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you guys there’s a new nancy cartoonist and she’s amazing
this art style with modern references is the most jarring thing I’ve ever seen
it’s so raw and I love it
I’m reblogging again because I feel like most of my followers aren’t Nancy Enthusiasts™
and don’t know all the context around this, which I think make it even better
in 1925 Ernie Bushmiller took over the comic strip Fritzi Ritz, about a flapper named Fritzi who was a kinda cheesecakey saucy dame with a lot of sometimes-boyfriends, most notably the goofy-as-hell, owned-with-regularity doofus Phil Fumble
In 1933 Bushmiller introduced Fritzi’s niece Nancy, because you can only write so many stories about a dynamite gal dealing with her idiot boyfriend, and by 1938 the comic was just called Nancy.
Phil Fumble basically completely disappeared as Nancy became a strip that has literally had papers and later whole books dedicated to how carefully Bushmiller managed to craft his strips.
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.”
A Nancy panel is an irreduceable concept, an atom, and the comic strip is a molecule.
[Source]
It changed hands a couple of times, but the person of note here took over in 1995: Guy Fucking Gilchrist. If I sound like I dislike Guy Gilchrist, it’s because he was garbage! Fritzi suddenly became a country music fan with huge knockers and cross necklaces; Phil Fumble came back as a buff Christian to make an honest woman out of her; Nancy was always praying and talking about how great music used to be and waving flags all over the place. Sluggo became a tragic orphan whose uncles were truckers and Vietnam veterans. Gilchrist’s idea of honoring Bushmiller’s legacy was to make constant, neverending references to three rocks. They lived in a town called Three Rocks now (in Nashville, because of-fucking-course). Three rocks were on all the signs. Three rocks in background panels, everywhere.
If it sounds like he turned it into a good-ol’-days ammurcan wankfest, that’s because it was. If you’re around my age, you have probably only ever known the strip as Gilchrist’s trash.
Those three rocks in the first panel were definitely necessary, and not stupid as hell.
While no official reason was given, Gilchrist was taken off the comic this year after a former assistant made a public statement accusing him of substance abuse and sexual assault.
While he was waiting for the axe, he tied up his new Nancy with a storyline where buff Phil adopted Sluggo and married Fritzi, and they all lived happily ever after doing who gives a fuck.
And now they’ve given the comic to a woman, who is once again doing gag-a-day strips and who seems to be ignoring literally all of Gilchrist’s stupid bullshit in favor of things that are actually funny.
Long Live Nancy
Context and history make everything better.
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