Late last year, I said I planned to feature more webcomics on the blog. This post … is not quite that. It is, however, a look at a daily comic that is posted on the web, and that you should definitely be reading.

In April 2018, writer/artist Olivia Jaimes took over the long-running Nancy comic strip. I knew nothing about Nancy before Jaimes turned it into the world’s most memeable newspaper comic. Now, I can’t get enough.

Because no one reads newspapers anymore, I wanted to show you all a random week’s worth of Nancy (plus an extra Sunday strip, because why not). I am writing this introduction on Sunday, March 21, 2021. I will write this post’s conclusion on Sunday, March 28, 2021. In between, we will laugh. We will cry. We may watch a girl GO IN on some cornbread. And we will certainly weep for the travesties that modern technology has inflicted upon our society.

At the end of this journey, you will likely be convinced to read Nancy. Probably not by anything I wrote, mind you – but I have to make this look like a real post, so I’ll be commenting upon each strip.

Let’s get to it:

March 21, 2021

I’m very fond of the “parent considering her child’s fate; that fate likely not good” shading used in the fourth panel here. The fact that the strip very quickly breaks back to comedy makes the shading even more brilliant. Also, note the mirrored poses in panels 1/2 and 5/6.

Additional fun fact: I’ve been turning my phone off as much as possible on the weekends to avoid ending up like Nancy and Fritzi here. Somehow, I still spent an hour looking at Magic: The Gathering decklists and articles on my phone today. I don’t even currently play Magic: The Gathering. Smartphones, man.