Nancy

Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy (June 5, 1960)

Nancy is an American daily and Sunday comic strip, originally written and drawn by Ernie Bushmiller.

The character of Nancy, originally a 13 year old slightly chubby kid who was reduced to an eight year old precocious little girl when Jerry Scott took over the strip a few years after Bushmiller's death in 1982, first appeared in the strip Fritzi Ritz about the airheaded flapper title character. After Larry Whittington began Fritzi Ritz in 1922, it was taken over by Bushmiller three years later. In 1933, Bushmiller introduced Fritzi's niece, Nancy.^[1] Soon she dominated the strip, retitled Nancy in 1938. Fritzi Ritz continued as a Sunday feature into the 1960s. At its peak in the 1970s, Nancy ran in more than 880 newspapers.

Characters and story

• Nancy Ritz,^[2] the titular and wily young lady who is constantly in the state of a daydream or confused plot.
• Fritzi Ritz, Nancy's aunt, with whom she lives. The character was gradually phased out beginning in the mid-1980s before being dropped entirely by the end of the decade. She subsequently returned as a main character in 1995 when the strip was taken over by brothers Brad and Guy Gilchrist.
• Sluggo Smith,^[3] Nancy's best friend, introduced in 1938. Sluggo is Nancy's age and is a poor ragamuffin-type from the wrong side of the tracks. There are strips that appear to place Sluggo as Nancy's boyfriend. He is portrayed as lazy, and his favorite pastime seems to be napping.
• Rollo, the stereotypical but nonetheless friendly rich kid. In the early 1940s, the rich kid was known as Marmaduke. It is possible that the name was changed to avoid confusion with Marmaduke, an unrelated comic strip by Brad Anderson that debuted in 1954.
• Irma, Nancy's nondescript girlfriend.
• Spike (aka: Butch), the town bully who frequently knocks out Sluggo. Sluggo occasionally gets one over on Spike, however.
• Oona Goosepimple, the spooky looking child who lived in a haunted house down the road from Nancy's. She appeared in the comic book version of the strip, during John Stanley's tenure in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
• Marigold, Sluggo's tomboy cousin.^[4]
• Pee Wee, a neighborhood toddler.

Bushmiller refined and simplified his drawing style over the years to create a uniquely stylized comic world. The American Heritage Dictionary illustrates its entry on comic strip with a Nancy cartoon. Despite the small size of the reproduction, both the art and the gag are clear, and an eye-tracking survey once determined that Nancy was so conspicuous that it was the first strip most people looked at on a newspaper comics page.^[5]

Although Bushmiller died in 1982, the strip has continued to the present day, done by different writers and artists. These have included Al Plastino (1983), Mark Lasky (1983), Jerry Scott (1984–94), Guy Gilchrist (1995— ) and Brad Gilchrist (1995— ).^[4] The strip has an international popularity, especially in Japan and South America. It runs as Periquita in several dozen Spanish-language newspapers.

Awards

Bushmiller won the National Cartoonist Society Humor Comic Strip Award for 1961 and the Society's Reuben Award for Best Cartoonist of the Year in 1976.^[6]

Comic books

Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy Sunday strip as reprinted in United Features' Comics on Parade 93: Nancy and Sluggo (1938 series).

Nancy appeared in comic books—initially in a 1940s comic strip reprint title from St. John Publications and later in a Dell comic written by John Stanley. Titled Nancy and Sluggo, St. John published #121-145 (1955-57); Titled Nancy until retitled Nancy and Sluggo with issue #174, Dell published #146-187 (1957-62); and Gold Key published #188-192 (1962-63).^[4] Nancy also had its own monthly comic book magazine of newspaper reprints in Norway (where the strip is known as Trulte) during 1956-59.

Animation

Nancy was also featured in three animated shorts by the Terrytoons studio in 1942–43: School Daze, Nancy's Little Theater and Doing Their Bit. In 1971 several newly created Nancy and Sluggo cartoons appeared on the Saturday morning cartoon series, "Archie's TV Funnies", which starred the Archie Comic Series characters running a television station. Nancy appeared along with seven other comic strip characters: Emmy Lou, Broom Hilda, Dick Tracy, The Dropouts, Moon Mullins, the Captain and the Kids and Smokey Stover. The series lasted one season. In 1978 she was also featured in several segments of Filmation's animated show The Fabulous Funnies. In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the "Comic Strip Classics" series of commemorative U.S. postage stamps. Nancy was reprinted in the UK comic book, The Topper, from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Cultural references

Bushmiller's art work has inspired other artists:

• Nancy was the subject of Andy Warhol's 1961 painting, Nancy.
• Nancy was the subject of several pop art works by Joe Brainard:
  • If Nancy Was an Ashtray, 1972
  • If Nancy Was a Boy, 1972
  • If Nancy Was a da Vinci Sketch, 1972
  • Nancy Diptych, 1974
  • If Nancy Was a Painting by de Kooning, 1975
• Cartoonist Bill Griffith has used the characters and emulated Bushmiller's style frequently in his Zippy the Pinhead.
• Cartoonist Scott McCloud developed a card game, 5-card Nancy, in which players use random panels of Nancy to create their own stories. McCloud also included a Nancy cameo in his book, Understanding Comics. When describing the "non-sequitur" transition type, several unrelated images appear between panels. One is an upside-down picture of Nancy being struck by lightning with the caption "Danger".
• Cartoonist Mark Newgarden has included Nancy in his work.
• Pearls Before Swine cartoonist Stephan Pastis (known for using other comic characters in his strip) portrayed Nancy and Sluggo as extras to replace Rat and Goat during the 2002 "Pearls Labor Dispute".
• Mad has run several parodies, including “Nansy”, in which Nancy is transformed into the main character of several other comic strips, including Donald Duck, Dick Tracy, Li'l Abner, all with that same hyphen-nose and frizzy hairdo. Also in Mad, Bushmiller gets the hard-boiled treatment: If Mickey Spillane Wrote Nancy.
• Quino's Mafalda bears a strong resemblance to the earlier Nancy, which Quino mocks in one strip.
• Cartoonist Max Cannon often includes Stubbo, a boy drawn in Bushmiller's style, in his Red Meat strip.
• Famous Mexican actress Sherlyn became famous after imitating Nancy (known in Mexico as Periquita) in a TV contest for a socks company that features Nancy drawn into their logo.

Collections

Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy (February 3, 1967).

• Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Nancy: The Enduring Wisdom of Ernie Bushmiller (1993) Pharos Books
• Nancy's Pets (1991) Kitchen Sink
• Bums, Beatniks and Hippies / Artists and Con Artists (1990) Kitchen Sink
• Nancy Dreams and Schemes (1990) Kitchen Sink
• How Sluggo Survives (1989) Kitchen Sink
• Nancy Eats Food (1989) Kitchen Sink
• The Best of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy by Brian Walker (1988) Henry Holt
• Nancy (2009) Drawn & Quarterly

References

Sources

• Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1

External links

• Toonopedia entry on Oona Goosepimple
• Nancy comic strip