Nancy repurposes a magnifier

[Nancy, January 13, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

Why the need for a magnifier in today’s strip? Nancy explains: “Well, I’m kinda broke this week ----- and a penny’s worth of jelly beans is a pretty sad sight.”

Yes, television magnifiers were a thing. As were plastic screens that were supposed to create a color-television effect. I remember seeing one in Woolworth’s as a kid, packaged with — I swear — a picture of a Native American man on horseback to show the effect: blue at the top (sky), orange in the middle (horse and rider), and green at the bottom (grass). Realism!

I have honored Ernie Bushmiller’s idiosyncratic punctuation with five hyphens (Nancy’s explanation spans two panels).

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