Old Man on Campus. James Burns. Burns Comics. 2023. 51 pp.
I’ve been a longtime admirer of the comics work by James Burns. I fondly recall his book, A Life Half-Forgotten. Here is my review. Burns often delivers a fun mix of the curmudgeon and sly humorist that I find very appealing and I believe you will too. In this new graphic memoir, Burns stumbles upon the fact that, through a special program, residents of the state of Georgia over the age of 62 are eligible for free college tuition. Burns, being from Georgia and not someone to pass up on a good deal, jumps at the chance to be Joe Cool in School again–but this time he vows to do it better as an older and wiser student. What could go wrong, right?
An old geezer goes back to college.
Well, the good news here is that nothing goes terribly wrong, although there are a number of painful/awkward moments as Burns powers through a rather protracted “old man returning to school” adjustment period. It seems for quite a long time that all young eyes are on him, passing judgment and ready to ridicule him. And perhaps not everyone was as hospitable as they could have been. But, most likely, the lack of connection is simply universal. Burns is ready to admit that the college scene today, with everyone plugged into their phones, isn’t exactly warm and inviting.
Finding one’s way in a brave new world of college today.
All in all, Burns appears to be a good guy just trying to get along and enjoy college at this point in his life. And it’s not like he’s not open to new trends. In more than one instance, he is fine with embracing the zeitgeist and invoking a sensitivity to his own “white male privilege,” perhaps a little more than necessary but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. I’m just not so sure that he needs to feel apologetic that, as a big strong young man, he wasn’t quite so vulnerable to being taken advantage of as a hitchhiker in his youth. Anyway, Burns appears to be, by the end of this story, on the right path. This is a very engaging look at one man’s initial struggles to fit in. Ultimately, Burns acts as a guide in this story about his new college life. He might be old but he’s young at heart or he’s simply managed to find his way and he can get on with his college experience.
When we think about pop culture matters, and we seem to do this nonstop, how often do we bring together Marvel Comics superstar Stan Lee and infamous killer Jack Ruby? No, this is not a trick question. Having given careful study to the last two books by Danny Fingeroth, one on Stan Lee and the most recent on Jack Ruby, I make my own connections. Read my review of the Ruby book here. As is my want, I do my best to dig deep and I believe we ended up with a lively and informative interview. My many thanks to Danny Fingeroth for being so gracious and willing to go with the flow. For those who are perhaps new or unfamiliar with comics, Danny Fingeroth is known for his work as an executive editor and writer at Marvel Comics (Spider-Man, Avengers, Dazzler). He is also known for being a cultural historian. His books include Superman on the Couch, Stan Lee: A Marvelous Life, and his latest title, Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald’s Assassin, published by Chicago Review Press.
Stan Lee. Jack Ruby. Of course, there’s no direct connection and yet the two share this: both men were Jewish; both men were raised in troubled households. both men were Americans and patriotic in their own way; both men created larger-than-life personas; and both men grabbed the world’s attention. Each had their own set of strengths and weaknesses. One succumbed to his failings. And the other blossomed from his talents and skills. There is no intersection where the two had anything to do with each other beyond sharing the same colossal stage of notoriety. Both became pop culture icons: one could bring a smile to your face while the other was a grotesque figure that managed to both repel and intrigue.
Panel from Darkhawk, Marvel Comics, (1991-1995).
I posed some questions to Danny Fingeroth specifically on the Jack Ruby pop culture phenomena as well as the fact that here he was with a book on Ruby and a book on Lee. I invited him to connect any dots. And, as the saying goes, we were off to the races. The conversation inevitably focused in on Stan Lee, as well as it should. My goal was to find a middle ground, a way to balance both Lee and Ruby, which Fingeroth, an excellent raconteur as well as an excellent listener, tuned into right away. We cover a lot here and our conversation demonstrates we could have gone on talking. Maybe we’ll just need to revisit topics and bring in new ones for next time. For now, I even managed to include some discussion on Fingeroth’s writing run on Darkhawk, a fan favorite from the ’90s (relaunched in 2021).
Jack Kirby illustrates Jack Ruby! From the pages of Esquire, May 1967.
I will leave you here with one of the most fascinating collisions of pop culture energy that I have come across. This is from the May 1967 issue of Esquire magazine. Jack Ruby had passed away earlier that year and so the gloves were off and the time was right to examine, through the surreal lens of comics, some of Ruby’s activities shortly after the Kennedy assassination based upon the Warren Commission Report. The kicker here is that this comic was illustrated by none other than the King of Comics himself, Jack Kirby! As Stan Lee would say, “Enough said!”
I certainly hope you enjoy the video podcast, just one click below. These things don’t make themselves. It’s a lot of behind-the-scenes hard work, a true labor of love. As always, your loyal viewership, LIKES and occasional COMMENTS are very welcome and appreciated. That said, I find all the material here quite compelling to say the least. As Fingeroth himself is ready to point out, the magnitude of these subjects, namely Stan Lee and the Marvel Universe and the tangled web of conspiracy theories behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy add up to stimulus overload! We take these colossal subjects one step at a time in order to make some sense out of them. And that is why, dear friends, books like the ones by Danny Fingeroth are essential reading. For me, as a storyteller and a journalist, this interview was quite a treat.
Lastly, I asked Danny if there was anything else he’d like to add for now. And he asked if I’d share with you JewCE, the Jewish Comics Experience, in New York City, November 11th and 12th, 2023. It is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to get one more comic-con fix before the end of the year. You can see an impressive lineup of talent, including none other than comics legends Frank Miller, Trina Robbins, and Jules Feiffer, just to name a few.
Eerie Tales From The School of Screams. Graham Annable. First Second Books. 2023. 368 pp. $22.99
Graham Annable is a magical artist who can conjure up little masterpieces seemingly by just a fast swirl of gestures. I’ve seen him at work and he’s devilishly good. And I’ve kept up with him, going back some twenty years. This is an artist who truly lives and breathes his work. So, when I stumbled upon a brand-new Annable collection, a collection of ghost stories no less, I had to see it and then share it with you!
Graham Annable’s training is in animation. It’s that background that landed him steady storyboard jobs and has kept his drawing chops, and precise timing, in tip top form. You see that professional polish throughout this book. In fact, as I gave myself over to this immersive read, the characters (and creatures) came to life for me over and over again. This book is intended for middle grade kids but the level of sophistication you find here makes it a delight for any age. I’m talking about the level of Tomi Ungerer. It’s definitely not generic stuff. It has a special heart and soul to it.
Once I read the first story, “The Village That Vanished,” I was hooked. The collection of stories here is framed around a classroom show-and-tell. Each kid is expected to go up to the front of the class and share their most eerie tale. And so it all begins with two characters overlooking a cliff, attempting to find a village that seems to have literally vanished. Before too long, the two surveyors, or whoever they are, stumble upon an old man in a cottage. And the old man proves to be quite an odd duck with a strange tale about fish people who live nearby. What unfolds is one of the strangest and most engaging bits of comics I’ve read in a long time.
The good stuff of good nightmares.
Annable is a master of capturing just the right movement, gesture, and expression. His characters are lanky, languid long-lost relatives of Buster Keaton. They move in a certain way; stare back at you, and at each other, in a certain way. There are very pregnant pauses in Annable comics. And there are very melancholic and enigmatic moments too. Plus lots of silly surreal fun. You really can’t beat that. It’s perfect for this Halloween season or anytime of the year for that matter.
One last note here from the publisher: “From the director of the Oscar-nominated movie Boxtrolls comes a middle grade horror anthology that will leave you holding onto your blankets for dear life! Perfect for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Goosebumps!” Indeed, I could not have said it better! Ages 8-12 will definitely love this book and, as I say, there’s really something here for all ages, starting around, say, around age 8. Don’t want to get too spooky earlier than that. Anyway, as I suggest, this is more along the lines of thoughtful spooky. This is the good stuff of good nightmares.
Whatever you do, don’t make waves unless you’re okay getting wet. And keep the aspidistra flying! What on earth am I talking about? Well, here’s a comic with some rather puffed up characters, at some afternoon tea party, chattering away about some nonsense. I don’t begrudge them their good fun one bit as they provide some light entertainment. Enough said.
The Bund was a phenomenal uprising of people doing the right thing at a critical time when it was needed most. This graphic novel, or history, (call it whatever you like! It’s comics!) runs with its theme right out of the gate with a sense of urgency that embraces the reader all the way through to the very last page. Think of The Bund as a coalition, a movement, people power at its best. It was there to help people in need, people who happened to be Jewish and living by a thread. Let’s focus on the region, as it could not be more relevant. This is what was known as “The Pale,” what is now Poland and Ukraine. Let’s focus on the era. This is circa 1900 to 1940, covering Tsarist Russia into World War II. The Bund was a Jewish labor resistance movement that pushed back on its oppressors, namely Russia and Nazi Germany; and that cultivated and celebrated a Jewish identity, specifically in nurturing the Yiddish language and tradition. This book provides a history and insights into The Bund. And, if it makes you think of Bundt cake, you are on the right track: a metaphor for a strong and sturdy collective.
What is very exciting to me about this graphic novel is how it is put together as a vehicle to educate while also mindful of keeping the reader engaged. The artwork is pared down to the essentials, for the most part, with the added artistic flourish where needed. I can’t stress enough how important it is to include some personality even in the most straightforward graphic storytelling. If an artist is capable of it, well, go to it. Clearly, Michael Kluckner is in command of a compelling and expressive line.
The individuals behind this book are a creative dream team. The goal here is to provide an entry point, a doorway, into further study or a highly accessible overview. That is what this book does with Sharon Rudahl leading the way as the author. Rudahl is a veteran cartoonist, to say the least, who intimately understands what the comics medium can do. Rudahl is many things, including a passionate activist, along with the book’s esteemed editor, Paul Buhle. In fact, Rudahl and Buhle have a long and productive professional history, highlighted by working together on the Yiddish anthology, Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land, published by Abrams in 2011. So, one can see this new book as a continuation of what was achieved with that landmark anthology.
The overriding theme to this book is how The Bund reached out and put itself in the places it needed to be, achieving time and time again the “hereness” that was so desperately called upon. The Bund was HERE! It met the moment, did what it could, and now lives on in spirit. Here we have a book introducing readers to the leaders of The Bund, such as Pati Kremer and Bernard Goldstein. For the first time, we have a concise visual narrative of this highly significant Jewish history. All in all, this visual narrative encapsulates essential history that will inspire new generations. This graphic history meets the moment in its own way, and helps return The Bund to the here and now.
I leapt at the chance to write my foreword, what came to be called “A Historical Portal,” in Henry Chamberlain’s graphic novel, George’s Run. Now, with some time to reflect upon it, deeper and more personal observations come to me.
The Twilight Zone offered me proof positive—to this future editor/publisher of a little magazine dedicated to demonstrating the significance of popular culture—that a generation had been more than enriched by it. George Clayton Johnson, a writer for the show, as well as Star Trek, had a lot of insight to deliver, and Henry Chamberlain was the one to winnow it out and to illustrate it.
Astute critics of American cinema have often remarked that the Star Wars series of blockbuster movies, beginning in 1977, marked the return of films but also chunks of television shifting from serious social themes of the later 1950s to later 1970s, back to the Outer Space version of cowboys-and-Indians, with the “Indians” now aliens, some of them friendly (aka “on our side”) and others dangerously hostile. Many critics observed, after the 1999 Star Wars feature, The Phantom Menace, that “African Americanism,” aka Minstrelsy, had been transformed into amusing-looking aliens with humorous talk or behavior. The source of this gloomy transformation might be attributed to the world cinema market for action films or some other external cause, but it is hard to avoid the consequences for Hollywood-produced films as art or cultural/political statements. The social movements of the 1960s shook up Hollywood and created a socially critical audience whose favorite films came and went, in the following decade or so. M*A*S*H, their TV equivalent, was by the end of the century the most “re-run” of all shows and also held the most “peacenik” sentiments. It counted.
In this light, The Twilight Zone looms as a late, major statement of a different era. Rod Serling was a serious and important figure in US culture, a critic and artist who after trying various professions and skills, radio broadcaster to television writer, created the most important television drama in the era when television had a monopoly on media attention.
It was a moment when live television drama, vibrant and often socially critical despite the Blacklist and cultural cold war, hard shortly before reached its peak with a half-dozen theatrical-style shows, just as it poised to rushed production from New York to Hollywood. The Twilight Zone could not have worked as live drama, but it had the dramatic quality of what had gone before. Even in melodrama and seemingly far-fetched plots, the acting was serious. The show was showing something and saying something, working urgently to open up minds. At the right place and time, George Clayton Johnson found himself and helped make television and pop culture history.
George’s collaboration with Rod Serling occupies a central place in George’s Run. But the meeting of George Clayton Johnson with Ray Bradbury offers us something from the comic that retains all its meaning, six decades later. Bradbury (a museum bearing his name and artifacts, in my wife’s hometown of blue collar Waukegan, Illinois, opened last year) stands for a starkly different view of science fiction and its role in opening minds. His stories, adapted to EC Comics shortly before the massive wave of repression, offered readers a glimpse of the horrors ahead if the atomic/nuclear arms race were not halted but also a glimpse of aliens and civilizations that had something to teach the self-proud human race. Farenheit 451 along with a large handful of short stories best realized the social criticism made by a raft of science fiction writers, including some others who knew George well.
Onward and upward.
That George went onto Star Trek is logical, as part of the trajectory of a fantasy writer’s life. But there is much more. The world of fan publications and fan events can be traced back to networks of amateur (unpaid, mostly unpublished) writers who traded their own mimeographed newsletters as early as the 1920s. Sci-Fi fans gathered here, virtually, and then in person by the middle 1960s, trading publications directly, meeting and partying with authors as well as each other. “Trekkies,” a much-discussed phenomenon, led in time to comics events, later to Comic-Cons and all the regional events of today, sometimes grand but most often with self-publishers in the booths, chatting and selling copies to whoever the passers-by they could convince.
The subject of Star Trek itself remains, for many fans and scholars, important and bears symptoms of the richer mix of American popular culture emerging at the moment of its production. This brings us to the topic of the Other, a theme that endlessly drives discussion. Yes, Leonard Nimoy started in Yiddish theater; Spock is culturally Jewish without a doubt. And Uhuru is a staggeringly beautiful African American woman with all the sexualized implications, even if hardly acted out. And so on. But these, considered seriously, are minor notes. George Clayton Johnson’s scripts quietly urged viewers to ponder the fate of humanity within the cosmos, to get off the pedestal of human-centeredness and come to grips with terrestrial reality.
George’s Run bears all this meaning and so much more. But there is one more, albeit indirect, connection too delicious for me to leave out. Rod Serling called upon the blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson—before being purged from Hollywood, he had scripted the 1951 Oscar-winning A Place in the Sun—to help develop a crucial subplot that most viewers have taken in subconsciously. The humans are now allowed to speak. But when the human played by Rod Taylor asks to speak, the Chairman of the Tribunal interjects, “the exhibit is indeed a man, therefore it has no rights under ape law.” Those outside the definition of having the right to speak, cannot be allowed to speak, for fear that they will bring down the system. It was a plot that could easily have been taken out of Berthold Brecht’s Life of Gallileo, including the responsibility of the scientist to speak up against the threats facing society.
Such weighty considerations would have been thought, only a few decades ago, as being properly far beyond the scope of anything resembling comic art. Now, at last, we know better. Henry Chamberlain has given us a gift in George’s Run. Let us use it well.
A day in the life of Small Press Expo. Sketch by Henry Chamberlain
There are a number of ways to experience Small Press Expo and the best is to be on the convention floor as much as possible. And, even better is to be an exhibitor and have your own table space. It can really be a lot fun. Sure, there’s a fair amount of waiting to see what will happen next but you just need to pace yourself. I kept telling myself I was on a mission that no one is going to appreciate better than me: “I am here to represent my new graphic novel, George’s Run, published by Rutgers University Press.” I had to convey that energy and determination. Each time I described my book, and gave my pitch, was a new opportunity. Each work of comics is an island unto itself which you are beckoning passersby to consider hopping upon.
In support of my new graphic novel, GEORGE’S RUN!
Proudly representing Rutgers University Press!
I feel that it’s essential to be in the moment, acknowledge your table-mates, get to know them if possible, acknowledge your environment and everyone passing by, and certainly acknowledge yourself and your own comfort and well-being. I like to sneak in some time to draw in my sketchbook and that’s not only therapeutic but people often are curious and it can help strike up a conversation. Either that or people know right away that you’re not just a rep but the cartoonist! So, without further ado, I want to take a moment to acknowledge a few of my fellow creators. There are plenty more that I can share with you. This is a quick moment in time . . .
In this photo, you will see the following creators and contact info:
A big highlight for me, as it was for all of us at Small Press Expo, was Deb JJ Lee winning an Ignatz Award for Promising New Talent. Of course, Lee has many fans and she’s been around for more than a minute but the honor is highly significant. In fact, Lee cried when she went up to accept the award. For those new to Lee, this is the time to check out her new graphic novel, In Limbo, published by First Second.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring to your attention one of the hottest graphic novel releases for 2023: Naked: The Confessions of a Normal Woman by Éloïse Marseille (out November 7, 2023). This graphic novel presents a raw, tongue-in-cheek and refreshing look at sexuality in an engaging and entertaining manner that mature readers will appreciate. It is published by Pow Pow Press. The French edition is highly popular and we will soon have the English translation.
There is so much more that I need to share with you and I promise to just keep doing what I’m doing. I do my own thing regarding creating comics and I do my own thing writing about comics. See you again with more very soon!!
“Each work of comics is an island unto itself which you are beckoning passersby to consider hopping upon.”
Work-in-progress page excerpt from Pop Culture Super-Sleuth.
Hello friends, I will be at Small Press Expo this upcoming weekend, September 9-10, in North Bethesda, Maryland. As my regular readers are aware, I’ll be promoting my new graphic novel, George’s Run, published by Rutgers University Press.
This is the book for any fan of comics, pop culture, and great stories!
Be sure to get both!
I will also be debuting Issue #0 of my new on-going series, Pop Culture Super-Sleuth, which you can also purchase at SPX. For those of you attending, this will be a chance to chat and get to know what I’ve been up to. I’ve been up to quite a lot over the years. I sincerely believe I’m entering into a new phase of creating comics.
I will do my best to give you my all at this event. I can answer any questions and I’m certainly eager to share with you anything I can. I’ll have original samples of my work. And, yes, there’s some very special SPX deals to be had. So, come on over to Table E3.
The annual Small Press Expo comics and graphic arts festival presents the best and brightest established creators in independent comics.
It’s an honor to be among this top tier group of cartoonists. Small Press Expo is the place to be this weekend!
Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy. By Bill Griffith. New York: Abrams, 2023. 265pp, $24.99.
Drawing from the Archives: Comics Memory in the Contemporary Graphic Novel. Cambrige: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 274pp, $110.
The “three rocks” of the title might be metaphorically translated as the three giant artists of Underground Comix still above the ground. More and more of the major players have passed in recent years, including Griffith’s own wife Diane Noomin, Aline Kominsky Crumb and Justin Green. Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith: these six words thus conjure up a vanished world, with Crumb the pop culture super nova and the latter two editing ARCADE (1975-80), the premier anthology of the genre before each went on to fame in separate ways.
Only one artist coming up from the Underground managed what almost every comic artist wanted, at least until the 1970s: a steady gig in the daily newspapers. Griffith’s “Zippy the Pinhead” emerged as the daily press was drifting into a long last hurrah. The comic strip was picked up for worldwide daily distribution by King Features Syndicate in 1986, and many thousands of readers looked eagerly each day for the latest. These days, Zippy is mostly online.
But Griffith has also produced graphic novels, beginning with Invisible Ink, with a semi-fictional but definitely real biographical story of his mother and the gag artist (but also the savant or Henry Higgins) of her grand adulterous adventure. The next, Nobody’s Fool, offered the reader an adventure through the life of a real-life sideshow mirocephalic actor or non-actor (and a definite non-victim), the source of Zippy. Up ahead, Griffith will produce a comic version of the story of his great-grandfather, the famous photographer of the West, William Henry Jackson.
Not every reader or even lover of comic strips is likely to know that “Nancy” has become the subject of considerable scholarship. The enigmatic nature of the characters (mainly herself and a suspiciously unrelated but also suspiciously erotic Aunt Fritzi, along with Nancy’s street companion, the ruffian Sluggo), how each four panel strip builds a gag toward a climax, has always fascinated would-be cultural commentators and obviously continues to do so.
An entire volume, How To Read Nancy by Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik, pondered the apparent thinness of the narrative, the flatness of the visual presentation, and the incredible popularity of the strip. What was really going on and why did readers, generation after generation, crave the strip so?
Griffith saves the more or less decisive conclusions to the end of his book, and for good reasons. Nancy is, after all, the projection of artist, whose life we find laid out as only another artist, comic artist, could possibly manage properly.
Ernie Bushmiller was an Irish, second-generation immigrant growing up in the blue collar Bronx of the early decades of the twentieth century. Showing talent from an early age, taking a flunky job at the premier New York World, he landed a strip (as a replacement artist) at 19, an incredible feat. One could suggest that Bushmiller, taking in comic-ness at its peak (even the appearance of network radio in the 1920s would lessen the appeal of the comic page, a bit), did not need to think about anything beyond the examples offered by other humorous strips of the day.
That conclusion would probably be wrong, but how wrong? Even the crucial Aunt Fritzi was borrowed from another daily strip about a would-be film actress. Seen sometimes in her slip or in a two-piece bathing suit, Fritzi could no more avoid being sexy than the rascally Nancy could avoid being a rule-breaking annoyance. By the time we reach p.74 and a comic-character Griffith is lecturing an audience of young people in the non-existent “Bushmiller Museum of Comic Art,” Nancy is not (unlike Peanuts) about childhood but about comic-hood, comic form, with sight-gags predominant.
This conclusion had already been reached in How to Read Nancy, but Griffith elucidates the implications in a dozen ways, while telling the otherwise mundane story of the artist’s life. Other hugely popular artists like Bushmiller’s friend Milt Gross lived in public from their fame, sometimes appearing on the radio, making themselves visible in nightclubs, and inevitably womanizing. By contrast, Bushmiller had an insular life (and wife), chained to his desk, evidently happy to spend his life thinking up gags.
Griffith invents wildly here, bringing Bushmiler’s characters literally to life, placing himself in the story, teasing out why Nancy might attract a cult-like following in the 1970s, as Bushmiller himself shuffled off life’s stage. Could Dagmar, one of those minor characters introduced well along in the history of the strip, really have had affairs with Sluggo and others including the forgotten Irma? Why not?
In fact, the sexiness of Aunt Fritzi inspired fantasies in the minds of generations of readers, who were also perplexed, if they thought about it at all, by the uncertainty of the setting. Mad Magazine ran several satires suggesting what Griffith points out: Nancy is not some cute little kid at all but just the comic strip character that she inhabits. Nor is Nancy “surrealist” in ways that some critics have suggested, except that the strip frequently bent the borders of the comic panel, the form’s own “fourth wall,” and sometimes offered sight gags that surrealist devotees could call their own. No evidence exists, not even in the personal bookshelf that Griffith discovers in Bushmiller’s home, of anything resembling conscious sophistication.
The Epilogue appropriately features Nancy reading How To Read Nancy, and on the following page, p.239, Nancy reading The Best of Nancy, collected by Brian Walker. What non-conclusion could be more appropriate?
And then again, it could easily be said that the emerging scholars of comic art have provided their own curious non-conclusion. Belgian scholar Benoit Crucifix’s Drawing from the Archives: Comics Memory in the Contemporary Graphic Novel (2023) argues that the top notch of comic art today, perhaps some lower notches as well, has become a history machine at large.
The case for comic masters as simultaneous comic historians aka archivists of the apparently obscure pulp past, is a strong one. Art Spiegelman taught comic history at the School for Visual Arts in Manhattan almost out of instinct, the process of recovery being part of the process of ongoing creation (or re-creation), actually recuperation of a low-rated art form. Thus “classics” like Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo, from the early twentieth century, come to life again, and can even be reworked by later artists tinkering with the pulp past.
Art history proper, the recognition of masters and icons for the sake of the art buyer as well as the art appreciator, makes almost no sense here. Except that Robert Crumb originals on napkins in Southern France may sell for thousands of dollars. But even this, or the current placement of comic strips in museum exhibitions, is not the main issue. Griffith himself signals or seeks to signal that point in Three Rocks. Comics, comic art, exist in a space that “art” has never been, up to now at least. For it to be present demands a fresh look at the mundane, a closer look at daily life.
Perhaps we are too late in the day of a collapsing civilization? It’s a good question. Artists who look beyond their own personal interests have always looked for redemption in one way or another. Comic art and the reuse of comic art, would seem to be the least likely place to find a redemption but who can tell?
Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, The Man Who Created Nancy. Bill Griffith. Abrams. New York. 272 pp. $24.99
Bill Griffith Talks About Nancy Comics: THREE ROCKS Help Explain it All
It goes without saying that Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy is a highly influential comic strip. It is beyond iconic. That is the starting point. Bill Griffith, known for his own legendary comic strip, Zippy the Pinhead, runs with one of comics scholars favorite subjects and reaches great heights with his new graphic novel, Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, The Man Who Created Nancy (Abrams, available as of 29 August 2023). Mr. Griffith doesn’t have to come out and say he was “influenced” by Nancy. I can see how Nancy makes it way into Zippy in subtle and uncanny ways. One thing to keep in mind about Bill Griffith is that he came into cartooning through the back door of fine art painting and is more ready to speak about artistic influence via painting masters like Reginald Marsh and Edward Hopper. However, at the end of the day, it’s Bill Griffith who is uniquely qualified to talk about the often misunderstood Nancy phenomenon.
The curious case of Aunt Fritzi.
Griffith chatted with me about how his Zippy character is a surreal entity operating in the real world. If Zippy were frolicking in his own surreal world, that would be too much of a good thing. “The two would cancel each other out!” Griffith is quick to point out. But I’ll come back to that. The point is that Bill Griffith knows his stuff and he was compelled to set the record straight on one of the most celebrated, and enigmatic, cartoonists to grace the page.
Bill Griffith and me.
I was in New York and arranged to meet with Bill Griffith to discuss his new book. I took a train to Connecticut, reading an advance copy of Bill’s new book, and then, just as a ferocious summer rain had struck, I was picked up from the station by the master cartoonist himself. Conversation was easy and relaxed. Something led to talk about life in downtown New York. I mentioned the concrete steps to an Airbnb that were more painful to climb that one might expect. Bill readily agreed and it reminded him of concrete steps he had to confront himself. At one point, Bill talked about his wife, the cartoonist Diane Noomin, who passed away about one year ago. Bill created a comic book in her honor, The Buildings Are Barking. I was there to focus on the Bushmiller book. After what seemed like endless winding roads, with torrential rain casting foreboding shadows, we reached the studio which looked to me like a idyllic cottage out of Lord of the Rings.
The paper airplane incident.
From my hotel window back in Manhattan, I had a glorious view of the Empire State Building with the Chrysler Building in the background. I couldn’t help but think of the many vivid scenes in Three Rocks that depict moments in Ernie Bushmiller’s career, like the time he rented office space in the Chrysler Building with some other cartoonists. The guys were throwing paper airplanes out the window and one of them actually managed to hit a police officer, over a thousand feet below, who promptly unfolded the plane to discover the owner of the stationary. What could have been an awkward situation was quickly resolved after the cartoonists created cartoons for the awestruck officer. It is these moments that are the book’s lifeblood: cartoonists as superstars strutting about and giving the public what they want.
“Life is a messy affair. Very little of it is under our control. But not for Ernie Bushmiller. All he needed was a fence, a tree, a sidewalk . . . and three rocks.”
— from the Preface to Three Rocks by Bill Griffith
The origins of THREE ROCKS.
Ernie Bushmiller not only gave the public what they wanted but, like George Herriman and Winsor McCay, elevated the medium, taking it in new directions. Did Bushmiller always know where he was going as he blazed new trails? Maybe and maybe not: at least, it is certain, Bushmiller knew he was onto something. It was during our interview that Bill laid out in one observation much of what is going on in this book. It was during a visit to a Bushmiller comic art show at the Cartoon Art Museum in Rye Brook, New York, in 1990. This was a museum run by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker. “It was in Rye Brook that I saw a sculptural display of the Three Rocks, perfectly hemispherical, and made out of fiberglass looking like they just came out of a Nancy strip. They were plopped onto a perfect square of Astro Turf, and all under glass. I lusted after them. The idea that the Three Rocks had this totemic power never left me. Following this visit, I did many Zippy strips in which Zippy encounters and speaks with the Three Rocks. So, I’d say this experience planted the idea of a book devoted to Ernie Bushmiller in my fevered brain, to await further inspiration a few decades later.”
A Zippy the Pinhead comic strip on The Three Rocks.
Griffith goes on to share that, like many kids, he was devoted to comics. “I did read the Sunday newspaper Nancy page as a 5-year-old growing up in Brooklyn, not so much for the characters or the gags, but because the lettering was so easy to read–and didn’t contain any punctuation. You could say Nancy helped me to learn how to read.” And here we go deeper. Nancy was all about “reading.” Once it fully blossomed, it was not just a comic strip. Ultimately, Nancy is a comic strip about comic strips. If that concept seems too contemporary for something dating back to 1922, this graphic novel clears all of that up. The notion that something is “meta” is not exactly new; nor is something being “surreal” a new idea. At the time, what Bushmiller developed with Nancy was revolutionary and, as fans will tell you, at its best, it is timeless and golden. Nancy was, and still is, the gold standard in comics.
Pursuit of perfection, of pure comics.
Griffith takes the reader on a magical mystery tour, beautifully juggling the need to entertain with the need to explain. Essentially, Griffith’s book is a work of comics about another work of comics that is about comics. A seemingly perfect cerebral cul-de-sac worthy of the best rants from Zippy the Pinhead. Ah, but there is plenty of method to this madness–that’s the whole point. This is the story of an exceptionally ambitious cartoonist who kept paring down and refining to the point where he basically reached the essence of comics. In later years, this pursuit of perfection would drive his assistants to the brink. That’s what is going on here. Nancy became the perfect model for what can be done in the comics medium. And all that follows refers back to Nancy.
Nancy collides with the real world.
Nancy comic strip, early 1960s.
Griffith begins with a process to demystify, to reveal the nuts and bolts of the cartoonist’s trade, and the never-ending challenge to connect with the reader. “When someone goes to a museum to see a Picasso and they don’t understand it, they don’t blame the painter. But when they don’t understand a comic strip, they do blame the cartoonist because people feel it’s the job of the cartoonist to make it an easy delivery. Zippy never did that. I always asked my readers to meet me halfway. Bushmiller is a great example of someone whose career follows the whole phenomena of comics in America. When he took over the Fritzi comic strip in 1925, he was 19 years-old. There had been 25 years of comics before that. But the cartoonists that were in the bullpen, acting as Ernie’s mentors at The New York World, they went back to the early 1900s.
Young Ernie learns his trade at the New York World, circa 1919.
There’s a scene in my book with Ernie, circa 1919, who is a copy boy and is eager to learn. One cartoonist befriends him and gives him the task of erasing his pencil marks. It’s a symbolic moment that I depict. He quickly picked up his skills. Very quickly, he began to take on more responsibilities like blacking in areas and even lettering. He learned by doing. Once he got past the gatekeeper at the newspaper, he started to advance. The ideas for the comic strips, that had to come from within him. All I can figure out is that, and I see it in my own students, is that some people speak the language of comics and some don’t. The ones that do speak the language, that’s because they like reading and like looking at comics from an early age. They become fluent in it, even if they can’t quite yet articulate a complex version of it–but they have the vocabulary and the structure because they’ve absorbed it from reading a lot of comics.”
Ernie Bushmiller and Reginald Marsh.
Ultimately, Griffith returns to the process to remystify, such is the power of art and of comics at its best. Imagine three artists lined up for comparison: Reginald Marsh, Edward Hopper, and Ernie Bushmiller. Griffith makes the case for including Bushmiller along with two of America’s greatest painters. The connection is the New York art world, the circles involved with learning how to draw and such things. Bushmiller went to the same art school attended by Hopper and so he absorbed similar sensibilities. In fact, Bushmiller and Marsh shared some time together as they both drew from life at burlesque shows. Griffith points out that the Sunday full pages devoted to Nancy had some extra space at the top, just in case the newspaper needed it, and it was here that Bushmiller would include pure art, little vignettes of Nancy, and it held that same charge of stillness that Griffith enjoyed in Hopper paintings.
The stillness of Hopper.
Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead, as a surrealist entity, is plenty of wacky fun. However, as Art Spiegelman pointed out to Griffith early in the development of Zippy, the idea of being in an elevator with Zippy was disturbing at best let alone for any longer duration. Zippy‘s zany humor needed a foil, which led to Griffith bringing in a new character, Griffy, an alter ego, who could act as a straight man and corral all the chaos. Zippy and Griffy would become a team, like the comedy act of Abbot and Costello. It is these sort of artistic choices that ultimately led to the world of Zippy just as a similar process of artistic choices ultimately led to the world of Nancy. It is all these choices, involving paring down elements and refining text, that leads to the best work. If for no other reason, Three Rocks is a must-read as a fun textbook on the art of comics. Lucky for readers, it is that and more: a rollicking behind-the-scenes journey into the creative spirit; and a way to get some answers to the meaning of life.
My interview with Bill Griffith is now one of my most cherished experiences coming from my comics journalism. It was delightful and magical. We chatted and then I began to record and finally I did some video. So, this video is brief but brings home a lot of what led to this very special book. In the end, any creative work worth its salt comes back to the creator. Griffith found a way, or discovered a process, that invited him to have Nancy refer back to everything.
Bill Griffith Talks About Nancy Comics: THREE ROCKS Help Explain it All
