Nancy (comic strip) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Nancy
Nancy (June 5, 1960)
Author(s)	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–present)
Current status/schedule	Running
Launch date	October 30, 1938 (title changed from Fritzi Ritz)
Syndicate(s)	United Feature Syndicate / United Media / Andrews McMeel Syndication
Genre(s)	Surreal humor, gag-a-day, satire, slice of life
Preceded by	Fritzi Ritz

Nancy is a famous American comic strip that was first drawn by Ernie Bushmiller. It was shared by companies like United Feature Syndicate. The strip actually started from another comic called Fritzi Ritz. Bushmiller took over Fritzi Ritz in 1925.

Nancy, who is Fritzi's niece, first appeared in 1933. Soon, Nancy became so popular that the comic strip started focusing more on her! In 1938, the daily comic strip was officially renamed Nancy.

History of the Nancy Comic Strip

Early Years: 1922 to 1982

The character Nancy is a smart and lively eight-year-old girl. She first showed up in the comic strip Fritzi Ritz. That strip was about a professional actress and her friends. Larry Whittington started Fritzi Ritz in 1922. Ernie Bushmiller took it over three years later.

On January 2, 1933, Bushmiller brought in Fritzi's niece, Nancy. He later said he only planned to keep her for about a week. But Nancy quickly became the star of the show! The daily comic strip was renamed Nancy in 1938. This happened after a newspaper editor pushed for the change.

Around the same time, Sluggo Smith was introduced. He was Nancy's friend from a tougher part of town. The comic strip became even more popular. Comics expert Don Markstein said the strip was successful because of Bushmiller's clear art style. He also praised Bushmiller's ability to create jokes that many people enjoyed.

Fritzi Ritz became a less important character in the daily strip. However, her own comic continued as a Sunday-only strip. It featured her relationship with Phil Fumble. The Fritzi Ritz Sunday strip was eventually replaced by Nancy in 1968. At its most popular in the 1970s, Nancy appeared in over 880 newspapers!

New Artists Take Over: 1982 to 2018

After Ernie Bushmiller passed away in 1982, other writers and artists took over the Nancy strip. Mark Lasky briefly drew the daily strip in 1982 and 1983. Al Plastino worked on the Sunday Nancy comics from 1982 to 1984.

Jerry Scott started drawing the daily strip in 1983 and the Sunday strip in 1985. Scott slowly changed the drawing style to be more modern. In 1995, Guy and Brad Gilchrist took control of the strip. Guy Gilchrist later became the only writer and artist.

Nancy Today: 2018 to Present

Guy Gilchrist's last Nancy strip came out on February 18, 2018. It showed Fritzi Ritz and Phil Fumble getting married. The comic strip then started again on April 9 with a new artist, Olivia Jaimes. She uses a pen name and is the first female creator of the strip. When she started, 75 newspapers still carried the comic.

Jaimes said she was excited to express herself through Nancy's voice. She described Nancy as a "sassy grouch" who is also "gluttonous" and "has big feelings." Comics historian Tom Spurgeon said Jaimes is funny and talented. He noted that her style both honors and updates Bushmiller's original version.

Olivia Jaimes has updated the comic strip's content. For example, Nancy often uses her smartphone and takes robotics classes. A strip from September 3, 2018, became very popular online. It showed Nancy riding a hoverboard with two phones. One phone was on a selfie stick, and Nancy said, "Sluggo is lit." Jaimes explained she wanted to "most upset the person who likes me the least." She imagined her biggest critic would hate Nancy using technology and modern slang.

Art Styles in Nancy

The artists who drew Nancy after Bushmiller used different styles. However, it is Bushmiller's work that most people still connect with the strip.

Bushmiller made his drawing style simpler over the years. He created a very unique comic world. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language even uses a Nancy cartoon to show what a "comic strip" is. Even when printed very small, the art and joke are clear. A study once found that Nancy was so easy to see that it was often the first strip people looked at on a newspaper comics page.

In an essay called "How to Read Nancy", Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik studied Bushmiller's strip. They said that Nancy might look simple at first glance. But like a careful architect, Bushmiller designed everything with a purpose. Walls, rocks, trees, and characters were placed perfectly. The main goal was always to make the joke clear. They called it a "blueprint for a comic strip."

Comics expert Scott McCloud also described what makes Nancy special. He said Ernie Bushmiller didn't draw just "a tree" or "a house." He drew "the" tree, "the" house. This means his drawings were like the perfect, simplest idea of those things. For example, he always drew three rocks in the background. Why three? Because two rocks would be a pair, and four rocks would be more than needed to show "some rocks." A Nancy panel is like a perfect, simple idea, like an atom.

Characters in Nancy

Main Characters

Nancy and Sluggo on the cover of Tip Top number 167 (May 1951). Ernie Bushmiller's drawings were easy to recognize.

• Nancy Ritz: She is a typical and sometimes mischievous eight-year-old girl. Nancy often encourages her friend Sluggo to do better. She also gets jealous if other girls pay attention to him. In Guy Gilchrist's version, she lived in Three Rocks, Tennessee. Ernie Bushmiller said her home was at 220 Oak Street. In Olivia Jaimes's version, she goes to Central Elementary School.
• Fritzi Ritz: She is Nancy's aunt and Nancy lives with her. Fritzi was the main character of her own comic strip before Nancy started. She was not in the strip for a while in the 1980s. But she came back as a main character in 1995. In the current Nancy comic, Fritzi is Nancy's full-time caregiver.
• Sluggo Smith: He is Nancy's best friend, first appearing in 1938. Sluggo is Nancy's age and is often shown as a poor boy from a tough neighborhood. Sometimes he is called Nancy's boyfriend. He has often been shown as lazy and loves napping. In Guy Gilchrist's version, Sluggo lived in an abandoned house. He was taken care of by truck driver "uncles." Olivia Jaimes's Sluggo is different. He is thoughtful, loves to read, and his living situation is not shown. In Jaimes's version, he is not clearly Nancy's boyfriend, but they talk a lot, and he tries to please her.

Other Characters

• Agnes and Lucy: These are Nancy's identical twin friends in the Jaimes version. Agnes is clever and wears her hair down. Lucy is more artistic and wears her hair up.
• Amal: A student at the Magnet School who was a basketball opponent in the Jaimes version.
• Art camp counselor: An unnamed, very fit art teacher in the Jaimes version.
• Dae-hyun: A Magnet School student in the Jaimes version. He studies, skateboards, and works as an announcer. He loves pizza.
• Derek: The most social student at the Magnet School in the Jaimes version.
• Devon P.: A robotics competition opponent from North Elementary School in the Jaimes version.
• Estella: A new member of the Robotics Club in the Jaimes version. She is a tech expert who loves cute, small things.
• Esther: A girl in Nancy's class in the Jaimes version. She and Nancy have a complicated friendship.
• Grandma: Nancy's grandmother in the Jaimes version.
• Jerome: A Magnet School student in the Jaimes version who writes touching short stories.
• Judy: Nancy's cousin who looks like her.
• Leon: A Magnet School student in the Jaimes version.
• Lyle: A blonde male classmate of Nancy's in the Jaimes version. He almost always wears sandals with socks.
• Marigold: Sluggo's tomboy cousin.
• Melissa Bangles: One of Nancy's teachers in the Jaimes version. She once hoped to have a basketball career.
• Mildred: A rival for Nancy and Esther in the Jaimes version. She goes to a nearby magnet school.
• Nita, Nancy's math and robotics teacher: A character in the Jaimes version who often thinks about how hard but rewarding teaching is.
• Old man: An unnamed, grumpy old man in the Jaimes version. Fans sometimes call him "Ernest Dangit."
• Oona Goosepimple: A spooky-looking child who lives in a haunted house. She first appeared in the comic strip in 2013.
• Pee Wee: A neighborhood toddler known for taking things very literally.
• Phil Fumble: Fritzi's boyfriend. He was in his own comic strip by Bushmiller. He left the strip in 1968 but returned in 2012. He and Fritzi got married in Guy Gilchrist's last strip. He is not in Jaimes's version.
• Poochie: Nancy's dog. She is white with a black spot and black ears. Poochie first appeared in the Jaimes version in 2018. Nancy and Fritzi think she is silly, but Poochie often outsmarts them.
• Pussycat: Nancy's adopted stray cat. This cat is not currently in the Jaimes version.
• Rollo Haveall: A friendly rich kid. In the early 1940s, the rich kid was named Marmaduke.
• Spike Kelly (also known as Butch): The town bully who often fights with Sluggo.

Awards for Nancy

Ernie Bushmiller won awards for his comic strip. He received the National Cartoonists Society's Humor Comic Strip Award in 1961. He also won the Society's top award, the Reuben Award, for Best Cartoonist of the Year in 1976.

In 1995, Nancy was chosen as one of 20 comic strips for a special series of U.S. postage stamps called "Comic Strip Classics."

Nancy in Comic Books

Nancy and Fritzi Ritz stories appeared in many comic books over the years. Different publishers like United Feature Syndicate, St. John Publications, and Dell Comics printed them.

John Stanley wrote some of the Nancy and Sluggo comic books for Dell. Nancy also appeared in British comic papers like The Topper. In Norway, Nancy (known as Trulte) even had its own monthly comic book magazine.

Nancy in Cartoons

Nancy appeared in two short animated cartoons by Terrytoons studio in 1942 and 1943. These were called School Daze and Doing Their Bit.

In 1971, new Nancy and Sluggo cartoons were part of the Saturday morning TV show Archie's TV Funnies. On this show, characters from different comic strips ran a TV station. Nancy was featured along with other famous comic strip characters. Later, in 1978, she also appeared in parts of Filmation's animated show Fabulous Funnies.

Nancy Around the World

A Nancy strip from January 16, 2006, in French Canadian.

Nancy has been translated into many languages. Often, the characters' names are changed!

• In Sweden, the strip is called Lisa och Sluggo.
• In French Canada, Nancy is called Philomène. In France, she is Zoé, and the strip is called Arthur et Zoé (Arthur is Sluggo).
• In the Arabic children's magazine Majid in the 1980s, Nancy was Moza and Sluggo was her brother Rashoud.
• In Mexico, Nancy is known as Periquita, and Sluggo is Tito.
• In Brazil, Nancy and Sluggo were called Xuxuquinha and Marciano in the 1960s. Later, they were Tico and Teca (Sluggo and Nancy).

Collections of Nancy Comics

You can find collections of Nancy comic strips and comic books.

Comic Strip Collections (by Ernie Bushmiller)

• Nancy (1961)
• The Best of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy by Brian Walker (1988)
• Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1942–1945 (2012)
• Nancy Likes Christmas: Complete Dailies 1946–1948 (2012)
• Nancy Loves Sluggo: Complete Dailies 1949–1951 (2014)

Comic Book Collections (by John Stanley)

• Nancy Vol. 1: The John Stanley Library (2009)
• Nancy Vol. 2: The John Stanley Library (2010)
• Nancy Vol. 3: The John Stanley Library (2011)

Comic Strip Collections (by Olivia Jaimes)

• Nancy: A Comic Collection (2019)
• Nancy Wins at Friendship (2023)

See also

In Spanish: Nancy (historieta) para niños