Saturday, September 26, 2020

Preface To Nancy's Show: Famous Nancys

Here's an exhaustive list of famous people named Nancy.

It turns out I currently know two Nancys.  But I thought I knew more famous Nancys.  & yet I ended up just thinking of Pelosi, Reagan, Sinatra, & Spungeon.  & only that last one when I thought of the film Sid & Nancy.

One of the things I did last year for my Frank Show (which incidentally was almost exactly a year ago, I wonder if I unconsciously scheduled another "name" show around this time because of that) was ask strangers to tell me to name three famous Nancys.  Besides the above, I might probably get Kerrigan, & almost certainly I'd get Nancy Drew.

When I was a kid, I was a voracious comic book reader, & to this day I am fond of episodic fare - I like cliffhanger endings & "next issue" blurbs.  So I loved the Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys books.  I loved the way they looked the same, I loved that they were numbered, & I loved that they occasionally mentioned previous adventures.  But.  For some reason, maybe because my brother & I fought like cats & dogs, I didn't like the Hardy Boys that much.  I read them.  But I preferred Nancy Drew.  She had a crew.  I dug that.

That list doesn't include Nancy Drew because she was a fictitious.  Here's a list of fictional Nancys.  Strangely, it leaves out the best Nancy of all.  This one:

It is of course Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy!

The strip has experienced a kind of revival with a new writer/artist (who uses the pseudonym Olivia Jaimes).  A lot of people hate what she's done because she's updated Nancy by having her carry a cell phone, talk about the internet, etc.  I think it's delightful.  Here's one of her recent strips:

You can read 'em all at the Nancy web page.  It's totally worth it!

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