Nancy Cartoonist Olivia Jaimes to Make First Public Convention Appearance

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Sep 21, 2018

Olivia Jaimes, the mysterious cartoonist who has turned Nancy into one of the most talked-about comic strips around, will finally appear in public

Olivia Jaimes, the cartoonist behind the hit Nancy revamp by United Feature Syndicate, will be making her public convention debut at Cartoon Crossroads Columbia (CXC) on a spotlight panel at 3:30 on Sunday, September 30th. She will be making tow other personal events during the convention, but the details are still unknown about those appearances.

Jaimes told The Washington Post that “The CXC organizers went to great lengths so I’d feel comfortable at the event. The panel’s happening in a room that seats only about 40 people, and they’re coat-checking all phones and recording devices at the door."

Olivia Jaimes is a pseudonym for an established webcomic creator who United Feature Syndicate approached about revamping the Nancy comic strip after Guy Gilchrist left the feature earlier this year after a 24-year-stint on the strip. United noted that they would have preferred Jaimes use the name that she uses for her other webcomic work, but Jaimes wanted to keep her two lives separate.

Nancy originated as a comic strip about a ditzy flapper named Fritzi Ritz. It started in 1922 by Larry Whittington. Ernie Bushmiller took over the strip in 1925. In 1933, Bushmiller introduced Fritzi's acerbic niece, Nancy. The young character soon became a dominant part of the strip. In 1938, Nancy's friend, Sluggo, was introduced, as well, and the strip was officially re-named Nancy. Bushmiller continued on the series until he died in 1982.

A number of other cartoonists have worked on it in the years since, and a few of them have even tried to "modernize" the strip. The most recent cartoonist behind Nancy, though, Guy Gilchrist, did a "return to basics" approach that had lasted since 1995. His final strip was in February of 2018. After a two-month hiatus, Jaimes took over the series on April 9th.

Jaimes' approach on the strip has been to heavily modernize the strip, both in terms of the technology that Nancy and Sluggo use in the strip but also in the style of humor approach. Jaimes often goes for a more absurdist approach to the character.

In one of her first Sunday strips, Jaimes pointed out the changes are always going to happen, but the only thing that is constant is the fact that people are going to complain about everything.

That has certainly been the case for Nancy, with the comments section filled with Gilchrist fans aghast at the current state of the strip. However, United Feature Syndicate has noted that the social media response to Nancy has increased 500 percent since Jaimes has taken over the strip, while the page hits on the Nancy strip's website have gone up dramatically, as well. Jaimes' recent response to her critics in a Labor Day Nancy strip went viral (Sluggo is lit!).

(Via The Beat)