Original artwork for Nancy comic strip, October 10, 1972

N.p. N.p., 1972. Original three-panel artwork by Ernie Bushmiller for the October 10, 1972 daily strip of his seminal comic strip "Nancy." With the artist's original signature in the first frame, and a few faint pencil annotations to the margins.

In this strip, Nancy gives a homeless man fifteen cents for coffee, leaving him with no change for a tip.

As with American cinema, it was the French who first championed the studied simplicity of Bushmiller's un-deconstructible combination of rigid artistic style and even more rigidly governed humor. In 2012, Fantagraphics Press took on the long overdue task of putting the complete series into book form.

In our estimation, Daniel Clowes put it best in his introduction to Fantagraphics' first volume of Bushmiller's long run. Clowes astutely points out that "Nancy" seems to come "from some primal Jungian dreamscape, miraculously transmitted into the morning paper." He goes on to say how he imagines Bushmiller at work, "carefully extracting every shred of irony from each frame."

20.5 x 7 inches. About Near Fine, with light ink residue from an owner stamp affecting the center of the first panel, and a matching owner stamp on the verso.

[Book #167690]