Wayback Whensday: Will and Nancy
Skip to comments
Will Johnson is an American cartoonist, notable as one of Ernie Bushmiller’s assistants on his daily ‘Nancy’ strip. He worked on the series from the late 1970s until the early 1980s.
Bas Schuddeboom, Lambiek’s Comiclopedia
After Bushmiller’s death on August 15, 1982, the strip continued, written by former Bushmiller apprentices. “Nancy, still a valuable property for Untied Features Syndicate, endured, after a fashion, continued initially by Will Johnson (dailies) and Al Plastino (Sundays) who had both worked under Bushmiller, and by a host of successors thereafter.”
The New Nancy by Jeff Karnicky quoting Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden in How to Read Nancy
1979 saw the myriad particulars of any given Nancy strip become increasingly dependent upon the decisions of assistants, with an inevitable erosion of standards. This gag [above] saw one last incarnation, which was rendered by Will Johnson (who had worked with Bushmiller for decades) and ran on August 13, 1982, two days before Bushmiller’s death.
How to Read Nancy by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden
That last quote is the only one I find that credits Will Johnson as being a longtime Ernie Bushmiller assistant/ghost on the Nancy and Fritzi Ritz comic strips. Most only give his time as the late 1970s to the early 1980s but he had been helping Bushmiller since the late 1940s.
A 1961 Ridgefield Press profile about the local cartoonist claims Johnson had been working with Bushmiller for 14 years putting the association back to 1947.
The meeting in a magazine office is not out of the ordinary for the two cartoonists. By 1947 Johnson was a successful single panel magazine cartoonist with his work appearing in Collier’s,The Saturday Evening Post, American Legion, and others. Johnson had become a full time freelance cartoonist straight out of college as this 1946 pre-Bushmiller item from a 1946 Macon News article notes.
Will Johnson’s obituary in 1984 explains why the daily Nancy was passed on to Mark Lasky in 1982 explaining that Johnson dies “after a long illness.”
So those mentions of Johnson on the daily Nancy from the late 70s to the early 80s mark his time when he was basically on his own, but he had been with Bushmiller for 3 decades before that time.
Comments