How To Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden. Published by Fantagraphics Books in February 2011. ISBN 978-1606993613 and typically priced around £25
This 80-page paperback qualifies as a coffee-table book (which is how I have illustrated it) not only because of its large format but because it lends itself to dipping in and out. It is about the life and work of Ernie Bushmiller, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career drawing the classic cartoon strip Nancy in the American broadsheet press.
It’s basically a sandwich, opening with a biographical section about the artist and closing with a set of fascinating appendices including among other things numerous illustrations of how a particular comedic graphic idea can recur in different publications drawn by different hands at different times. In this the authors’ meticulous historical research really comes to the fore, and although it isn’t entirely relevant to the life of Bushmiller and the adventures of his creation Nancy, there is a link. The main recurring gag is variations on a slapstick motif: mischievous individuals standing on hosepipes, and the consequent dousing of the user, who witlessly stares down the nozzle just as the flow is restored.
And so to the filling of the sandwich. The central section of the book focuses on just one famous Nancy strip, from 8 August 1959, featuring a hosepipe. This three-panel strip is reproduced no fewer than 44 times on successive double-page spreads with everything removed apart from one particular element that the authors proceed to dissect and explain forensically. It might be one of the props (leaky spigot [‘tap’ for us brits], water gun [pistol], hose etc), or a feature of production design (the house, the fence, the horizon line), or the design of speech balloons, or punctuation; not even the width of the gutters between panels escapes detailed scrutiny and dissection.
I am probably making it sound rather contrived and over-worked, and to an extent it is; it is a highly academic take on the subject. But it is still enjoyable. For one thing the historical perspectives are really interesting; another reason is that you can dip in more or less at random, picking up little insights as you go. This makes the meticulous forensic academic tone more of an amusing quirk than an offputting irritation. So even though I have been drawing cartoons on and off for 60 years—and in recent years even selling them—I still took away numerous lessons about my craft which will help me hone my technique.
Birthday coming up? Ask someone to get this for you as a present.
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