HURRICANE NANCY book review

Hurricane Nancy. Nancy Burton. Fantagraphics. 2024. 112pp. $30.

If you are looking for something that is truly authentic and distinctive, then turn your attention to the underground comix superstar Hurricane Nancy. She is the real deal and her new book showcasing her career in comics art has been recently published by Fantagraphics.

I have gotten to know the art of Hurricane Nancy bit by bit, as it has appeared here on Comics Grinder. From time to time, I have added color to her iconic black & white artwork. Ultimately, the work must be respected in its original form. I think my impulse to add color comes from the fact the art emits so much energy, a colorful force all its own. This is wild and wooly and defiant work. At its heart, this is work coming straight out of the Sixties counterculture at its very nexus on the Lower East Side of New York City. These are highly uninhibited flowing lines, oozing and spilling across the page about protest, outrage, sex and simply being alive.

True to form, Hurricane Nancy does whatever she likes, going back to the first comic strip, Gentles Tripout, in 1966, in The East Village Other. This first foray into “art comics” lets loose a young artist’s instincts, part rebellious, part Alice in Wonderland trippy. These early comic strips lead to full page explorations with Busy Boxes. Things rapidly progress into full-on drawings, moving well beyond sequential art considerations while still embracing comics as part of the tool chest.

Once we reach the more recent section of art in this book, “Artwork 2010 – Present,” I’m on more familiar ground. More mature and evenly paced? Perhaps what this book helps me appreciate is that a lot of what Hurricane Nancy is about was always there from the start.

One thing I always come back to is the idea that we can never have enough comics art in galleries and museums. I think this first time collection of the work of artist-cartoonist Hurricane Nancy is a brilliant step forward for artists, women artists, comics artists, you name it. You can consider it the art catalog ahead of the museum art show. Seriously, this book presents the work in a very appealing way, on a black backdrop, complete with a highly insightful interview between writer Alex Dueben and the artist.

This is how it’s done. If you are an artist in search of a bigger audience, you create the party and you bring the people to it. This book is such a party and you are invited.