“Triptych! Trilogy! Troika!”

[Click for a larger view.]

Today’s Zippy, “Inside Baseball,” is all about some rocks.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

More than some rocks

[Nancy, September 16, 1950. Click for larger rocks.]

It’s not always some.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts : “some rocks” posts (Pinboard)

[Yesterday’s Nancy is also today’s Nancy.]

“Some rocks,” some boid

[Nancy, June 21, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy, Sluggo has proposed that he and Nancy wade in th’ lake. Nancy thinks the water may be too deep. “Don’t be silly,” says Sluggo. “Look at dat li’l boid.” Indeed there is a boid standing in the water. Or there was.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.]

Some grades

[Nancy, May 22, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy, Nancy has offered cheerful news: she got an A in history. But Aunt Fritzi wants to know about “the general result.”

Related reading
All OCA “some rocks” posts (Pinboard)

“Fritzi Ritz is my co-pilot!”

Zippy loves Nancy.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy and Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Still awaiting Griffith’s Some Rocks: The Ernie Bushmiller Story.]

Some unusual “some rocks”

[Nancy, June 20, 1949. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s yesterday’s Nancy has some unusual “some rocks.”

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts : “Some rocks” posts (Pinboard)

One of some

[Nancy, January 10, 1955. Click for larger rocks.]

In “today’s” Nancy, Herman owes Sluggo a dollar, so Sluggo is being solicitous about his friend’s well-being. I like it that even “that big rock” is one of some.

“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Clip art and rocks

[“Ee-Yew!” Zippy, June 29, 2021. Click for a larger view.]

“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

“Just one rock”

[“Rock of Ages.” Zippy, September 28, 2020.]

In today’s Zippy, a rock has been teetering to get Zippy’s attention: “When it comes to rocks, all you think about is three!” Yes.

I just looked up “upon this rock I will build my church” and found that I had typed “upon some rocks.” Honest. “Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages. “This rock,” by the way, is Matthew 16:18.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

“What’s he doing?!”

[“Three Strikes.” Zippy, September 10, 2020. Click for larger rocks.]

The rocks have assumed their positions. But what’s up with Zippy? Click to read today’s strip and find out.

“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Some stamps

[Nancy, October 17, 1950. Click for larger stamps.]

The teacher has suggested that the children take up hobbies. Nancy has chosen philately. Sluggo is training Reggie’s pony.

“Some,” as in “rocks,” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Some votes

[“No Contest.” Zippy, July 13, 2020.]

Which is it better to be, Bogie or Sluggo? In today’s Zippy, Zippy and Griffy try both. In this final panel, the votes are in. Notice “some rocks” yonder in the Bushmiller landscape.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Bushes, rocks, puffs

[Nancy, August 11, 1950.]

“Some” of each. And everyone knows that you need more than “some trees” to make a forest.

I am calling those little clouds foot puffs. If you turn around quickly enough when you’re walking, you can see “some puffs” behind your own feet.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.]

Some madeleines

[“À la recherche du temps Sluggo.” Zippy, January 7, 2020.]

In today’s Zippy, Zippy is out for a walk when he happens upon three rocks. He thinks he might be in the wrong comic strip. And thus this final panel. I think of the rocks in today’s strip as madeleines, recalling comics past.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy, Nancy and Zippy, and Nancy posts
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

A school of somes

[Nancy, March 29, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s yesterday’s Nancy is a some-fest. Let ’s look:

First panel: some rocks, some more rocks, some trees.

Second panel: some fence posts.

Third panel: some tires, some trailer windows, some curved lines (above the mop).

The strip itself: some Nancys in some panels.

What is the collective name for somes? It’s school, which I just made up. Here is another school of somes, this one found in east-central Illinois.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.]

Some Christmas

[“He’s Checking It Thrice.” Zippy , December 25, 2019.]

Today’s Zippy is devoted to list-making. With a guest star.

“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts: Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Some “some rocks”

For a Nancy fan, this remarkable site might be something like Four Corners. It’s some rocks, some rocks, some rocks, all the way down the parking lot. Google Maps will confirm:


[Click for a larger view.]

“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

More rocks

[Nancy, April 1, 2019. Click for a much larger view.]

Today’s Nancy, by Olivia Jaimes, has 1. truth (the “some rocks” trope), 2. fantasy (an origin story and squelched experimentation), 3. an image that has become a meme, and 45. rocks. Count ’em.

But what I like most about today’s strip is the care with which Jaimes has created a faux-Bushmiller panel. Notice the off-white background.

Here’s a 1961 Bushmiller panel with eight rocks.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)
All “some rocks” posts

Some molecular biology

[Zippy, December 8, 2018.]

Zerbina and Zippy must share a magnifying glass.

Related reading
All “some rocks” posts
All Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Some rock

[Nancy, November 7, 1954. Click for a larger rock.]

That’s some rock.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard) : All “some rocks” posts

Déjà rocks

 
[Zippy, May 6, 2013, July 26, 2018.]

Related reading
All OCA “some rocks” posts
All OCA Nancy posts: Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Meditation rock

[Zippy, July 13, 2018.]

One rock, two rocks, three — but what is stage four? You’ll have to click through to find out.

I’m pretty sure Zippy’s practice is not what Allen Ginsberg had in mind.

Related reading
All OCA “some rocks” posts
All OCA Nancy posts: Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

How to read Nancy and Zippy

[Zippy, April 5, 2018.]

Today’s Zippy has a Bushmillerized Zippy and Griffy discussing Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden’s How to Read “Nancy”: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels. Bill Griffith has already written a guide to his comic strip: today’s strip includes a URL that goes to a six-strip primer on how to read Zippy.

Notice the lower right corner of this panel, where the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 fuses the material and temporal dimensions of the narrative space. Some rocks! Some date!

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Zippy rocks

[Zippy, January 31, 2018.]

I see “some rocks.” Click!

Venn posts
Nancy : Nancy and Zippy : Zippy (Pinboard)

[“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation in these pages. See this post for an explanation.]

Speak, rock

[Zippy, September 21, 2017.]

Three (“some”) rocks, but only no. 2 is talking.

Venn diagram
Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts

Some somes

[Nancy, July 24, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

A trifecta of somes: rocks, snowballs, pumpkins. We really are living in The Garden of Nancye.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[You can read Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy six days a week at GoComics. “Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.]

Some rocks, some clouds

[Nancy, June 3, 1950.]

“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)
Some more “some rocks”

Three rocks, no-release

[Zippy, February 2, 2017.]

For physical health, Zerbina rides her bike “hither and yon.” For mental health, it’s “three rocks no-release bowler poses,” daily. “Three rocks,” better known as “some rocks,” is a perennial element of the Ernie Bushmiller universe.

Related reading
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Some winter rocks

The Google Doodle for the Northern Hemisphere’s first day of winter: some rocks, some shivering snow-capped rocks. Not, strictly speaking, “some rocks” — that is, three rocks — but some rocks. Or “some” rocks.

Thanks, Martha, for bringing these rocks to my attention.

[“Some rocks”: a motif in Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, and in these pages.]

Some rock

[Nancy , July 1, 1949.]

It’s the first day of Nancy’s summer vacation, and there’s nothing to do but lean on some rock.

Fans of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy love the strip’s frequent use of the decorative device “some rocks.” You can read Bushmiller strips six days a week at GoComics.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Thoureauvian Zippy rocks

 
[Zippy  November 29, 2015. First and third panels.]

I like it that the third panel prompts you (or me) to look again for “some rocks.” There they are, back in panel the first. Yow!

Related reading (via Pinboard)
All OCA Nancy posts
All OCA Nancy and Zippy posts (with more rocks)
All OCA Zippy posts

Nancy revised

[Nancy and Sluggo and “some rocks.”]


[Nancy and Sluggo and kur.]

Mesopotamia: Bushmiller Country

[Photograph by Sluggo Smith. As seen at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.]

We drove up to Chicago to see our friends Jim and Luanne Koper and make a visit to the Oriental Institute. Luanne was the first to spot this sign, on a placard showing the evolution of cuneiform. It’s the proto-cuneiform of kur, mountain. I took a picture. Some rocks!

If you have any doubt that ancient Mesopotamia was Bushmiller Country, I give you this excerpt from a chart:


[“The origin and development of selected cunieform signs from c. 3000 to 600 BC.” Steven Roger Fischer, The History of Writing (London: Reaktion Books, 2004). Click for a larger view. And here’s the full chart. See? It’s real.]

The later stylized kur maintains the logic of ”some”: not two (a pair), not four (one more than “some”). Ernie Bushmiller would be pleased. “Bushmiller Country” is cartoonist Bill Griffith’s name for the Nancy-and-Sluggo world, which is a region of Griffith’s own Dingburg — but which now also includes Mesopotamia.

Here is an explanation of “some rocks,” along with the search for same.

Related reading
“Some rocks” in a 1556 woodcut (Lexikaliker) : “Some rocks” in paintings by Carlo Crivelli and Romare Bearden (l’astronave) : Zippy and rocks : More rocks : Still more rocks : Yet another post with “some rocks” : What? More rocks? : Lassie and Zippy and some rocks : Conversational rocks

Many, many rocks

[Nancy, January 1, 1961. Click for a larger, rockier view.]

“!” indeed. It is both dismaying and inspiring to know that it wasn’t always three rocks. It was sometimes one rock, sometimes a pair, sometimes four or more. The variations are dismaying for the obvious reason: because they’re not “some rocks.” And yet they reveal an artist willing to experiment, to explore, to grapple with his materials, to challenge conventional expectations. Yes, inspiring.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[The panel above comes from Brian Walker’s The Best of Ernie Bushmiller’s “Nancy” (1988), now out of print. Thanks to Gunther for recommending the book. Thanks to interlibrary loan for getting it. If the name Brian Walker rings a bell: he’s from the Beetle Bailey / Hi and Lois universe.]

Some Conrad Nervig rocks

[Zippy, July 23, 2014.]

In the Zippy world of Dingburg, Conrad Nervig is the creator of the comic strip Tanya and Fletcher, whose text consists of dialogue from old advertisements. Tanya and Fletcher strips sometimes substitute for Zippy. Now Nervig has created a new substitute strip, No Zombies, whose text appears to be drawn from adventure and sci-fi sources.

Nervig, like Bill Griffith, respects Nancy: notice the “some rocks” formation to the right.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy and Zippy posts (Pinboard)
An explanation of “some rocks” (With sightings)
A 1556 woodcut of “some rocks” (Lexikaliker)

[Nervig shares his name with someone not of Dingburg. I read Zippy online via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.]

Some rocks — old!

At Lexikaliker, an amazing discovery: a 1556 woodcut of “some rocks.” “Some rocks” is one of the delightful details of Ernie Bushmiller’s comic strip Nancy. And “some rocks” is for me something of a a harmless obsession. Harmless so far.

Thanks, Gunther, for sharing your discovery.

Some rock’s

On brisk treks that take us through a nearby subdivision (three-mile treks, exactly), Elaine and I have noticed some rocks of a kind not found in nature: large slabs proclaiming glory, as if a household were a bank or investment firm. The slabs stand in front yards and read like so:

The DOE’S

Est. 20__

The date varies. But that apostrophe? Every slab has one. Ouch. Garner’s Modern American Usage explains:

Although few books on grammar mention the point, proper names often cause problems as plurals. The rule is simple: most take a simple -s, while those ending in -s, -x, or -z, or in a sibilant -ch or -sh, take -es.

The householder’s apostrophe, as I will call it, is a common sight on mailboxes or small woodburned signs. There it looks homemade, quaint. On mighty slabs, it looks farcical.

Householders, if you must proclaim your glory to the passerby, think of the way bands manage their names: The Beatles. Or better: The Smiths. Plural, not possessive.

Other posts, other rocks
Some rocks : Zippy : Zippy : Zippy : Zippy : Zippy : Lassie and Zippy : Conversational rocks

[“Some rocks” is a minor Orange Crate Art preoccupation that has developed from my affection for Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy and Bill Griffith’s Zippy.]

Some rocks

[Please focus your attention on the lower-left corner.]

For some time now I have been hoping to espy “some rocks,” the mystical triad that appears again and again in Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy. Scott McCloud explains:

Ernie Bushmiller didn’t draw A tree, A house, A car. Oh, no. Ernie Bushmiller drew THE tree, THE house, THE car. Much has been made of the “three rocks.” Art Spiegelman explains how a drawing of three rocks in a background scene was Ernie’s way of showing us there were some rocks in the background. It was always three. Why? Because two rocks wouldn’t be “some rocks.” Two rocks would be a pair of rocks. And four rocks was unacceptable because four rocks would indicate “some rocks” but it would be one rock more than was necessary to convey the idea of “some rocks.”

Got it?

This past Sunday, Elaine suggested that we go out in search of some rocks. More than that, really: she was determined to find me some rocks. So I drove, and she surveyed. We passed many an individual rock. We passed many groups of four or more rocks, some of those groups in remarkable disarray. We passed the School, where Children strove / At Recess — in the Ring. We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain. We drove to the outskirts of the outskirts of town, to streets and roads that we found years ago by bicycle. And we found some rocks.


[Some rocks.]

When we drove back into town, Elaine spotted another group, in a parking lot of all places. One U-turn and they were ours.


[Some more rocks.]

Bushmiller’s rocks are rounded and clumped, snow-white on a snow-white lawn. These rocks would never have passed muster in a Nancy strip. But they’re more than I ever expected to find.

Thank you, Elaine.

*

4:03 p.m.: And here at last is the triad that was just down the street, right under our noses all along, as neat a bunch of rocks as you’d ever want to see:


[Still more rocks.]

And here is the instigator of the quest:


[Elaine Fine, wearing a hat and surrounded by vines.]

*

January 31, 2018: “Some rocks” appears to have its origin in the lawn outside Ernie Bushmiller’s house in Stamford, Connecticut. From Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden’s How to Read “Nancy”: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels (Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2017):

The rambling grounds offered ample foliage and wildlife, and a “one-hole golf course” that the non-golfer routinely ignored. A small grouping of rounded white rocks cropped out from the closely trimmed lawn outside his studio window and became part of his strip’s iconography.

Other posts, other rocks
Zippy : Zippy : Zippy : Zippy : Zippy : Lassie and Zippy : Conversational rocks

[Nancy panel found via Nancy Panels. Zippy cartoonist Bill Griffith often pays homage to Bushmiller’s rocks.]

Some rocks, some rocks

[“How to Keep Cool,” Zippy, August 2, 2013.]

I went a little crazy when I saw the middle panel of today’s Zippy. Because here is what I was planning to post today:


[From the Lassie episode “Rock Hound,” April 5, 1959. Lassie and Boomer Bates’s dog Mike visit a strangely similar memorial.]

If you’re wondering about “some rocks,” it’s a reference to the comic strip Nancy. Scott McCloud explains it, or them.

Please visualize these links in the form of a Venn diagram:

Nancy posts
Nancy and Zippy posts (with more rocks)
Zippy posts

[What is Zippy eschewing? His “usual styrofoam footwear.”]

Zippy and Hi and Lois

[Zippy, February 18, 2013.]

Bill Griffith’s affection for Bil Keane’s The Family Circus is well known. Since the residents of Dingburg’s “humorless enclave” recoil in horror from that strip, it would seem that Griffith must like Hi and Lois too.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)
“Bushmiller Country”
Hommage à Ernie Bushmiller
Landscape with some rocks
Nancy + Sluggo = Perfection
Zippy and Bukowski

Landscape with some rocks

[Zippy, November 17, 2012.]

Bill Griffith is one of Ernie Bushmiller’s not-so-secret admirers. Today’s visit to “Bushmillerland” includes another landscape with the mystical formation known as “some rocks.”

Other Nancy and Zippy posts
“Bushmiller Country”
Hommage à Ernie Bushmiller
Nancy + Sluggo = Perfection