Praise
The Eisner Awards
Winner: Best Comics-Related Book
2018
“It's a masterpiece.“ – Robert Crumb, 2019
The Seattle Review of Books
Thursday Comics Hangover: Explaining the joke.
”This book deserves all the accolades it’s received…” – Paul Constant, 1.16.20
Compass
Review: ‘How to Read Nancy’ a masterclass in crafting a comic
“What at first seems like a joke gone on too long quickly becomes an entertaining masterclass in crafting a comic.” – Scott Hall Rapid City Public Library, 8.25.19
Lorraine Crescent
“how to read nancy”
I found this book pretty unputdownable ... a beautiful production as well in terms of its clean design. – David Nichols, 8.23.2019
Surrealistic Sass: Beloved comic strip 'Nancy' has fun with the absurdities of the human condition
”Karasik and Newgarden break Bushmiller's seemingly irreducible craft down to the ground lines, the negative space and the shape of the panels.” – Richard von Busak, 8.14.2019
Metroactive
Goodreads Staffers Share Their Summer Reading Picks – Sam Julian, UX Designer, 5.6.2019
Goodreads
strandbookstore via Instagram
“A manically thorough formal analysis of a particular Nancy strip. It shows how much thought goes into assembling pieces of a ‘simple’ water-hose gag, and teaches you all you really need to know about comics. Bushmiller started out as a puzzle-maker, and no wonder. All the pieces matter.” – 2nd floor bookseller Colin, 5.3.2019
The Strand Book Store
Pharaoh Miles’ Favorite Comics of 2018
"A treasure trove of information" – Pharaoh Miles, 1.1.2019
Graphic Policy
Two ways of looking at Nancy
"As the strip is broken down into its raw components—the horizon line, the word balloons, the panel gutters—it rises up again as something strangely monumental, and the insights that emerge can be surprisingly profound." – Alec Nevala-Lee, 12.12.2018
Thoughts on art, creativity, and the writing life
Our Favorite Books of 2018
"…thoroughly informative and wildly entertaining…" – Pat Padua, 12.10.2018
Spectrum Culture
Maybe too much Nancy
"If you value clear and direct cartooning, there’s much to learn from Nancy. Simple writing isn’t as easy as it looks, and neither is simple cartooning." – Mark Rosenfelder, 11.7.2018
Zompist’s E-Z rant page
uncomelyand
broken
NO AND SHUT UP: Intellectualism and Its Discontents in Nancy
"A remarkable piece of scholarship, and the obsessiveness with which the authors go about their work is off-putting and inspiring at the same time." – Christopher M. McDonough, 10.27.2018
RISD
Brilliant NANCY Book Wins an Eisner
– Simone Solondz, 10.08.2018
Draw
"It's quite an achievement. When you've finished, you certainly know more about Nancy, and comics, and perhaps a little more about life in general." – LA Guy, 9.14.2018
Pajama Guy
The Revamped "Nancy" Is the Perfect Comic Strip for 2018
"A classic Nancy strip as drawn by Ernie Bushmiller is purposefully pristine, Newgarden and Karasik argue in their book." – Kelsey McKinney, 8.7.2018
Smithsonian Magazine
More from SDCC 2018: MAD Magazine, Nancy, and Witches!
"Scholars Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden not only wrote a book about what is often considered the simplest comic strip ever; they wrote an excellent and very smart one." – Nell Minow, 7.31.2018
Movie Mom
Publisher's Weekly
'Nancy' in Three Easy Panels
"A great read for anyone who loves comics and wants to learn more about the
craft." – Stephen Roth, 7.23.2018
GoComics
SDCC 18: MONSTERS and MONSTRESS clean up at the Eisners!
"Easily the most important comics tome of recent years." – Kyle Pinion,
7.20.2018
The Beat
How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels (review)
"It could have gone horribly wrong but instead it leaves the reader with a greater appreciation of all aspects of the comic strip art form and its place in the overall concept of art." – Steve Thompson, 7.9.2018
Forces of Geek
Happy 4th of July 2018 with Nancy and Sluggo!
"This is easily one of the most brilliant books about comics, a comics character, that character's history and the aesthetics of comics on the whole ever written." – Jerry Beck, 7.4.2018
Cartoon Research
'Nancy' goes back to the drawing board
“How To Read Nancy is a dense, almost scholarly book that argues that there is much more going on in Nancy between the lines." – Evan Chung, 6.21.2018
Studio 360, Public Radio International
Birds, Books, and . . .
Reading How to Read Nancy and rejecting the cult of Bushmiller
"I like Nancy a lot, too. I like her more after reading How to Read Nancy." – Jeff Karnicky, 6.18.2018
Daily Comic Strip – Patrick McDonnell, 5.26.2018
Mutts
Deconstructing Comics #593: Reading "Nancy", Plus "Cat And Mouse"! – Hannah Means Shannon, 5.18.2018
Comiccon.com
Six hearts for well-turned book: Exemplary comics communication takes the humor seriously.
"'How to Read Nancy' is a well-prepared and deeply engaging book that takes the man seriously without getting serious and brings the reader all the way into the cartoon engine room." – Felix Rothstein, 5.12.2018
Politiken (Denmark)
This Week in Nancy: "Mass Hysteria" – Jeff Karnicky, 5.4.2018
Birds, Books, and . . .
"Best Comics-Related Book" – 4.23.2018
2018 Eisner Awards Nominations
Nancy Has Been in the Comics Since 1933. Now She Uses Snapchat. – George Gene Gustines, 4.23.2018
The New York Times
This new Nancy strip is lit and it's got people on the internet going crazy – Heidi McDonald, 4.20.2018
The Beat—the Newsblog of Comics Culture
‘Nancy’ has a cult following among many top comics pros. Here’s Why. – Michael Cavna, 4.12.2018
The Washington Post
Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden – Derek Royal and Gene Kannenberg Jr., 4.12.2018
Comics Alternative Interviews
"Just Go To: Zippythepinhead.com/pages/aaaunderstanding.com" – Bill Griffith, 4.5.18
Zippy The Pinhead
Deconstructing Nancy:
A classic comic from the early 20th century teaches the art of subtraction. – Dale Brumfield, 3.27.18
Style Weekly
New York Review of Books
Deconstructing "Nancy" – Don Harrison, 2.29.18
Richmondmag
Book Review by Jeff Alford
"Nancy has the strength to unmoor its readers in time and set them adrift,
and Karasik and Newgarden have the intelligence and passion to hold that
wormhole open. By repeatedly circling back to the nuances of a single strip,
the authors appear to make August 8, 1959 last forever." – Jeff Alford, 2.27.18
New Orleans Review
EYE Looks at Four Books and a DVD
"Cartoonists: buy this book, read it, and live it! – John Canemaker, 2.12.18
John Canemaker's Animated Eye
"The writing, never lulls, which is a miracle for a research book." – Pharoahmiles, 2.4.2018
Graphic Policy
How To Read Nancy and Zippy – ML, 4.5.18
Editing his balloons – ML, 2.14.18
Bushmiller, Strunk and Wilde – ML, 2.7.18
Nancy, spokestoon – Michael Leddy, 1.31.18
Orange Crate Art
The Boston Globe
The Virtual Memories Show with Gil Roth
Holiday Book List: For the Inspiration-seeker and the Composed Creative by Steven Heller, 12.21.2017
AIGA Design Observer
Inquiry with Mike Lynch
WICN radio
How to Read Nancy Reviewed by Frank Young, 12.15.2017
The Comics Journal
Looking Back on 2017: Literature
"Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden's astonishing How to Read Nancy is a sublime object, a book that's simultaneously a sensual pleasure to handle; a genius compilation of technical interventions for would-be cartoonists, practical jokers, and literary critics; a bundle of belly-laughs as delightful as a new puppy; and a kind of ontological "mise en abyme" which threatens to topple your sense of reality if you gaze into it too sustainedly." — Jonathan Lethem, 12.14.2017
Bomb Magazine
The Importance of Being Ernie: An Interview with the Authors of How to Read Nancy by Tom Heintjes, 12.04.2017
Hogan's Alley
When Brevity Underscores Genius, a Good Laugh Is Around the Corner by David Crisanti, 12.03.2017
Vineyard Gazette
The New York Times
Cartoon Research
No Thought to Our Interests by Tim Hodler, 11.27.2017
The Comics Journal
Ernie Bushmiller's Comic Perfection: How to Read Nancy by Bill Swislow, 11.26.2017
Interesting Ideas
Michael Shelley WFMU radio
The Underrated Art of Simplicity by Thad Komorowski, 11.18.2017
What About Thad?
The Comics Journal
How to Read Nancy: by Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik by Pat Padua, 10.25.2017
How Can You Not Love Nancy (or Sluggo)? by Steven Heller, 9.18.2017
Jerry Lewis’s last (Fore)Words by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, 9.1.2017
Blurbs
“As one of the members of the first graduating class of How to Read Nancy, I can insure that anyone who wants to understand the mechanics of comics should snap up this thorough (and thoroughly entertaining) extended autopsy of Bushmiller's genius. I learned more about reading pictures from it than I did from seven years of art school.”
— Chris Ware
“A stirring examination of the perfect comic strip and a touching love letter to its creator.”
— Dan Clowes
“Anyone who can come away from this book not understanding the complex thought that inhabits handcrafted objects, minimal abstraction, formalism, the hidden value of orchestration or Nancy should just give up on art as inscrutable and imponderable.”
— Gary Panter
“How to Read Nancy details the agony involved in making comic strips. It is also a very funny book.”
— Ben Katchor
“Professors Karasik and Newgarden want to take you to school. They throw down an inky gauntlet, and then back it up with almost absurd levels of elucidation. Filled with valuable lessons, this book is a tribute to the art of the simple, as exemplified by a master cartoonist.”
— David Mazzucchelli
“A crazy idea for a book.”
— R. Crumb