Nancy (comic strip)
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
daily
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
and Sunday comic strip
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
, originally written and drawn by Ernie Bushmiller
Ernie Bushmiller
Ernest Paul Bushmiller, Jr. was an American cartoonist, best known for creating the long-running daily comic strip Nancy....
and distributed by United Feature Syndicate
United Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...
.
The character of Nancy, a slightly chubby and precocious eight-year-old, first appeared in the strip Fritzi Ritz
Fritzi Ritz
Fritzi Ritz was an American comic strip created in 1922 by Larry Whittington. It eventually evolved into the popular Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller....
about the airheaded flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
title character. Larry Whittington began Fritzi Ritz in 1922, and it was taken over by Bushmiller three years later.
On January 2, 1933, Bushmiller introduced Fritzi's niece, Nancy. Soon she dominated the daily strip, which was retitled Nancy in 1938. Comics historian Don Markstein
Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Don Markstein's Toonopedia was a web encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation. Don D...
detailed the evolution, as the readership of Fritzi Ritz increased:
- Bushmiller's bold, clear art style, combined with his ability to construct a type of gag that appealed to a very broad audience, brought the strip to new heights of popularity—and his introduction of Fritzi's niece, Nancy, in 1933, carried it higher yet. Two important developments occurred in 1938. Sluggo Smith, Nancy's friend from the "wrong side of the tracks", was introduced in January; and later that year, Aunt Fritzi's name was dropped from the title of the daily strip, which continued as Nancy. At the same time, Bushmiller's Sunday page underwent a similar change. Formerly, half of it had been devoted to Fritzi and the other half to her boyfriend, Phil Fumble. Phil's half was taken over by Nancy. Years later, when newspaper space became tighter and cartoonists were no longer allowed whole pages to themselves, Fritzi's half disappeared, and the transformation was complete. Fritzi Ritz was a bit player where she had formerly been the star.
Fritzi Ritz continued as a Sunday feature
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
until 1968. At its peak in the 1970s, Nancy ran in more than 880 newspapers.
Characters and story
- Nancy Ritz, a girl who is constantly in the state of a daydream or a 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 GilchristGuy GilchristGuy Gilchrist is a cartoonist/poet/songwriter and author whose work includes a run on the comic strip Nancy, Your Angels Speak, Night Lights & Pillow Fights, Screams, The Poetry Guy, The Muppets and The Rock Channel...
. In the current version of Nancy, Fritzi works as a music reviewer and is often seen wearing T-shirts of musical acts, especially country performers. - Sluggo Smith, 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 MarmadukeMarmadukeMarmaduke is a newspaper comic strip drawn by Brad Anderson from 1954 to the present day. The strip was created by Anderson, with help from Phil Leeming and later Dorothy Leeming , and Paul Anderson. The strip revolves around the Winslow family and their Great Dane, Marmaduke...
, an unrelated comic strip by Brad AndersonBrad Anderson (cartoonist)Brad Anderson is an American cartoonist.-Life and early career:He graduated from Brocton Central School in Brocton, New York in 1943 and then served with the United States Navy until 1946 and continued to cartoon. Initially aspiring to be an industrial designer, Anderson attended Syracuse...
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 house. She only 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.
- Pee Wee, a neighborhood toddler.
- Poochie, Nancy's nondescript dog. In current strips, Nancy also has a cat named Rocky and a goldfish called Goldie.
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.
Al Plastino
Al Plastino
Al Plastino is an American comic book artist best known as one of the most prolific Superman artists of the 1950s, along with his DC Comics colleague Wayne Boring...
worked on Sunday episodes of Nancy in 1982-83 after Ernie Bushmiller
Ernie Bushmiller
Ernest Paul Bushmiller, Jr. was an American cartoonist, best known for creating the long-running daily comic strip Nancy....
died. During that period, David Letterman
David Letterman
David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...
showed on TV a Nancy panel with Plastino's signature and made a joke about Plastino as a superhero name. The writers for Letterman were apparently unaware that Plastino was known for his superheroes.
The strip has continued to the present day by different writers and artists. These have included Mark Lasky (1983), Jerry Scott
Jerry Scott
Jerry Scott in South Bend, Indiana. He is an American cartoonist, co-creator of Baby Blues and co-creator of Zits.-Career:...
(1984–94), Guy Gilchrist
Guy Gilchrist
Guy Gilchrist is a cartoonist/poet/songwriter and author whose work includes a run on the comic strip Nancy, Your Angels Speak, Night Lights & Pillow Fights, Screams, The Poetry Guy, The Muppets and The Rock Channel...
(1995— ) and Brad Gilchrist (1995— ). The strip has an international popularity, especially in Japan and South America. It runs as Periquita in several dozen Spanish-language newspapers.
In a 1988 essay, “How to Read Nancy
How to Read Nancy
"How to Read Nancy" is an influential essay by Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik, originally published in The Best of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy by Brian Walker . The piece examines the comic strip Nancy, focusing on Bushmiller’s precise and exacting use of the comics language in its essential form to...
”, Mark Newgarden
Mark Newgarden
Mark Newgarden is an American underground cartoonist. His work has appeared widely, and his influential shape-shifting weekly feature Newgarden, which appeared in alternative weekly newspapers like New York Press, created a cult following for the artist.Newgarden's work has appeared in a diverse...
and Paul Karasik
Paul Karasik
Paul Karasik is an American cartoonist, editor, and teacher, notable for his contributions to such works as City of Glass: The Graphic Novel, The Ride Together: A Memoir of Autism in the Family, and I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets.- Biography :In the early 1980s, after having graduated...
offered a probing analysis of Bushmiller’s strip:
- To say that Nancy is a simple gag strip about a simple-minded snot-nosed kid is to miss the point completely. Nancy only appears to be simple at a casual glance. Like architect Mies van der RoheLudwig Mies van der RoheLudwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
, the simplicity is a carefully designed function of a complex amalgam of formal rules laid out by the designer. To look at Bushmiller as an architect is entirely appropriate, for Nancy is, in a sense, a blueprint for a comic strip. Walls, floors, rocks, trees, ice-cream cones, motion lines, midgets and principals are carefully positioned with no need for further embellishment. And they are laid out with one purpose in mind—to get the gag across. Minimalist? Formalist? Structuralist? Cartoonist!
Awards
Bushmiller won the National Cartoonists SocietyNational Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
's Humor Comic Strip Award for 1961 and the Society's Reuben Award for Best Cartoonist of the Year in 1976.
In 1995, the strip was selected as one of the 20 in the "Comic Strip Classics
Comic Strip Classics
The Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps was issued by the US Postal Service in 1995 to honor the centennial of the newspaper comic strip....
" series of commemorative U.S. postage stamps.
Comic books
Nancy appeared in comic books—initially in a 1940s comic strip reprint title from St. John PublicationsSt. John Publications
St. John Publications was an American publisher of magazines and comic books. During its short existence , St. John's comic books established several industry firsts. Founded by Archer St. John , the firm was located in Manhattan at 545 Fifth Avenue. After the St...
and later in a Dell
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...
comic written by John Stanley
John Stanley (comics)
John Stanley was a comic book creator, best known for writing Little Lulu from 1945 to 1959. While mostly known for scripting, Stanley also was an accomplished artist who drew many of his stories, including the earliest Little Lulu issues. His specialty was humorous stories, both with licensed...
. 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). Gold Key published #188-192 (1962–63). Dell also published Dell Giants devoted to Nancy (#35, #45 and "Traveltime"), and a Four Color #1034.
Nancy was reprinted in the UK comic book, The Topper, from the 1950s through the 1970s. 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 featured in three animated shorts by the TerrytoonsTerrytoons
Terrytoons was an animation studio founded by Paul Terry. The studio, located in suburban New Rochelle, New York, operated from 1929 to 1968. Its most popular characters included Mighty Mouse, Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Dinky Duck, Deputy Dawg, Luno and Heckle and Jeckle; these cartoons and all of its...
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
Marty Links
Marty Links was an American cartoonist best known for her syndicated comic strip Emmy Lou.-Biography:Born Martha Arguello in Oakland, California, she moved with her family to San Francisco, where she grew up...
, Broom Hilda, Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
, The Dropouts
Howard Post
Howard Post , aka Howie Post, was an American animator, cartoonist and comic strip and comic book writer-artist....
, Moon Mullins
Moon Mullins
Moon Mullins, created by cartoonist Frank Willard , was a popular American comic strip which had a long run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923 to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who...
, the Captain and the Kids and Smokey Stover
Smokey Stover
Smokey Stover is an American comic strip written and drawn by cartoonist Bill Holman, from 1935 until he retired in 1973. Distributed through the Chicago Tribune, it features the wacky misadventures of the titular fireman, and had the longest run of any comic strip in the "screwball comics"...
. The series lasted one season. In 1978, she was also featured in several segments of Filmation's animated show The Fabulous Funnies.
Cultural references
Bushmiller's art work has inspired other artists:- Nancy was the subject of Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
's 1961 painting, Nancy. - Nancy was the subject of several pop artPop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
works by Joe BrainardJoe BrainardJoe Brainard was an American artist and writer associated with the New York School. His prodigious and innovative body of work included assemblages, collages, drawing, and painting, as well as designs for book and album covers, theatrical sets and costumes...
:- 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 PinheadZippy the PinheadZippy is an American comic strip created by Bill Griffith. The character of Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications during the 1970s...
. - Cartoonist Scott McCloudScott McCloudScott McCloud is an American cartoonist and theorist on comics as a distinct literary and artistic medium...
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 ComicsUnderstanding ComicsUnderstanding Comics: The Invisible Art is a 215-page non-fiction comic book, written and drawn by Scott McCloud and originally published in 1993. It explores the definition of comics, the historical development of the medium, its fundamental vocabulary, and various ways in which these elements...
. 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 NewgardenMark NewgardenMark Newgarden is an American underground cartoonist. His work has appeared widely, and his influential shape-shifting weekly feature Newgarden, which appeared in alternative weekly newspapers like New York Press, created a cult following for the artist.Newgarden's work has appeared in a diverse...
has included Nancy in his work. - Pearls Before SwinePearls Before Swine (comic strip)Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, who was formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California. It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat, as well as a number of supporting characters...
cartoonist Stephan PastisStephan PastisStephan Thomas Pastis is an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine.-Background:...
(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". - MadMad (magazine)Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
has run several parodies, including “Nansy”, in which Nancy is transformed into the main character of several other comic strips, including Donald DuckDonald DuckDonald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
, Dick TracyDick TracyDick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
and Li'l AbnerLi'l AbnerLi'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...
, all with that same hyphen-nose and frizzy hairdo. Also in Mad, Bushmiller gets the hardboiled treatment: If Mickey Spillane Wrote Nancy. - QuinoQuinoJoaquín Salvador Lavado, better known by his pen name Quino is an Argentine cartoonist. His comic strip Mafalda is very popular in Latin America and many parts of Europe.-Early life and work:...
's MafaldaMafaldaMafalda is a comic strip written and drawn by Argentine cartoonist Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known by his pen name Quino. The strip features a 6-year-old girl named Mafalda, who is deeply concerned about humanity and world peace and rebels against the current state of the world...
bears a strong resemblance to the earlier Nancy, which Quino mocks in one strip. - Cartoonist Max CannonMax CannonMax Cannon is author and creator of the independent comic strip Red Meat.Cannon began producing the strip in 1989 for the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the student newspaper of the University of Arizona . The strip was later picked up by the Tucson Weekly, and it now appears in over 75 alternative weeklies...
often includes Stubbo, a boy drawn in Bushmiller's style, in his Red MeatRed MeatMax Cannon's Red Meat is an independent comic strip begun in 1989. It appears in over 75 alternative weeklies and college papers in the United States and in other countries. Since 1996, it has been available for reading on the web.- Style :...
strip. - Famous Mexican actress SherlynSherlynSherlyn Montserrat González Díaz better known just as Sherlyn is a Mexican actress and singer. She is currently a member of the band Camaleones.- Biography :...
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. - TaxiTaxi (TV series)Taxi was an American sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982 on ABC and from 1982 to 1983 on NBC. The series, which won 18 Emmy Awards, including three for "Outstanding Comedy Series", focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher...
actress Marilu HennerMarilu HennerMary Lucy Denise "Marilu" Henner is an American actress, producer and author. She is best known for her role as Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the sitcom Taxi from 1978 to 1983.-Early life:...
laments during an episode: "Why can't love be like it is in literature? And I don't even need Cathy and Heathcliff. I'd settle for Nancy and Sluggo!" - Nancy (1961), Pocket BooksPocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
Collections
- Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Nancy: The Enduring Wisdom of Ernie Bushmiller (1993), Pharos Books
- Nancy's Pets (1991), Kitchen SinkKitchen Sink PressKitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen owned and operated Kitchen Sink Press until 1999. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in...
- 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
- The Nancy Book (2008), Siglio Press
- Nancy Vol. 1: The John Stanley Library (2009), Drawn and QuarterlyDrawn and QuarterlyDrawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
- Nancy Vol. 2: The John Stanley Library (2010), Drawn and Quarterly
- Nancy Is Happy: Complete Daily Strips: 1942-45 (2011), Fantagraphics BooksFantagraphics BooksFantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
Further reading
- Strickler, DaveDave StricklerDave Strickler is a reference librarian noted for his compilation of Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index, regarded as a major reference work by researchers and historians of newspaper comic strips....
. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1