One thing that I've learned to appreciate despite once having had an inexplicable hostility towards it is Ernie Bushmiller's work on Nancy. Actually it's not inexplicable, just wrongheaded. I used to judge it by the same criteria as Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts. But Bushmiller was nearly a generation older than Schulz, and was speaking an older visual language. It's more fulfilling if you give it time.
Nancy was revived for new installments a few years ago. And within the past year it's become surprisingly modish. That is, millennials and Generation Z people who have no particular loyalty to daily syndicated comics have started reading it, writing and meme-ing about it on various platforms.
Much of that is down to the new author Olivia Jaimes. "Olivia Jaimes" is a pseudonym, and I think she previously worked on a webcomic, but I'm not publicly speculating on who she really is now. In any case, she's created some weird juxtapositions. Nancy and Sluggo are screen addicts, constantly texting each other and playing video games, even though they still look like they stepped out of an Our Gang short.
If tech jokes were all Jaimes was bringing to the table they'd cloy pretty quickly. But she enjoys playing with the form too, breaking the fourth wall in clever ways, and in service to the characters. It's not Calvin & Hobbes, but again, it's its own thing. Something old and something new.
Nancy was revived for new installments a few years ago. And within the past year it's become surprisingly modish. That is, millennials and Generation Z people who have no particular loyalty to daily syndicated comics have started reading it, writing and meme-ing about it on various platforms.
Much of that is down to the new author Olivia Jaimes. "Olivia Jaimes" is a pseudonym, and I think she previously worked on a webcomic, but I'm not publicly speculating on who she really is now. In any case, she's created some weird juxtapositions. Nancy and Sluggo are screen addicts, constantly texting each other and playing video games, even though they still look like they stepped out of an Our Gang short.
If tech jokes were all Jaimes was bringing to the table they'd cloy pretty quickly. But she enjoys playing with the form too, breaking the fourth wall in clever ways, and in service to the characters. It's not Calvin & Hobbes, but again, it's its own thing. Something old and something new.
2 comments:
While I wasn't a fan of the originals I did check out a few more of her strips after I saw your Vulture link. She wins the drollery award for those who repurpose old newspaper comics and Olivia has the advantage that she only had to master a couple of simple drawings to keep it looking like it used to do. Still, she's no George Herriman either.
"Drollery" is a pretty good word. Not a bad quality to cultivate, either.
Not many people are George Herriman. It's somewhat customary for the originators of comic strips to leave them to their assistants or other successors. For example Hank Ketcham has been gone for awhile, but there are still new Dennis the Menace strips every day. But it's hard to imagine anyone but Herriman churning out new Krazy Kat toons.
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