Art Spiegelman, caricaturist luminaire and author of Maus (1986), once wrote that Peanuts “Had the simplicity and the depth load of a haiku.” If the haiku were written by Groucho Marx, we could say it NancyErnie Bushmiller's comic strip which took place from 1938 to 1982 in newspapers across the United States. There remains, for me, the most enriching and inventive gag comic strip in the history of the funny American newspapers. Its rhythms and jokes embody the art of the short band, and its economy of line and speech should be absorbed, studied and revisited several times by all caricaturists.
Bushmiller and sound Nancy have recently been the subject of a biography By Bill Griffith, a exegesis of a band with three panels by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, a restart of Olivia Jaimiles, and a festival at the Billy Ireland and Museum Cardboard Library Earlier this year. Before this Renaissance, the strip inspired a card game designed by Scott McCloud; countless toys, tchotchkes and ephemeral; Many works by artist Joe Brainard; and a Painting by Andy Warhol.
Long live Nancy! But where East Nancy?
Despite all the deserved adulation, it can be difficult to get a book full of bands in your hands. Used copies of Nancy The books are too expensive. In Los Angeles, where I live, the vast public library system maintains their collections exclusively in the central branch, available for reference only.
But this year came Nancy & Sluggo life guideA collection divided into comic strip sections on money, food and sleep, with an introduction of caricature Denis Kitchen. In these pages, Nancy, alongside her boyfriend, Sluggo, takes his revenge on a bad restaurant experience by modifying their signaling hilariously, makes herself sleeping by dreaming of explosion from her school and deplores the amount of Russian dressing that she put on her midnight snack.
I continue to hope for volumes of Nancy which are organized chronologically, not thematic. Reading 20 pages of jokes on the theme of food in a row can become a little tiring. But that does nothing to mitigate my appreciation of the visual language of Bushmiller made available in this new collection, and its mastery of the final panel without words. Best Nancy The bands, those with the largest depth load, are those in which the final joke is not a spoken punchline but rather an image without words and surprising.
Wait, a child who puts a Russian covering on his snacks? Yes: one of the big things on Nancy Did a kind bizarre bushmiller took as a subject. She wears her hair ribbon when she sleeps. Many gags on her eating jam imply that she essentially pushes her face in the pot for a soft snack. Nancy's radical idiosyncrasy contrasts with the clarity of Bushmiller's style, and the juxtaposition is remarkably well, again and again. The title Nancy & Sluggo life guide is, on his face, a playful hyperbole. But as a designer and lovers of comics, the lessons I draw from the virgin panels of Bushmiller, comic timing and shameless strangeness are essential. I cannot think of a more enriching instruction manual than this one.
Guide to Nancy and Sluggo: Bands on money, food and other essential elements (2024) by Ernie Bushmiller is published by New York Review Comics and is available online and via independent booksellers.
