Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinThe happiest sound in all the world since 1969

Nancy, Sluggo, Popeye, and John.

§ August 17th, 2012 § Filed under nancy, pal plugging, popeye, sluggo § 4 Comments

 

• Reader Garrett points me in the direction of this tableau of horror, featuring Nancy and Sluggo by Jon Vermilyea. Possibly not safe for work, certainly not safe for restful sleep.
• In response to Mr. Spurgeon’s comment about the Classic Popeye book I wrote about on Wednesday…yes, that is really the actual cover of this reprint, the exact cover the original #1 had back in 1948, plus the “Classic Comics” banner, of course. I hope this series achieves its stated goal of reprinting all the Bud Sagendorf comics, but it’s, what, a hundred comics? That seems like quite the challenge, but even if they don’t get all the way to the end, I’ll certainly enjoy what I get.

  By the way, I had a person in the comments lament the fact that his retailer doesn’t carry this sort of book. Well, I checked on Diamond’s website Thursday evening, and Classic Popeye #1 is still available for reorder, so march on in to your shop, tell ’em “I want one copy of Classic Popeye #1, Diamond order number JUN120397, please” and all it takes is a phone call, email, or visit to the reorders section on the Diamond retailer site, and they should be able to get it for you. While supplies last, of course.

  And if your retailer can’t or won’t get it for you, I will. …Again, while supplies last, so act fast!

• Bully the Little Stuffed Bull’s pal John has been doing movie reviews for the past week over at Unseen Films, and this little linkie-thing here should take you right to them. It should also bring up older reviews of his on that site, which you should probably read also. You’d better…I’ll be quizzing you later.

And now, three books I’ve barely had a chance to look at.

§ March 23rd, 2012 § Filed under nancy, peanuts, smurfs § 3 Comments

 

• So perhaps you gathered that I was a tad excited about Nancy Is Happy, Fantagraphics’ collection of Ernie Bushmiller Nancy dailies from 1943-5. I’m only a couple of dozen pages in so far, which may surprise you, but Nancy is a pleasure to be appreciated at a leisurely pace, and not gulped down like a cheap soda.

  Having read and reread and rereread the previous Nancy strip collections and nearly committing all their contents to memory, having some new (relatively speaking) material to enjoy really is a treat. Plus, getting to see some of the more explicitly propagandistic wartime material (Sluggo throwing a firecracker at a globe, which blows off the country of Japan, for example), as well as some of the more politically-incorrect gags (a couple of punchlines which play off the stereotypically-slanted eyes of Nancy’s Chinese friend), is certainly interesting from a historical perspective.

  I also like the red lettering for the years and page numbers on each page…really gives the book a unique look. And there’s plenty of Sluggo in this volume. Mike, like Nancy, Is Happy.

• The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984 – holy cow, we’re purt’near the home stretch on the Peanuts reprint books…we’re what, eight, nine books away from the end? It hardly seems possible.

  The appeal of the series is of course the “complete” aspect, where we get to see strips that eluded the previous paperback reprintings and are finally seeing the light of day for the first time since originally popping up in the funny pages. I’ve noted before that my prime Peanuts reading was when I was but a young Mikester in the late ’70s/early ’80s, where I read just about every Peanuts book I could get my hands on, thus making the reprint-debut of strips in the Complete Peanuts volumes presenting years prior to about that time of particular interest to me. I missed most of the ’80s Peanuts strips, except possibly for having read them once in the newspaper way back when, which makes these more recent Complete volumes almost all new to me.

  A number of years ago, just prior to Peanuts ending, I got back into collecting the paperback reprints of the later strips, which, at that point, seemed to be collecting full dailies for each year, or at least close to it. Thus, once we move into the ’90s volumes for the Complete Peanuts, I’ll likely have read most of those strips…but I’ll keep getting these new collections anyway, because I’m a sad old fanboy who has to have the full set, that’s why.

• Unlike the two books above, which I’ve at least started reading, I haven’t had a chance yet to crack open the latest Smurf book from Papercutz, The Smurf Olympics. At the very least, however, I wanted to mention that I’m glad this particular reprint effort survived the movie promotional push that presumably helped bring it about, even if the “Soon to be a movie / See the movie in theaters now!” blurbs on the front have now morphed into “See the DVD!” A small price to pay to finally get these volumes of classic cartooning back on the shelves.

Today’s new comics.

§ March 21st, 2012 § Filed under nancy, this week's comics § 5 Comments

…There are other new comics out today, too, I guess, but I don’t know why they bothered.

And now, a sneak peek at Swamp Thing’s new costume.

§ May 3rd, 2011 § Filed under nancy, sluggo, swamp thing § 4 Comments

Oh, okay, not really. Actually, this is a drawing by one of my favorite cartoonists, Scott Saavedra, who was good enough to send the original art my way many years ago. Turns out I never posted it on my site in all this time, and the image doesn’t appear to be up on Scott’s site anymore, so…here you go. Pretty awesome, I think. (It says “Swamp Gas Gun” on the swamp gas gun he’s holding there, in case you can’t make it out.)

In other cool drawin’ news, Ming Doyle, artist of the swell webcomic The Loneliest Astronauts (written by close personal friend Kevin Church), drew this fantastic Nancy and Sluggo sketch that will forever change your perception of the characters. Forever, I say.

If you don’t enjoy Nancy and Sluggo content on this site, you may want to skip today’s post.

§ July 14th, 2009 § Filed under nancy, sluggo § 1 Comment

I bought the five Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy books published by Kitchen Sink Press in the late ’80s/very early ’90s, spurred on by snippets of the books I’d seen in magazines, the admiration of the strip by one of my favorite cartoonists, (Bill “Zippy the Pinhead” Griffith), and my old friend Rob extolling the virtues of the comic.

I’d never thought much about the strip prior to that. I was aware of it, of course, but I was hardly an avid follower. But I thought “well, I’ve been amused by what I’ve seen so far, my friend Rob really likes it, and Bill Griffith likes it…I’ll give it a shot.” I started with Nancy Eats Food, the first of the series. And in short order, I ended up buying the rest.

It’s difficult to explain just why I enjoy Bushmiller’s Nancy so much. I’ve read many essays by a variety of folks trying to explain (or perhaps justify) their own love for the strip, and I’m not sure I’m quite ready to add my own to the mix. I don’t know that I really even can pin down what exactly it is that endears the strip to me. The juxtaposition of apparent normalcy with bizarre circumstances? The dedication to the more-than-occasional shameless joke? The awesomeness of Sluggo? It’s all these and more besides, I’d say.

My enjoyment of the strip even extends to the comics, as you may have noticed, though the Bushmiller-ness of the strips is softened into the new “kid’s adventure” stories created specifically for those publishers, if they weren’t simply reprinting the original strips in color. But even in this lesser form, the occasional moment of weirdness still shines through. (And legendary cartoonist John Stanley contributed his skills to the cause, so you can’t go wrong there.)

I know I’m not the only fan: looking at the Amazon listing linked above for Nancy Eats Food, as well as for the following books – Bums, Beatniks and Hippies/Artists & Con Artists, Nancy’s Pets, How Sluggo Survives!, and Dreams and Schemes, I see some adventurous pricing at work, in the $30 to $60 (or even $100+) range. Okay, what they’re selling these for isn’t necessarily what people are buying them for, but it’s at least one indicator of demand. (And yes, all those Amazon links throw a little somethin’-somethin’ back in my direction should you decide to take the Sluggo Plunge. Buy the really expensive ones, if you do.)

I’m…well, I was going to say I’m surprised there hasn’t been a more extensive reprinting of these strips in recent years. Just a handful of books, like the Kitchen Sink volumes and this intriguing book that I don’t yet have. But I’m not terribly surprised if only because Nancy may be just a little too “niche” to support an extensive “Complete Nancy” publishing program like Fantagraphics’ Complete Peanuts.

But boy, it’d be nice.

The Secret Life of Sluggo…

§ October 8th, 2007 § Filed under nancy, sluggo Comments Off on The Secret Life of Sluggo…

…is discovered:

Nancy confronts Sluggo directly about his lifestyle:

Sluggo is comfortable with it, but Nancy’s own experimentation does not sit well with her:

BEHOLD THE LEGS OF SLUGGO:

images from Tip Top Comics #215-6 (1959)