As far as I know, The Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum hasn't pulled off something as ambitious as Nancy Fest before. There's always something cool going on around the galleries on the Ohio State campus, but outside of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, I couldn't recall a multi-day event. I'm privileged enough to say I live less than fifteen minutes away and I'd heard about this event for some time, as the library staff had been developing it over the last year. Even the other locals weren't exactly sure what they were in for. It's an exhibition of art, but it's also a series of panels, but also there's a musical? Whatever, get in the car. It's going to be fun and weird.
There's something particular about Bushmiller's Nancy strip that sticks in the head of many cartoonists. There's a sort of zen about it that a lot of comic academic types have labored over defining. To the uninitiated, Nancy is still really cool and fun to look at. I think the extra analysis serves as a good excuse to salute an American master amidst good company.
I got to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum early Friday in order to get in and get out fairly quickly. I'd just gotten back from my honeymoon and me and my husband quickly flipped the house to host guests. It was the first time seeing everyone since I got back and I quickly ran into Craig C.M. Campbell and easily my favorite friend to look at exhibitions with.
He was doing well, fresh off graduating another comics class cohort at the Columbus College of Art and Design, renewed and eager to work on his own comics and gallery engagements. We stopped for a moment to admire a series of Howard Cruse pages in the east gallery. Usually, The Billy has two exhibitions on display, but Nancy had absorbed the entire building.
The majority of the space was a showcase of Ernie Bushmiller's work, but there was a collection of various toys and paraphernalia, contemporary Nancy by Olivia Jaimes and pages from Bill Griffith's Three Rocks. The gallery will be on view through the whole summer and during Cartoon Crossroads this fall, so if you're already planning to come for CXC, you should budget the time to arrive on Thursday or Friday in order to see the show. (The Billy Ireland isn't open on weekends)
I left early before a talk started in the Schultz room because I'd been smoking brisket and beef ribs for guests all day. Caroline Cash and her old chum Madison Davidson were staying at our house, and I'd feverishly agreed to open my doors to hungry Nancy aficionados. Now that he was officially married to a cartoonist, my husband sighed and helped me boil corn when I got back.
The red ribbon denotes VIP ticketing for Nancy Fest.
And it was great! I saw Chris Pitzer and his friend Chris who was affiliated with a comic book shop in Virginia, Derf Backderf, and Raeghan Buchanan all stopped by to say hi and make a plate. I met Peter Smyth for probably the second time, a very talented cartoonist in a Phd program at Ohio State. We all teased Caroline Cash about being nominated for an Eisner, and she showed us some of the Nancy strips she had drawn for Olivia Jaimes' sabbatical. I talked with Sydney Heifler about some Comic Con panels she was working on, and talked to her fiance Ian about football and the upcoming NCAA video game.
Later on, Sean Watkins from Athenaeum Comic Art came by for veggie burgers and it seems that his iteration of the Ann Arbor fall comic fest A2CAF was coming along great. He grabbed some art from Caroline to sell and I gave him a jar of jam I'd made from the 2024 crop of Ohio strawberries.
We slept in, missing some of the morning programming. I cleaned the house before heading to the museum for the main day of events. [Note from the editor, who was at the festival: Day two greeted attendees with a donut spread straight out of the pilot episode of Twin Peaks, followed by a panel of The Bushmiller Society: Dennis Kitchen, Pete Maresca, Brian Walker, Gary Hallgren, and, looking for all the world like a precocious freshman who snagged a date to the senior prom: Kaz. The panel discussed how they each found their homecoming with Nancy, bafflingly, several mentioned being repelled by the strip in early adulthood, including Walker, who went on to lovingly curate The Best of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy. Best of all, the society announced that they’d been victims of an anonymous mailer, sending envelopes of Nancy strips corresponding to the personalized sin of each member (Nancy wielding a hammer over a piggy bank for greed, Sluggo napping outdoors for sloth). Images of the mysterious mailers created a splendidly vast collection for the audience, largely summed up by the exemplary panel, “dumb dumb dumb dumb”. The society then gave away several dozen Bushmiller Society memberships to those willing to gamble against the horde.]
[Next up was Olivia Jaimes, pen name of the anonymous cartoonist at the helm of The New Nancy, who, according to festival curator, Caitlin McGurk, wanted to attend the fest but had a scheduling conflict (or was she among the sea of faces in the packed auditorium?). Instead, a video played for the audience: a charming, insightful, polarizing PowerPoint presentation, narrated by Jaimes, tactfully explaining her structure for a Nancy Strip and how the formula (a genuine chemistry equation of punchlines) creates gags, connecting point to point, until a closed shape of storytelling is born. In her presentation, Jaimes drew attention to the character growth she allows in Nancy and Sluggo, a point of contention among some Bushmiller purists, seeing as the strip has a different life these days, available for marathon-reading online, as opposed to the rebirth and death cycle of newsprint. (Jaimes eventually revealed a weakness for the tradition of impermanence when McGurk, as per Jaimes’ explicit instruction, destroyed the file of her presentation in front of the audience at the conclusion of the lecture. – Ed.]
I don't think it was a stretch to say that the largest demographic for this event was older white guys. It had the same male-to-female bathroom line ratio as a WWE live event. When I got into the Schultz hall for the afternoon programming for Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden's How to Read Nancy Panel, I sat with Noah Van Sciver, Zak Sally, John Porcellino and Dan Stafford, just one of the many groups of friends who couldn't immediately recall the last time they'd all been in the same room together. Everyone was really enthused to have the excuse to get lunch together and compare notes on their lives as well as their opinions and remarks on Bushmiller's oeuvre. Nostalgia for the bullpen was felt all around as historians and personal friends of Bushmiller could pour over letters from Rube Goldberg recounting dinner meetings from the National Cartoonist's Society's early meetings. Lots of chuckles from gazing at snappers constructed out of branding imagery from the Sears-Roebuck and Co. Catalog. This is some old ass shit!
I know it's old ass shit because I try to teach from Karasik/Newgarden's How to Read Nancy book to freshman comics students, who usually stare at me absently and mumble some excuse about "having too much work to do to have read the reading." I then share an "old man shakes fist at cloud" monologue to point out the obvious genius of Bushmiller's gags and craft – the art that moves so fast and seamlessly, you hardly register the process of reading it at all. The nineteen year old I'm talking to usually shrugs, says something like "I don't really want to draw strips, but it's cool though" and then keeps playing whatever they're listening to on their headphones for the duration of the class. Hopefully, in a few years, they'll circle back to some of these ideas on their own, seeing it wish fresh eyes. They'll read some contemporary Olivia Jaimes’ Nancy and dig through every generation of the strip as though they're discovering it themselves.
Karasik/Newgarden's book is, after all, obvious to everyone who can hear the sleigh bells and a little wordy for the gum chewers. Their panel was good, I sat in the back nodding along and trying out some new pens in my sketchbook.
Bill Griffith talked last for the day, talking about Bushmiller and his book Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, The Man Who Created Nancy. "All comic book characters are real people" Griffith said, supposing that Nancy was now an older lady in a retirement home that he could visit and talk shop with. "You must listen and obey," he said about taking the time to shut up and close your eyes, allowing your characters to inform you themselves. It was a really beautiful way to think about putting forth a perspective. I thought about all the people 'living and dead' he could talk to, and was emotional for a moment.
All of that said though, I really didn't understand the tutting about Olivia James's Nancy strip.
There was a piss-poor old attitude seeping around the place like a dog fart. Did I miss some comment section drama that would clearly explain this beef? Are we mad that it's digital and it's on an iPad? Are we upset that she drew Nancy riding a lime scooter and texting or whatever? The fest largely focused on Bushmiller, and rightly so, it's his damn strip. It seemed obvious to include Jaimes because she's the artist currently working on the strip. All the snide comments really felt like jealous whining from people who felt entitled to Bushmiller's work. I guess I can understand the perspective of being generally disgruntled that you feel forced to enjoy the new thing because it's new or whatever. Get a grip guys, more Nancy is good!
I wish Olivia James a wonderful sabbatical and none of her haters are allowed at my BBQ. Caroline Cash will be one of a few other lucky artists to get the opportunity to draw the strip and I'm sure they'll elicit the same nods and smiles most comic strips get nowadays. Personally, I'd be happy to see Ivan Brunetti get a couple more passes if he's up for it.
A morning with Ernie Bushmiller By Tom Gammil was maybe what you heard most about on social media, and rightly so. We all took some time to eat dinner after the panels and hurry back as quickly as possible for a good seat in the Schultz auditorium for a ninety minute musical. It was hilarious, chaotic, heartfelt and perfect. Doing maybe more homework than any other museum curator, Caitlin McGurk put on her theater kid outfit and rehearsed weekly for over six months to play a variety of roles to supplement Gammil's monologues as Bushmiller.
"I feel like I'm in a Simpson's episode from my childhood," I told Emi Gennis when we were sitting in our seats. "Like, you know this dude wrote The Monorail Song or some shit."
Tom Gammil didn't write The Monorail Song, but he was a producer on The Simpsons and wrote for Seinfeld. "Avid Nancy fan and collector of everything Bushmiller" was his most important byline for this event, and the play was so lovingly researched and assembled that it truly felt like it could only be for the people in the room. It had a neat structure and story, but after a full day of studying the craft and life of Bushmiller and the science of Nancy, we were perfectly primed for every joke. There were special effects, a dream sequence, sound effects, the whole lot.
After it had all finished, Bushmiller's friend Jim Carlsson (a key person who had assisted with so much of what had made Bushmiller's legacy and Nancy Fest function) came up to the stage. He had been talked about by almost every panelist and had piped up a few times with facts, but he was handed a microphone.
"By gosh, Columbus, Ohio, is heaven on earth" he said. "You've got all the legend and the facts here, print the legend."
Eyes dilated with joy and excitement, we shuffled downtown to the VIP afterparty at Citizen's Trust. It was organized by Rebecca Jane Perry and Ben Towle, Columbus's most fashionable power couple.
The bar had themed signature drinks for Nancy and Sluggo. A fruity spritz and some kind of bourbon thing.
I caught up with Brian Baynes there, who was lovely, if not a little brain dead from TCAF and Bubbles Con being so close together. I made sure to pick up some Nancy Fest shirts from him and catch up some. I hope he's getting to watch as much baseball as he wants.
"I did it all myself and it was huge success" he said (in summary). "I'll probably do Bubbles Con every other year because it's so much work, but I was so happy with how many Richmond folks came out, despite maybe not knowing exactly what it was. This weekend was amazing and I hope we start doing more festivals like this where it's not just a sale. That's why I love Cartoon Crossroads because so often you'll have what feels like a huge programming offer right in the middle of the day and you can't get away from your table. It sucks, I want to see everyone talk."
Nate Powell was there and he said "swag" at one point which made me giggle. At the end of the night Johnny Sampson was eagerly recounting his behind the scenes tour of the Billy Ireland. His trip for Nancy Fest was his first trip to Columbus and we all hope he comes back soon.
Sunday we woke early because there was a Kia-Boys related joy ride going on near our house. A woman came by while I was making waffles to talk to my husband about whether or not we saw anything. Caroline, Madison and Emi Gennis all sat and chatted about the show Survivor, deranged Gwenyth Paltrow quotes and a possible August reading in Columbus for PeePee PooPoo #1 before the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo.
"See you sooner than we think probably," I told Caroline. "You can take the tiny cokes out of the fridge if you want for the road."
"Totally," she replied. We hugged and she left and basically Nancy Fest was awesome! Thank you to all the people that sweated over producing the damn thing. It was a lot of effort and it was most appreciated. To everyone else, y'all come back now!
