Tag / Nancy

by zbicyclist

Fourth Wall

Mitch4 sends this in: “Some kind of META, or 4th Wall … The META aspect is that it acknowledges being a comic. The allusion to the Silly Putty tradition of pulling off a layer of ink from the funny papers (and maybe applying it elsewhere, like a rubber stamp), here goes farther and shows us the removal of a layer of his physical body, leaving a skeleton. The artist’s hand reaching in to do this is reminiscent of Escher’s meta practices.”.

Boise Ed sends this in, and wonders: “Is it my imagination, or are cartoonists in general doing a lot more fourth-wall gags recently? This example is more blatant than most, though.”

Not a strong vote of confidence from the cartoonist.

I don’t know the revenue model at Comics Kingdom, but I see Wannabe has 309 followers (those who have make it one of their favorites). A lot of the comics with larger numbers are strips that have been around forever, either with new authors (Blondie, 13.8k; Family Circus 10.6k; Hagar the Horrible 13k) or simply classic reruns (Buz Sawyer 1.6k; Beetle Bailey classics 12.7k)

Newer strips tend to have much lower numbers. (Macanudo, 3k; Todd the Dinosaur 2k; TBD 900).

That’s not a comprehensive list,

Saving you the trouble of looking it up: “Estradiol is a form of estrogen, a female sex hormone that regulates many processes in the body. Estradiol is used to treat menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and vaginal changes, and to prevent osteoporosis (bone loss) in menopausal women. Estradiol is also used to treat low estrogen levels in women with ovarian failure. It is also indicated to treat certain types of breast cancer and prostate cancer.”

That last panel is intended to be intentionally confusing, so doesn’t count as a CIDU.

Boise Ed sends this in: “Here’s a different approach to the fourth-wall mania.”

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs – September 20, 2026

A variation on an old joke, good for using with first and second graders just learning basic subtraction:

“Sluggo, if you had five brownies and Nancy asked for two, how many would you have left?”

“Five. I wouldn’t give her any.”

Yes, go where the money is.

Willie Sutton famously said he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is,” but these days the Willie Suttons are mostly trolling the internet, looking for people to scam.

A few months ago, I read “Kenau Reeves is Not In Love With You”, by Becky Holmes. The book centers around romance scams, but also discusses other financial confidence scams. One chapter deals with the scams from the other side: the scammers are pressured / threatened by their managers to achieve certain results, much like any telemarketers.

by zbicyclist

2×2?

Straightforward, if not funny:

But what about those papers that might print 4-panel Nancy as a 2×2?

or some other orientation?

In earlier days, Bushmiller would sometimes do a 3 panel, but in the examples I looked at the third panel was double-width, so it would still fit within a 2×2 orientation. But perhaps the number of papers who might be affected is approaching 0.

by zbicyclist

54 Faces of Nancy

Found on the internet, with some speculation about its origin. One theory is that it was Ernie Bushmiller’s cheat sheet, so he could be consistent in his expression of various emotions. Another person speculated that he could use this for some early version of cut-and-paste, in particular to save time with that hairdo. Perhaps it was in some guide for young cartoonists to help them learn to express emotions, and Nancy was just a familiar face to use.

The CoPilot AI engine covers most of these bases:

“Bushmiller developed this chart as a reference sheet cataloging facial expressions for Nancy, his iconic character known for her deadpan humor and minimalist design. Each numbered face corresponds to an emotion or reaction, helping Bushmiller (and later artists) maintain consistency in Nancy’s look while conveying a wide range of feelings.

The chart circulated among cartoonists and illustrators as an example of how to express emotion economically — a hallmark of Bushmiller’s style.

It likely dates from the mid‑20th century, when Bushmiller was refining Nancy’s visual language for syndication.”

Nancy has had several different authors:

Ernie Bushmiller (1938–1982)
Al Plastino (1982–1984)
Mark Lasky (1982–1983)
Jerry Scott (1983–1995)
Guy and Brad Gilchrist (1995–2018)
Olivia Jaimes (2018–2025)
Caroline Cash (2026–)

Larry Whittington began Fritzi Ritz in 1922 and turned the strip over to Bushmiller in 1925, but Nancy didn’t appear in that strip until 1933. The strip was renamed Nancy in 1938.

This brings up the controversial issue of when to let a comic strip die. At one end, we have Bill Waterson (Calvin and Hobbes), who ended the strip and avoided licensing. Just after we have Gary Larson, who ended The Far Side, but has mined his old material for licensing purposes and attempted to keep others from using it. This included asking CIDU to remove Far Side strips from our archives. We did this, but a glance across the internet shows many Far Side groups continually popping up like weeds in my lawn.

Then there are strips that have been transitioned to family members: Hagar the Horrible, for example, or Family circus, or Luann, now with Greg and Karen Evans listed as authors.

In the middle, I guess, are strips that are popular in reruns: Peanuts, and for that matter Classic Nancy, which recycles Ernie’s material.

At the far end of this spectrum are strips like Nancy, which shows several sets of authors over time, each with their own take on the characters (Fritzi is now bisexual) and with variation in drawing styles.

And on a very slightly related note, perhaps Dave Coverly should have her cycle through all 54 of them.

by zbicyclist

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

Mitch4 has some questions:

“1) Are the shoes in the last panel meant to be actually larger, or just drawn that way to call our attention to them? Are these her own shoes with left and right exchanged, or maybe even somebody else’s shoes?

“2) What does her seating behind that tall, bald man have to do with getting her shoes “mixed up” [regardless of which kind of mixing up it was]? Does it mean she stood up on her seat to see past him, but was courteous enough to take off her shoes so as to not dirty up the seat as much?”

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs – April 12, 2026

The Berrys, by Walt Ditzen: April 7, 1944. While filling in for Carl Grubert during World War Two, Walt Ditzen grew increasingly tired of drawing the elaborate lamp in the Berry bedroom. This strip was his solution. (Source: Mort Walker’s Backstage at the Strips: 1975).

One of my favorite Cul de Sac comics:

Not really an LOL, but was this a real thing?