Nancy by Olivia Jaimes for April 01, 2022

‘Sluggo is lit’ never looked better.

Nancy is not a brand :(

Today we learned how Nancy was created, which inevitably explains why she has no parents.

Whoa. What is this a cheeky insult at classic Nancy fans? Or is you trying to demeans Bushmiller himself? What’s the meaning otherwise of this absolutely fake history? Everyone knows Nancy comic evolved outta the existing comic on Fritzi Ritz (which he had earlier took over from Larry Whittington who was its original creator) and later on introduced Nancy with original intent as a temporary character, but with Nancy’s popularity soaring and with Fritzi taking a back seat, the strip was finally renamed as Nancy in 1938. But Nancy first appeared in Fritzi Ritz back in 1933, which was years before 1938. So what’s with this “dot and line” fake history that that was his original submission in 1938? What are you trying to do mislead the peoples? He was minimalistic in the sense that he kept things simple with little dialogue and simple but still good artwork, and it never was just a dot and a line.

Heh, Bushmiller’s legacy is in pretty safe hands now. It’s nice to see someone with obvious love for the character and the form.

All you Nancy fans should read this book – https://www.howtoreadnancy.com

April Fool? This isn’t a “How to Draw Nancy” thing.

The second I saw the first panel, without even registering the captions, I remembered what day it was. Nice try, Olivia! Maybe next year. You sure got Gent though. lol

Happy April Fool’s Day everyone!

well, considering the date…

Ms. Jaimes, we are fortunate you approach your solemn duty as custodian of Nancy with the appropriate gravitas.

I don’t get the joke (?) in the last panel.

I love that Olivia “gets it” in a way other people only thought they “got” it. A well-read essay comes out about how Bushmiller’s style is illustrated by the “three rocks,” and someone who won’t be named somehow took that as meaning he had to reference three rocks constantly in a very non-minimalist fashion. This is hardly an insult to Bushmiller fans—it’s damn near a love letter to them.

In the Vulture 2018 interview with Abraham Riesman, Olivia is thorough about what she is doing.Riesman: It’s funny that you say the Nancy you know and love is a jerk because that plays into my thesis about why your version of the strip has caught on. We’re living in this era of a curious sort of hedonism, where we’re totally aware and ashamed that we’re being slothful and vain and greedy, but we continue doing it all anyway. Nancy is our avatar, and we look at her and laugh because we see how terrible we, ourselves, are. Or maybe I’m off base.Jaimes: No, that’s so true! Okay, so, yeah, I wanna talk more about this with you because I think you’re really onto something. There’s this thing in webcomics: #relatable. And #relatable can be used as a slur. To be like, “Uh, your comic is pandering to people.” I’m almost always in the camp where … It’s not like comics are easy, but I think it’s great to be relatable, and I don’t want people to use relatable as an insult. I feel like Nancy is #relatable, except that she also isn’t apologetic. So, there’s the camp of #relatable, which is like, “I’m the worst person: I can’t stop eating bread,” or “I can’t get out of bed,” and like, Nancy is that, but then she’s also like, “So what?” The kind of self-hating type that often comes with relatable comics. The self-hating part that often comes with #relatable comics is being like, “Ohhhh, I procrastinated, I’m the worst.” And “Nancy” adds one more panel to that, being like, “Who cares? I don’t care. More corn bread for me.”

That Ern had an eye.

I think Bushy would have liked this.

Angered, but needing the money, Bushmiller turned around and sold the rights to Dot and Line to Norman Juster.

The last panel is a direct reference to the “Have A Regular Day” button a former friend of mine made and sold for a while in the 70s.

This really good! Love how this strip retained a lot of the original intent unlike Mark Trail which is now Awful ‘bro.