CSotD: Friday Short Takes
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She's baaaack.
Or, at least, she'll be back Monday. Universal Uclick's John Glynn has been on Facebook teasing the return of Nancy.
Nancy went out of production recently with the retirement from the strip of Guy Gilchrist, and there was speculation that the strip would end or possibly go into permanent reruns.
However, there will be new strips and Glynn let drop a pronoun suggesting that the new artist is female, but I think the big news is the above strip which suggests that Nancy will continue to be Nancy.
Comics aficionados know the story — recounted here by Charles Brubaker with several examples including the above — of how, in 1984, Jerry Scott took over the strip shortly after the death of creator Ernie Bushmiller. He updated Nancy's look and began adding his own brand of humor. (That's updated Sluggo in the last panel.)
And was promptly slapped down by Nancy fans who wanted Nancy, dammit. Scott withdrew, Gilchrist stepped in and order was restored.
There are valid technical reasons to admire Bushmiller's Nancy, and even a book using the strip as a guide to appreciating comics overall, but I think — I hope — the people who praise her as some purposeful dadaesque absurdity are joking.
Bushmiller found a formula that worked and he applied it with a singleminded, praiseworthy discipline, but Nancy represents the far end of the comic strip spectrum on which the other end became Calvin & Hobbes and the Far Side.
There is a type of strip whose goal is to comfort, not challenge, a mac-and-cheese that would be ruined by the addition of exotic ingredients, because mac-and-cheese isn't supposed to be exotic and, if we wanted exotic, we'd have ordered the seafood curry.
As a kid, I remember subscribing to "Casper the Friendly Ghost" comic books in kindergarten. I liked Casper, but he certainly wasn't all that challenging, and I soon transitioned to Spooky, which had a bit more bite.
In the newspaper, I couldn't make heads nor tails of continuity strips like Rip Kirby or Little Orphan Annie, in part because they were complex and in part because I didn't see the paper very often during the week.
I remember, however, being more fascinated on Sundays with the colors of Gordo and Pogo than able to follow their plots, and reading Miss Peach and Peanuts because they were simple and about kids, though, looking back, I couldn't possibly have been picking up on the subtle humor.
Nancy I could understand, but, like Henry, it wasn't a matter of finding a lot of humor in them. It was a matter of reassurance, like reading "Goodnight Moon" before bed: It's not supposed to challenge you. It's supposed to comfort you.
And so Nancy has her place, though it wasn't ever really my place. I preferred Little Lulu, with her more complex cast of characters and her often iconoclastic approach to problem solving.
You can find the rest of that Little Lulu comic book and a prodigious amount of discussion about her here.
As for a moral to the story, all I can think of is that we should remember that comics are essentially commercial art, and that you wouldn't know Mort Walker discovered Dik Browne because of some magazine ads he drew if nobody told you so.
But they don't have to be insipid, and there are strips that do challenge their fans, and there are also things out there like Bizarre Romance, the Eddie Campbell/Audrey Niffenegger collaboration I plugged here a few days ago.
My copy arrived and it is freaking awesome.
Still, nobody forces newspapers to run Nancy, and, while you're not likely to see her here very often, new strips sure beat eating up precious print space with reruns.
Juxtaposition of the Day
I don't think I need to comment on this pairing, except to note for those who didn't pick up on it that there seems to be a difference in how these two cartoonists view Trump's latest plan.
Cartoonists are feasting and, at this stage, the ridicule is greatly outpacing the applause, though we ought not to forget that balance of cartoons does not necessarily predict results of elections, QED.
Other Juxtaposition of the Day
One of the factors in Trump's tax cut is that people are seeing more money, less withholding, in their paychecks and won't see how it actually plays out at tax time until after the midterm elections. There is speculation that the uncertainty over details will mean that they'll get no refund and may have to dig into their pockets when April 15, 2019 rolls around.
However, his trade wars will come home to roost much sooner, and, while Wilkinson and de Adder focus here on the damage to our nation's farmers, it's not like those country folks are going to eat the entire change in revenue.
In fact, given the speed with which commodity brokers move to anticipate things — watch gas prices as Memorial Day approaches — I suspect we'll see price increases at the grocery store well before November.
And a lot of other places as well. Trump's approval ratings are inching up, but we'll see what happens as his fan base finds the increase in their paychecks overwhelmed by the results of his tariffs.
Personal Matters
I'm finding most Facebook cartoons tiresome, but today's La Cucaracha cracked me up because my Facebook feed no longer has a lot of "Which Gullible Jackass Are You?" quizzes, but is filling up with "Like And Share This If You Are A Total Prat."
I'm tempted to set up a dummy account so I can comment "You stupid bastards are compromising all your friends," without doing just that.
Yeah! It would be like being in this big field of rye, catching children before they go off the cliff.
(ahem)
Maybe I'll just start unfriending nitwits who proudly show that they can think of a word containing a vowel.
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