Episode 552 – Bill Griffith

Virtual Memories Show 552:<br /> Bill Griffith “What attracted me to NANCY wasn’t the characters, or the stories, or the humor: it was the lettering.” Legendary cartoonist Bill Griffith returns to celebrate his fantastic new book, THREE ROCKS: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, The Man Who Created NANCY (Abrams ComicArts). We get into his lifelong history with NANCY, how that strip was like a lesson in what comics are, the time he brought his Zippy The Pinhead into Bushmillerland, why Bushmiller and Crumb are the only two cartoonists whose work gives him 100% pleasure (and don’t inspire criticism or jealousy), how the idea for Three Rocks percolated for a few decades until he read Paul Karasik & Mark Newgarden‘s book HOW TO READ NANCY, and why he decided not to draw Bushmiller’s characters in his book (he collages existing Nancy, Sluggo, & Fritzi art instead). We also discuss how many of his cartooning students have never read NANCY but still wear T-shirts with her face (& trademark spiky hair), the problems younger cartoonists have with continuity in storytelling, and what he’s learned from teaching. And then we talk about the death of Bill’s wife, the great underground cartoonist Diane Noomin, and how he’s gotten by in the year since. We get into the new comic Bill made about (& with) Diane, The Buildings Are Barking (Fantagraphics/FU), how he still hears her voice, what it’s like to work on a new book without the person who read every panel of his for 49 years, keeping Zippy going while grieving, how having a daily strip all this time seems to have immunized him from anniversaries, the ferry ride he & Diane used to share, how the death of Aline Kominsky-Crumb two months after Diane’s brought him and Robert Crumb closer, and more. Give it a listen! And go read Three Rocks and The Buildings Are Barking! (And go listen to our 2015 and 2019 conversations!)