Compared to the previous run, of which I only saw a smattering of, this slightly snarkier version is a vast improvement, but then, considering the source material, that's not a very high bar to clear.
If anything, I suspect what a lot of people are really protesting isn't that Olivia Jaimes, the only woman working on a Legacy strip starring a female character since ever, but that former Nancy artist Guy Gilcrest's bombshell Aunt Fritzi isn't around anymore.
Frankly, a lot of their comments seem self-determined to show just how badly the new Nancy artist is living up to the legacy, but I suspect those complaints are railing against change that they're not accustomed to. Another annoyance factor is that Nancy seems to be relying more on recent technology than her previous iteration ever did. Using Ipods and computers just like everyone else! What would the World think?
Though there was a Gilcrest comic where Fritzi used a cell phone, and no one complained there. Funny, that.
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| The contradiction, not the comic. |
Probably the best addition (so far) is the inclusion of a nameless teacher who clearly takes no guff with the known boundaries of the Nancy Universe.
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| An example of a joke that's bad, but awesome in just how BAD it is. |
If anything, going through the Nancy comics and learning about the Nancy Card Game method certainly showed how they influenced the Randomized Garfields that'd been floating around. Considering the sheer amount of odd occurrences in a dadaist Nancy strip, any configuration could wind up creating a comic that kind-of-but-almost-sort-of makes sense. To all those haters hating the latest new Improved Nancy, I present to you a relevant page from Cracked Magazine:
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| Even back then, Aunt Fritzi was a looker, but for entirely different reasons. |
Those computer monitors look like the Gateway models my office bought in 1996!
ReplyDeleteSince I visited GoComics rather regularly, I knew about Nancy's change way before that article was published, and I was surprised by how big of a deal it was, even more so that there's an article about this subject. It's also through there that I indirectly learned that there's a Nancy book called "How to Read Nancy" (Sample: http://www.laffpix.com/howtoreadnancy.pdf).
ReplyDeleteI've wondered if the simplicity of the best Nancy years is a disadvantage, because while I concluded that it was one of its strengths for its easy readability, and the fact that it managed to last so long (that a different cartoonist had to take over after the original artist passed away) signifying that it's still enjoyed, I wondered if Ernie Bushmiller's method of drawing Nancy is viewed as a subject of mockery in a similar way Garfield is normally viewed as.
Odd to realise that Jerry Scott's Nancy had four fingers and a completely different focus, because I only realised that Nancy has five fingers all this time, which I thought was a rarity for comics since I assumed cartoons tend to have four fingers, so it amazes me every time I learned that a cartoonish comic strip have five fingered characters, like Frazz, Zits and even Popeye.
Although Nancy isn't going to win any awards any time soon, I'm surprised how some people really enjoyed the newest incarnation. What you said about the teacher is true, since one of the best comics involving the teacher is the one where the teacher advises Nancy not to play video games all weekend, only to be revealed to be doing the very thing she advised against a few days prior.
Thank you for reading.