Nancy & Sluggo’s Guide to Life

Ernie Bushmiller’s work has, in the last three decades, gone from being a risible example of kitsch to a perceived pinnacle of comics in their purest, simplest form. When Bill Griffith, who featured odes to Nancy in his syndicated Zippy strips in the 1980s and beyond, produced a graphic-novel biography of Bushmiller—a belated companion to Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik’s 2017 award-winner How to Read Nancy (now out of print in physical form)—the legitimacy of “Nancy” felt assured.

This curated collection of Bushmiller strips, culled from three books published by Kitchen Sink Press in the 1980s with some additional material, brings the prime era of Nancy back into the public’s hands. Fantagraphics attempted a Nancy reprint series, but they started too early in the run. Those earlier strips have appeal, but the look and feel of the classic Nancy period has a bigger draw. From the mid-1950s on, Bushmiller’s style plateaued and never changed, save one element—the lettering. The best way to estimate the date of any “Nancy” strip after 1955 is by the size of the text in the speech balloons. The bigger it is, the newer the strip. Bushmiller’s drawings were designed to thwart the worst aspects of web-press printing. It was near-impossible to render his bold, simple black and white unreadable. Many newspapers tried; few, if any, succeeded.

That’s of no concern in this book, which seems largely sourced from original art and syndicate proofs. In the 1970s, Nancy originals were plentiful and scorned by most collectors. They could be had for a song. Denis Kitchen took advantage of this and shared his finds with the public. The ‘80s and early ‘90s Nancy collections—all themed—were welcomed by a growing readership who got past the older knee-jerk reactions to Bushmiller’s work and embraced the brute force of its comedy and cartooning. These long out-of-print books still pop up in used bookstores, often at premium prices. This large volume preserves the essence of three of those Nancy mix tapes. In its chapters, "Money," "Food" and "Sleep," we see Bushmiller’s quest for the perfect gag at its apex. Bushmiller often came up with the final boffo panel first and worked backward towards how this moment might happen. With a perfection/obsession equal to filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s, Bushmiller pursued countless variations on a few central themes. Some strips are a hairsbreadth apart in their subjects and approaches.

"Money" offers 52 pages of strips about finance, wealth and its absence. Most strips are from a child’s point of view, so we often see Nancy pining for candy, ice cream sodas and toys. An important sub-section of this theme is the existence of Nancy’s best friend, Sluggo. The title of one of Kitchen Sink’s books sums up the character’s draw: “How Sluggo Survives.” Sluggo’s existence fascinated me as a kid reader in the 1960s. A lone, streetwise urchin, with no parents present or mentioned, Sluggo lives in a ramshackle (abandoned?) house so unkempt that, in a 1960 strip, a construction worker using explosives assumes his shock-waves have totaled the kid’s home. He shoves a wad of money through a window to appease his conscience. The thesis posed in Kitchen’s book title is never answered—part of the strip’s inexorable pull.

Wealth and its status provide another strong undercurrent. While Sluggo might be considered homeless by 21st-century standards, Nancy is middle-class leaning towards working-class. Both children aspire to be richer and more respected. They often take advantage of those better-off than themselves. In a 1966 strip, Sluggo butters up the spindly son of a sporting goods store as he asks him to join his baseball team. The gag is as subtle as Bushmiller ever gets. At times, he let the reader draw their own conclusions.

Reading the themed segments of these strips is like hearing an old-school stand-up comic riffing on a topic. If one joke falls flat, the next might get a chuckle. The sole motivation of a Nancy strip is the payoff of the imagined laugh from the reader. No doubt millions smiled from subway cars and La-Z-Boys as they scanned their daily paper and were caught by the signal noise of Nancy.

These strips are well reproduced on heavy paper with clarity and no bleedthrough. Bushmiller’s artwork becomes a thing of beauty the more one regards it. Only what is essential is in each panel. Words are elided to their essence. Cross-hatching is rare, and once mechanical gray tones were available, Bushmiller adopted them. The stark black and white, leavened by fields of perfect gray, resemble factory-made assembly-line goods. Nothing distracts the eye from proceeding to the boffo finale. Whether or not one chuckles at a strip, there’s much to admire in their craftsmanship.

"Food" comprises pages 69-118—the book’s biggest section. Food is funny, as any comedian will agree. It’s the ultimate prop item. It’s sticky, messy, runny, dense and leaky. It can be thrown, dropped, splattered and manipulated into other shapes. Spaghetti and meatballs might merit 100 different gags from Bushmiller’s hand. Nancy’s lapses into gluttony and fantasies about food are a strong subset of this species. An undated Sunday strip from the early 1950s has Nancy an avid listener of a radio show about the animal world. In a series of panels, she imagines herself as several creatures discussed, and finds her happy place as an octopus, with its eight arms manipulating every dessert she can conjure.

As a prop, food is used to settle arguments, nurse grudges and offer topical commentary on inflation and other matters aimed at adult readers. In a 1959 strip, Nancy offers Sluggo a bowl of alphabet soup just so she can hector him about a debt. (p. 69, strip 3) This strip exemplifies its creator’s gag-first credo. Only Bushmiller could justify such a contrived punchline, walk it back and make it work. This is the richest section of the book, as the subject matter so inspired its creator.

"Sleep" gives dream logic a solid platform. While insomnia gags are represented, Bushmiller’s dream-theme strips are among his best. In an undated daily from the early 1960s, Sluggo awakes from a magnificent sight-gag dream with joy. “Wow-that was one of my best nightmares” he exclaims, in Bushmiller’s unpunctuated dialogue.

These strips give their creator freedom from the norms of his strip and he never hesitates to break the fourth wall if a laugh is the reward. I wish this section was longer, but its burst of creativity makes a fine third act.

As said, some earlier strips have been added to the mix. Their different art style and approach are, at first, jarring, but they offer glimpses of how Bushmiller patiently perfected his strip to the point that it never need change. His inclusion of topical fads and trends, within the unchanging look of Nancy, are a pleasant surprise. No cartoonist got more mileage out of “Beatniks, Bums and Hippies” (another title in the Kitchen Sink series) and his joy in drawing these societal outcasts is obvious. I’d love to know when the first hippie appeared in a Nancy strip, and if beatniks and hippies co-existed for a time. Bushmiller only used a topic if he felt it would yield a laugh. Though these eccentrics are always the butt of the joke, they’re necessary ingredients for his agenda.

I’ve not mentioned Fritzi Ritz, the calendar-girl aunt who takes care of Nancy. Their relationship is mighty caustic. Fritzi is a stern parent figure who exists to oppose Nancy’s wild ideas and desires and to counter the child’s stubbornness. Fritzi’s semi-realistic mien has nothing to do with the blueprint designs of the other characters. Their visual discord is apt for their often-contentious relationship.

Denis Kitchen provides a brief but welcome introduction to what I hope will be a series of Bushmiller books. One small cavil, which is germane to most modern publishers: the front or back matter always seems too short, as if all editors fear taxing the reader’s patience. As a reader and editor of several comics-related books, I often long for more insight than is provided. Don’t be afraid of going long: it’s the reader’s prerogative to approach each book as they wish. Some might skip past the text and get to the strips. But those of us who like the back matter often feel cut short by its brevity. Material from the 20th century needs a stronger rudder for younger readers. No one can assume they will have the same experience reading historical material. I think more backstory and detail will help keep these comics of the last century understandable and gettable.

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