I know, I know. “Everyone” says Ernie Bushmiller, the creator/writer/artist of the long-running comic strip Nancy is a genius. His work is goofy and sublime. It’s wry and subversive. It’s disarmingly simple but clandestinely complex. There’s been books written about it all, museum shows, podcasts – you name it. Even fellow Pop Culture Squad columnist Mike Gold goes ga-ga over Bushmiller’s work.

I never got it.

It just wasn’t my thing.

I think part of it stems from when I was a kid. Sundays were the day for our big Italian dinners. And before we got started with the serious feasting, I’d spread the Sunday Funnies out on the floor of my grandfather’s living room and pour over all the strips that the Syracuse Herald American published. They were glorious!

I remember my grandfather was partial to Mark Trail and to Scamp (the puppy of The Lady and the Tramp). I loved the Phantom (My dad’s favorite) and Prince Valiant. I always thought that I should enjoy Steve Canyon (after all, he was part of the Captain Action line), but I couldn’t never quite figure out what was going on there.

On that lower level tier of interest were strips like Henry and Nancy. I understood the gags in them—kind of—but they just weren’t my cuppa tea.

But… recently, I was sort of bequeathed the comic collection of Bill Martin, a local friend of the family. He was more of a newspaper strip collector, and his comics reflected that.
There were a handful of Nancy’s in his collection, and one Fritzi Ritz, which was really United Comics #14.

Fritzi Ritz was Nancy’s Aunt, and I think she got pushed out of the starring role of her own strip. What a brat that kid Nancy was (another reason not to like her).

But I gotta tell you, these Fritzi Ritz strips are brilliant. They are sublime and subversive and all those things I talked about that the beginning of this column.

Bushmiller comments on the nature of dating, of men and women and their foibles and just had fun with everyday life. And it’s clear he likes drawing pretty women. It’s all very demure, of course. Once in a while a skirt will flip in the breeze, but other than that it’s all generally polite.

Actions, and comic pages, speak louder than words. I’m going back away, slowly and let you enjoy these Fritzi Ritz pages from 1951.

And maybe I need to revise my POV of Ernie Bushmiller too.

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