be outraged, not run the strip etc

The audience for comic strips - i.e. senior citizens - is I think less likely to get outraged over cigarette use than pretty much everyone else, though they are obv outraged at Cash for other reasons.

it’s the #58008 issue of PPPP, isn’t it

interesting

https://bsky.app/profile/cashbrowns.bsky.social/post/3mgas2x6rsc26

holy shit she just retconned the entire history of nancy

maybe. or maybe there's a reason none of Aunt Fritzi's relationships seemed to last

fritzie does look like a character from Love and Rockets

Wondering if the boomers who got angry when Gilchrist left and they couldn't jack it to Fritzi anymore are angry or turned on by this new development. Probably both.

fritzie does look like a character from Love and Rockets

I mean....

https://www.comics.org/character/717/

CommonRuffian
4 hours ago
jaimes' run was good but this is reminding me it was missing a crucial element: the author wanting fritzi ritz carnally

love it

playing the hits and i’m here for it

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2026/03/19

i really just think she gets the spirit of bushmiller

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2026/03/16

https://64.media.tumblr.com/adc5b2f367d75c8b47b947a3820b113d/tumblr_pcg1wjf8iP1qzfmh5o1_500.jpg