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.]

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

Hommage à Ernie Bushmiller

[Zippy, August 29, 2012.]

Zippy and Griffy as Nancy and Sluggo. Stage left, Bill Griffith has placed the mystical configuration of “some rocks.” Scott McCloud explains:

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.”

A related post
Nancy + Sluggo = Perfection

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 more rocks

[“Seek and Ye Shall Mind,” Zippy, May 7, 2013.]

Sunday: Proust. Monday: some rocks. And today: some more rocks. Some rocks + some more rocks = really many rocks. But Zerbina’s rocks may be the very rocks Zippy was looking at yesterday, in which case they remain “some rocks.”

“Some rocks”

[Click for bigger rocks.]

There they were, where two roads meet, or diverge, depending on which way your feet are going. They are large rocks, aspiring to grow still bigger.

Imagine if Robert Frost had been out walking: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / When all at once I saw some rocks.” Then we would have “The Roads Not Taken,” the poet (already with Wordsworth on his mind) having been stopped in his tracks by the sudden stony sight.

Frost’s “For Once, Then, Something” refers to “a pebble of quartz” at the bottom of a well. I think “For Once, Then, Some Rocks” would be a much more satisfying poem.

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

See also today’s Zippy.

[I’m not touching “Mending Wall” — too many rocks.]

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)

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 — 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.

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 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, 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.”]

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”

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)

Some Tuscan rocks

Stefan Hagemann sent along a photograph of some noble Tuscan rocks, with permission to post it here. So here it, and they, are. Thank you, Stefan.

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

Related reading
All “some rocks” posts

Some rock islands

[Izumi Masatoshi, Islands (Shima tachi), 2000. Japanese basalt. Art Institute of Chicago.]

Izumi Masatoshi is a sculptor who works in stone. It was only after we got back from Chicago last night that I realized that I could have photographed these “some rocks” from above. Why didn’t I think of that in the museum? Because I am not a photographer. Then again, an aerial view might have made two of these rocks look like one rock, leaving me with a pair of rocks, not “some.”

[“Some rocks” is a fascination that seems to have no end. An explanation may be found in this post.]

“Some rocks” (Zippy)

[“Victimless Crime,” Zippy, May 6, 2013.]

Two Zippy posts in two days: I hadn’t planned on it. But as they say, attention must be paid. By me, at least. To the mystical grouping known as “some rocks.” End of sentence fragments.

Some posts
Hommage à Ernie Bushmiller
“Bushmiller Country”
Landscape with some rocks

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

More “some rocks”

[From James Sowerby‘s British Mineralogy: or coloured figures intended to elucidate the mineralogy of Great Britain (London: 1804). Made available through the British Library’s Flickr account. Click for a larger view.]

Related reading
More “some rocks” posts : More “some rocks” from the British Library

Some SuihoEn rocks

[As seen in SuihoEn, Van Nuys, California.]

SuihoEn, “garden of water and fragrance,” also known as the Japanese Garden, is a beautiful landscape created next to a water reclamation plant. From the SuihoEn website: “The garden’s purpose was to demonstrate a positive use of reclaimed water in what is generally agreed to be a delicate environment.” The fish seem to like reclaimed water just fine.

Alas, I was unable to photograph the garden’s Tortoise Island in a way that clearly suggested “some rocks.” But I did spot this group of three elsewhere in the garden, and I didn’t need to stray from the walking path to get a photograph. “Some rocks” is a minor Orange Crate Art preoccupation.