Griffith’s Observatory: Bushmiller and Nancy
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Cartoonist and biographer Bill Griffith has an obsession with Ernie Bushmiller and Nancy and Sluggo. In the past seventeen strips that trio, or some combination of them, have been mentioned in four of his Zippy the Pinhead comics, including today’s. So fans of Griffith, Bushmiller, and comics looked forward to the release of his graphic biography Three Rocks: The Ernie Bushmiller Story: The Man Who Created Nancy this past Summer.
(spoiler alert: it didn’t disappoint)
Recently Lawrence Cosentino for City Pulse of Lansing Michigan reviewed Three Rocks.
On the surface, “Three Rocks,” a new graphic novel by Bill Griffith, is a tribute from one syndicated cartoonist to another. But do we really need a biography of the late Ernie Bushmiller, creator of the corny comic strip “Nancy?”
As King Lear cried out, “O, reason not the need.”
Look beyond the unlikely subject of “Three Rocks” and thrill, as they say, to the strangest love story of our times.
On the surface, “Three Rocks,” a new graphic novel by Bill Griffith, is a tribute from one syndicated cartoonist to another. But do we really need a biography of the late Ernie Bushmiller, creator of the corny comic strip “Nancy?”
So, why is Griffith so obsessed with the noodle-simple graphics and cornball gags of “Nancy?”
“They just trigger some sort of endorphin surge in me,” Griffith said during a phone interview.
About that phone interview – it has been transcribed and published in City Pulse.
Is it fair to say that ‘Three Rocks’ is, in a way, a love story? Your biography of ‘Nancy’s’ creator, Ernie Bushmiller, is really a passionate love letter to a comic strip many people brush off as simpleminded and corny.
Bill Griffith: I wanted to make it more than a chronological bio. Famous people, including cartoonists, get their bio eventually. I’ve read quite a few of them. They tend toward (being) mostly factual. I thought I would put myself into the story, and by doing so, I was giving myself the license to talk about ‘Nancy’ in ways that are not strictly chronological — that are emotional, really. Why does ‘Nancy’ have such a hold on me? It’s like I’m sitting down with my shrink and my shrink is saying, ‘Tell me, Bill, what is it about this Nancy character that has such a hold on you?’ I try to explain it, but it’s difficult to explain why you simply like, or love, something. I try to do it with a little bit of satire and self-deprecation as well.
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