The New Nancy

Key Question Being Explored in This Insight:

Jeff Karnicky draws on Olivia Jaimes's 2018 remake of Nancy to show how successful daily comic strips are flexible and relatable in the 21st century.

View the page of: Jeff Karnicky

Institution: Drake University

Explore more insights in:

Arts and Humanities Books Literature

Media Literacy Toolkit

Faculti's Media Literacy Toolkit helps viewers critically engage with academic insights by analyzing the research context, identifying perspectives, and encouraging thoughtful evaluation.

Critical Questions to Consider ▼

What assumptions does the research make?
Are there alternative perspectives not explored?
What are the limitations of the research method?

Bias and Perspective Awareness ▼

This research comes from Drake University . Reflect on how the institution's academic focus and research partnerships may shape the questions being explored.

Further Reading ▼

Read the Study

Jeff Karnicky draws on Olivia Jaimes’s 2018 remake of Nancy to show how successful daily comic strips are flexible and relatable in the 21st century.

Image courtesy of interviewee. February 2, 2024

Log-in or Sign-up to Faculti
Currently viewing this subject insight as a guest. You have insight(s) remaining for this month. Login to view 8000+ figures on the platform.

Generating Workspace...

Export as PDF

This video video discusses the history and evolution of the comic character Nancy, created by Ernie Bushmiller in 1933, who initially appeared in the comic strip "Fritz Ritz." Due to her popularity, Nancy received her own strip in 1938, which continued under Bushmiller until the early 1980s. After that, various artists continued the strip with less publicity, until Olivia James revived it in 2018, marking a significant change, as it was the first time a woman took the helm.

The speaker highlights key differences in the new Nancy, focusing on how contemporary comic creators, like James, operate within a different cultural and economic landscape compared to the past, when newspaper comics were hugely popular and financially lucrative. James, for instance, balances her comic work with a full-time academic career.

The digital shift in comic consumption is also explored, as fewer people read comics in print newspapers and instead access them online. The new Nancy incorporates modern themes and humor relevant to current society, like technology and online schooling, reflecting cultural changes. As the comic evolves, it embraces diversity and adapts to contemporary audiences, using elements from both the past and the modern world.

The narrative emphasizes the ongoing relevance of daily comics and argues for their importance in contemporary society, despite the decline of newspaper comics since the 1960s. It also calls attention to the need for scholarship on newspaper comics, which have been overshadowed by studies focusing on graphic novels and superhero comics.

Language:

Export as PDF

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.055 --> 00:04.045
Nancy was a comic character, created all the way back

00:05.065 --> 00:07.285
in, in 1933

00:07.505 --> 00:10.685
by the cartoonist Ernie Bush Miller.

00:11.105 --> 00:13.285
Um, and he just briefly,

00:14.295 --> 00:16.645
Nancy was a character in another strip

00:16.645 --> 00:20.125
that he was doing called Fritz Ritz, who is Nancy's aunt.

00:20.265 --> 00:22.565
But she first appeared in that comic in 1933,

00:23.185 --> 00:24.245
but became very popular,

00:24.625 --> 00:28.285
so got her own comic strip in 1938

00:28.705 --> 00:32.925
and, Ernie Bush Miller did Nancy until

00:33.865 --> 00:35.005
the, the early eighties.

00:35.305 --> 00:39.205
Um, and then over the last, you know, like, well

00:39.205 --> 00:41.965
between the eighties and 2018, what Olivia James did,

00:41.965 --> 00:44.805
and a bunch of other people did it to really like,

00:45.965 --> 00:48.685
I don't know, no great publicity

00:48.945 --> 00:52.645
or not a lot of press about the comic changing

00:52.645 --> 00:54.005
because they kept it very similar.

00:54.065 --> 00:58.725
But when they rebooted it in 2018 with Olivia James,

00:59.685 --> 01:02.445
a lot about the comic was different.

01:02.865 --> 01:04.685
Um, and there's a lot I can say about that.

01:04.845 --> 01:07.645
I mean, the, the most obvious difference is this is the

01:07.645 --> 01:11.485
first time that a woman, was doing the comic strip.

01:11.995 --> 01:13.685
Some of the research was actually quite easy

01:13.685 --> 01:17.925
because I started, I guess I started this in early 2020

01:17.985 --> 01:19.325
or maybe late 2019,

01:19.545 --> 01:23.565
but, Olivia James' comic started in

01:23.575 --> 01:24.725
April, 2018.

01:24.985 --> 01:28.045
So for one, it was easy to read all

01:28.045 --> 01:29.125
of the primary sources, right?

01:29.165 --> 01:30.685
I mean, it's not that it doesn't take that long

01:30.685 --> 01:32.965
to read a year and a half of daily comic strips.

01:32.965 --> 01:35.925
So that was, I mean, that's the primary research.

01:36.065 --> 01:38.765
But then besides that, it was, you know,

01:39.125 --> 01:41.245
researching other comics, scholarship.

01:41.585 --> 01:44.405
Um, there's a lot of stuff

01:44.505 --> 01:46.765
or there has been a lot of stuff online about

01:46.905 --> 01:48.085
the new Nancy comics.

01:48.185 --> 01:51.045
So I was looking at a lot of Facebook groups

01:51.185 --> 01:55.525
and I'm doing sort of research about how, you know,

01:55.625 --> 01:58.525
how scholars write about Facebook groups and group formation

01:58.525 --> 01:59.565
and all that kind of stuff.

01:59.785 --> 02:02.725
So, you know, the research wasn't necessarily

02:03.855 --> 02:05.245
incredibly difficult.

02:05.625 --> 02:07.125
Um, like I said,

02:07.125 --> 02:10.205
because the primary source was relatively new without a lot

02:10.205 --> 02:14.085
written about it, part of why I was, I was drawn to the new,

02:14.105 --> 02:17.795
to Olivia James' Nancy, is that her comic,

02:19.175 --> 02:21.995
in lots of ways embodies these changes.

02:22.295 --> 02:27.195
So, one of the primary ones is, is actually labor

02:27.255 --> 02:30.915
and work related in that comics creators,

02:31.135 --> 02:36.075
in the 21st century don't have the kind of, well,

02:36.115 --> 02:37.955
I mean, they don't have the kind of cultural cachet they

02:37.955 --> 02:39.435
used to way back in the thirties

02:39.455 --> 02:41.315
and forties when comics were incredibly popular

02:41.415 --> 02:43.195
and actually drove the sale of newspapers.

02:43.575 --> 02:46.195
Um, but they also don't have the same kinds

02:46.255 --> 02:47.915
of labor conditions.

02:48.015 --> 02:51.275
So Olivia James, which I should note is,

02:52.345 --> 02:53.605
is a pseudonym,

02:53.775 --> 02:56.605
where she's kept her her real name private, even though,

02:56.785 --> 02:58.685
I won't say it, but

02:58.685 --> 03:00.965
It's very, very easy to sort of figure out who she is.

03:01.105 --> 03:03.725
But, the point is that I wanted to make about

03:03.725 --> 03:05.005
that is that right?

03:05.145 --> 03:09.525
She has another job, she has a PhD in mathematics

03:09.865 --> 03:12.045
and is a professor,

03:12.045 --> 03:14.445
and so writes Nancy, I guess you could

03:14.445 --> 03:15.525
say, as sort of a side job.

03:15.675 --> 03:18.125
Whereas, you know, back in the thirties

03:18.185 --> 03:19.645
and forties,

03:20.795 --> 03:24.185
newspapers would outbid each other for comics creators.

03:24.325 --> 03:25.625
So Ernie Bush Miller, you know,

03:25.625 --> 03:28.905
drawing Nancy from the thirties all the way to the eighties

03:29.415 --> 03:31.265
made his living just from that

03:31.365 --> 03:32.545
and made a very comfortable living.

03:32.725 --> 03:35.185
He, you know, he grew up in the Bronx and

03:35.185 --> 03:37.865
after Nancy became popular, he moved to the,

03:37.965 --> 03:41.225
the suburbs in Connecticut and had this nice house

03:41.485 --> 03:45.665
and, you know, comics artists were paid, you know, 150,

03:45.765 --> 03:47.945
$200,000 in the 1940s,

03:47.955 --> 03:50.385
which obviously was a ton of money then.

03:50.385 --> 03:55.025
So one of the big changes is that, you know, again,

03:55.265 --> 03:58.025
I don't what comics artists get paid today,

03:58.045 --> 03:59.065
is it really publicized,

03:59.065 --> 04:01.785
but it's more like a freelance gig, almost even for

04:02.345 --> 04:03.905
a really famous comic like Nancy.

04:04.325 --> 04:08.025
Um, the other big change is that,

04:09.565 --> 04:13.985
for the most part, people barely read comics in newspapers

04:13.985 --> 04:15.625
anymore and read them online.

04:15.885 --> 04:17.745
And part of the reason for this is that, you know,

04:18.255 --> 04:21.265
newspaper circulations since say like the 1990s,

04:21.265 --> 04:23.425
have just gone way down in the United States.

04:23.765 --> 04:24.785
Um, and

04:24.785 --> 04:27.465
so most people access the comics from just a couple websites

04:27.605 --> 04:29.025
online and read them online,

04:29.325 --> 04:33.625
but, the comics still do appear in print.

04:33.845 --> 04:38.525
So comics creators now, I think need to think about both

04:38.625 --> 04:41.245
how something might look on a page of newsprint,

04:41.305 --> 04:45.045
but also how it's going to look, online on,

04:45.145 --> 04:47.725
on the couple of comic sites that, that publish comics.

04:48.425 --> 04:49.465
You know, it's interesting

04:49.805 --> 04:53.585
and one of the ways that, that if,

04:53.605 --> 04:55.585
if I could speak specifically about Nancy

04:55.685 --> 04:58.825
and has been able to do this, is if you think about the

04:58.825 --> 05:01.585
humor, and right, obviously most deli comic strips,

05:01.585 --> 05:02.625
if they're not sort of serial,

05:03.055 --> 05:04.985
like soap opera strips wanna be funny every day, right?

05:04.985 --> 05:06.465
They would have a joke every day. Um,

05:07.365 --> 05:12.195
and comics over, you know, over the,

05:12.365 --> 05:15.355
their lifetime obviously have developed a kind of group

05:15.355 --> 05:17.275
of objects that they use for their humor, right?

05:17.375 --> 05:20.435
So, if you look at a lot of early comics,

05:20.925 --> 05:23.555
their humor is based on a lot of household things

05:23.775 --> 05:27.995
and objects like cookie jars, people climbing up ladders

05:27.995 --> 05:29.435
and falling off and so on.

05:29.935 --> 05:33.515
Um, and what I think Nancy does really well is it uses

05:33.515 --> 05:35.715
what I call, what I call in the book, those old objects,

05:36.055 --> 05:37.475
but also uses new objects.

05:37.535 --> 05:40.395
So right, the new Nancy is all about screens.

05:40.655 --> 05:44.635
Um, Nancy always has a smartphone with her, all of her,

05:44.735 --> 05:47.275
her friends are on screen all the time,

05:47.455 --> 05:48.875
and we see that represented.

05:49.015 --> 05:52.235
So sort of the representation of,

05:52.735 --> 05:54.515
of space in the comic has changed a lot

05:54.515 --> 05:58.605
because it's a lot of, during the pandemic,

05:58.705 --> 06:02.325
for instance, the comic, that, you know,

06:02.325 --> 06:04.365
with school kids, obviously it takes place in school a lot.

06:04.475 --> 06:05.925
They went to online schools.

06:05.985 --> 06:10.405
So we got to see jokes drawn around the ideas of,

06:10.705 --> 06:14.045
you know, Nancy tries to arrange her screen so

06:14.045 --> 06:16.565
that her teacher can't see that she's not paying attention

06:16.865 --> 06:18.645
and all kinds of jokes like that.

06:18.745 --> 06:23.125
And we see visual representations of, you know, things like

06:23.765 --> 06:25.685
somebody having their mic on and getting feedback

06:25.745 --> 06:27.565
or somebody being muted on screen.

06:27.825 --> 06:31.245
So, I think comics have evolved

06:31.305 --> 06:32.805
to include a lot of that.

06:33.145 --> 06:36.845
Um, a lot of that new technology, you know, not

06:36.845 --> 06:39.045
to get into the business aspect too much,

06:39.105 --> 06:43.965
but there are now there are two main syndicators of comics.

06:44.105 --> 06:46.405
One, the one that publishes Nancy, it's the biggest one,

06:46.405 --> 06:48.805
and it's called Andrews McNeil.

06:48.905 --> 06:52.365
And they have a co a web, a website called Go Comics where,

06:53.025 --> 06:55.325
they publish their comics

06:55.325 --> 06:56.885
and you can actually read them for free if you,

06:57.065 --> 06:59.685
you can subscribe and, you know, you get benefits.

06:59.685 --> 07:01.805
Like you could pick your favorite comics, get them emailed

07:01.865 --> 07:03.285
to you every day.

07:03.585 --> 07:07.425
But, that seems like it's a relatively

07:07.425 --> 07:08.625
successful business model.

07:08.965 --> 07:13.225
And, you know, if a comic is relatively successful,

07:13.225 --> 07:16.625
like Nancy, they publish books every couple years,

07:17.285 --> 07:18.505
and sell that way.

07:18.685 --> 07:20.945
But it, it does seem like, you know, they're eventually

07:21.755 --> 07:23.985
going to disappear from newspapers

07:23.985 --> 07:26.945
because I mean, it seems like physical newspapers are

07:26.975 --> 07:30.945
clearly and unfortunately on their way, their way out.

07:30.945 --> 07:33.145
You know, one way that the main thing I hope to take away is

07:33.145 --> 07:35.985
that just that daily newspaper comics,

07:36.005 --> 07:37.545
and I'll still call 'em newspaper comics,

07:37.545 --> 07:39.465
but probably, probably could just call them daily comics,

07:39.485 --> 07:42.515
but, they're still interesting.

07:42.515 --> 07:46.755
They still have a lot to say about our society.

07:47.255 --> 07:49.635
Um, you know, one of the main things I try

07:49.635 --> 07:53.795
to do in the book is show how Nancy, as a comic

07:54.375 --> 07:57.995
has dealt with sort of changing cultural mos over the time.

07:58.255 --> 08:03.075
So, whether it's having a more racially diverse cast

08:03.575 --> 08:06.875
of characters because, you know, up

08:07.035 --> 08:09.395
through the 1960s at the very least,

08:10.015 --> 08:12.835
comics pages were just to put it bluntly,

08:12.835 --> 08:15.795
incredibly white in terms of creators and characters.

08:15.895 --> 08:20.355
So, I mean, the new Nancy is more racially diverse,

08:20.775 --> 08:25.155
but it also tries to be relatable in ways that I think

08:25.155 --> 08:29.435
that people who grow up online are much more connected to.

08:29.535 --> 08:32.835
So, you know, Nancy herself becomes a lifestyle

08:32.835 --> 08:33.955
blogger in the comics.

08:33.975 --> 08:37.955
So, the comics do have a lot

08:37.955 --> 08:39.395
to say about contemporary world,

08:39.395 --> 08:40.955
and I think it's, it's a form

08:40.955 --> 08:42.355
that could easily be forgotten

08:42.355 --> 08:46.475
because, you know, again, if you go back from say,

08:46.955 --> 08:50.235
I don't know, even the nine, even the early, you know,

08:50.235 --> 08:52.115
the turn of the 19th to the 20th century

08:52.655 --> 08:55.725
comics were incredibly popular newspaper comics,

08:55.905 --> 08:58.205
and it's just been sort of a downward slopes since

08:58.265 --> 08:59.405
say the sixties.

08:59.705 --> 09:02.485
But, you know, part of my arguments are still relevant

09:02.485 --> 09:04.045
and they're still interesting.

09:04.265 --> 09:06.685
Um, and from a scholarly perspective, I think

09:06.685 --> 09:10.285
that's important too because, while the field

09:10.305 --> 09:14.485
of comic studies has really taken off academically,

09:14.585 --> 09:19.125
in the late 20th and the 21st century, it focuses a lot more

09:19.825 --> 09:23.045
on graphic novels, and superhero comics.

09:23.045 --> 09:25.805
The graphic memoirs than it does on newspaper comics.

09:25.865 --> 09:28.165
So, you know, hopefully this is a way

09:28.165 --> 09:30.805
of drawing attention to, to newspaper comics as well

09:30.805 --> 09:32.765
as something that is really relevant

09:32.765 --> 09:33.805
to be thinking about today.

Evolution of Nancy: From Ernie to Olivia

00:00:00 - Nancy was a comic character, created all the way back in, in 1933 by the cartoonist Ernie Bush Miller. and he just briefly, Nancy was a character in another strip that he was doing called Fritz Ritz, who is Nancy's aunt. But she first appeared in that comic in 1933, but became very popular, so got her own comic strip in 1938 and, Ernie Bush Miller did Nancy until
00:00:35 - and then over the last, you know, like, well between the eighties and 2018, what Olivia James did, and a bunch of other people did it to really like, I don't know, no great publicity or not a lot of press about the comic changing because they kept it very similar. But when they rebooted it in 2018 with Olivia James, a lot about the comic was different. and there's a lot I can say about that.
00:01:07 - first time that a woman, was doing the comic strip. Some of the research was actually quite easy because I started, I guess I started this in early 2020 or maybe late 2019, but, Olivia James' comic started in April, 2018. So for one, it was easy to read all of the primary sources, right? I mean, it's not that it doesn't take that long to read a year and a half of daily comic strips. So that was, I mean, that's the primary research.
00:01:39 - researching other comics, scholarship. there's a lot of stuff or there has been a lot of stuff online about the new Nancy comics. So I was looking at a lot of Facebook groups and I'm doing sort of research about how, you know, how scholars write about Facebook groups and group formation and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, the research wasn't necessarily incredibly difficult. like I said,
00:02:10 - written about it, part of why I was, I was drawn to the new, to Olivia James' Nancy, is that her comic, in lots of ways embodies these changes. So, one of the primary ones is, is actually labor and work related in that comics creators, in the 21st century don't have the kind of, well, I mean, they don't have the kind of cultural cachet they
00:02:39 - and forties when comics were incredibly popular and actually drove the sale of newspapers. but they also don't have the same kinds of labor conditions. So Olivia James, which I should note is, is a pseudonym, where she's kept her her real name private, even though, I won't say it, but It's very, very easy to sort of figure out who she is. But, the point is that I wanted to make about that is that right? She has another job, she has a PhD in mathematics

Evolution of Nancy Comics Through the Decades

00:03:12 - and so writes Nancy, I guess you could say, as sort of a side job. Whereas, you know, back in the thirties and forties, newspapers would outbid each other for comics creators. So Ernie Bush Miller, you know, drawing Nancy from the thirties all the way to the eighties made his living just from that and made a very comfortable living. He, you know, he grew up in the Bronx and after Nancy became popular, he moved to the, the suburbs in Connecticut and had this nice house
00:03:45 - $200,000 in the 1940s, which obviously was a ton of money then. So one of the big changes is that, you know, again, I don't what comics artists get paid today, is it really publicized, but it's more like a freelance gig, almost even for a really famous comic like Nancy. the other big change is that, for the most part, people barely read comics in newspapers
00:04:15 - And part of the reason for this is that, you know, newspaper circulations since say like the 1990s, have just gone way down in the United States. and so most people access the comics from just a couple websites online and read them online, but, the comics still do appear in print. So comics creators now, I think need to think about both how something might look on a page of newsprint, but also how it's going to look, online on,
00:04:48 - You know, it's interesting and one of the ways that, that if, if I could speak specifically about Nancy and has been able to do this, is if you think about the humor, and right, obviously most deli comic strips, if they're not sort of serial, like soap opera strips wanna be funny every day, right? They would have a joke every day. and comics over, you know, over the, their lifetime obviously have developed a kind of group
00:05:17 - So, if you look at a lot of early comics, their humor is based on a lot of household things and objects like cookie jars, people climbing up ladders and falling off and so on. and what I think Nancy does really well is it uses what I call, what I call in the book, those old objects, but also uses new objects. So right, the new Nancy is all about screens. Nancy always has a smartphone with her, all of her, her friends are on screen all the time,
00:05:49 - So sort of the representation of, of space in the comic has changed a lot because it's a lot of, during the pandemic, for instance, the comic, that, you know, with school kids, obviously it takes place in school a lot. They went to online schools. So we got to see jokes drawn around the ideas of, you know, Nancy tries to arrange her screen so that her teacher can't see that she's not paying attention and all kinds of jokes like that.

The Evolution of Comic Strips in Modern Society

00:06:23 - somebody having their mic on and getting feedback or somebody being muted on screen. So, I think comics have evolved to include a lot of that. a lot of that new technology, you know, not to get into the business aspect too much, but there are now there are two main syndicators of comics. One, the one that publishes Nancy, it's the biggest one, and it's called Andrews McNeil.
00:06:53 - they publish their comics and you can actually read them for free if you, you can subscribe and, you know, you get benefits. Like you could pick your favorite comics, get them emailed to you every day. But, that seems like it's a relatively successful business model. And, you know, if a comic is relatively successful, like Nancy, they publish books every couple years, and sell that way. But it, it does seem like, you know, they're eventually
00:07:23 - because I mean, it seems like physical newspapers are clearly and unfortunately on their way, their way out. You know, one way that the main thing I hope to take away is that just that daily newspaper comics, and I'll still call 'em newspaper comics, but probably, probably could just call them daily comics, but, they're still interesting. They still have a lot to say about our society. you know, one of the main things I try to do in the book is show how Nancy, as a comic
00:07:58 - So, whether it's having a more racially diverse cast of characters because, you know, up through the 1960s at the very least, comics pages were just to put it bluntly, incredibly white in terms of creators and characters. So, I mean, the new Nancy is more racially diverse, but it also tries to be relatable in ways that I think
00:08:29 - So, you know, Nancy herself becomes a lifestyle blogger in the comics. So, the comics do have a lot to say about contemporary world, and I think it's, it's a form that could easily be forgotten because, you know, again, if you go back from say, I don't know, even the nine, even the early, you know, the turn of the 19th to the 20th century comics were incredibly popular newspaper comics,
00:08:58 - say the sixties. But, you know, part of my arguments are still relevant and they're still interesting. and from a scholarly perspective, I think that's important too because, while the field of comic studies has really taken off academically, in the late 20th and the 21st century, it focuses a lot more on graphic novels, and superhero comics. The graphic memoirs than it does on newspaper comics. So, you know, hopefully this is a way

Relevance of Comic Strips in Modern Society

00:09:32 - as something that is really relevant to be thinking about today.

Faculti AI can make mistakes

Research

Policy

Analysis

Data

Originals

Explainers

Podcasts

Faculti

New on Faculti

Idea Explorer

Definition

News Context

Critical Questions and Answers

Research Summaries

The New Nancy

Media Literacy Toolkit

Critical Questions to Consider ▼

Bias and Perspective Awareness ▼

Further Reading ▼