Zippy, re: Nancy

[“Over the Counter.” Zippy, October 13, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

This diner diner, who still reads the newspaper and still reads the comics first, is channeling Bill Griffith. In his talk about Ernie Bushmiller and Nancy at The New School this past Tuesday, Griffith made that point about newspaper-reading (with the front page added), and he offered this diner’s observation about Olivia Jaimes’s Nancy — that it treats Nancy and Sluggo as if they are teenagers. He also mentioned the new strip’s emphasis on computers and social media. He’s not a fan.

In the final panel of today’s strip, this diner might be speaking only for himself: “Today’s Marmaduke is pretty funny.” (Marmaduke is now in re-runs.)

Me, I love Bushmiller’s Nancy, and I think Olivia Jaimes’s version is often wonderful. I tire though of robotics, the magnet school, and dialogues and monologues that end in self-contradiction. But when Jaimes is deploying visual humor, as in today’s strip, her Nancy is a delight.

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Later that same morning: Bill Griffith’s talk is available on YouTube. He comments on Olivia Jaimes’s Nancy at 1:34 (“I’m not happy with it”) and on newspaper reading at 1:56:23.

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