All throughout July we’re crowdsourcing an Extra Eisners Reading List from comics journalists and critics. Each weekday throughout the month, we’ll post a new pick we would have liked to have seen nominated for an Eisner. There are so many great comics, it’s impossible for the Eisners to recognize them all. This list is to honor and diversify the pool of work praised by the industry.

Today’s pick comes from Tiffany Babb…enjoy!

It takes a lot of skill to create something that feels both fresh and classic, and Olivia Jaimes’ Nancy does just that. This new Nancy may enjoy video games and have some friends who are not Sluggo, but she’s still Nancy. She’s still funny, she’s still self-absorbed, and she’s still, above all, wonderfully lazy. 

This collection of the first nine months of Jaimes’ strip is beautifully put together in a glossy, well designed hardcover. It includes the famous “Sluggo is lit” Labor Day strip as well as plenty of other Bushmiller-type meta-gags. 

A big part of the buzz around Olivia Jaimes’ Nancy is the mystery surrounding Jaimes herself. This volume’s extra content adds fuel to our wondering about the artist behind the pseudonym, including an introduction from Nancy editor Shena Wolf about working with Jaimes and a reprinted Vulture.com interview. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the volume is the inclusion of a portrait of the artist, by the artist. Of course, the portrait does not reveal Jaimes’ face— she’s turning away, her hair is pulled back into a bun and spiky in Nancy’s style, but it is yet another valuable clue to the puzzle of the writer who has been so adept at bringing Nancy back to life. -Tiffany Babb

Tiffany Babb’s writing about comics can be found in PanelxPanel and at Shelfdust.

Nancy: A Comic Collection
Writer/Artist: Olivia Jaimes
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
In 2018, Olivia Jaimes became the first woman to write and illustrate the classic comic strip Nancy. Her fresh, irreverent take on the classic comic strip has become a sensation with readers and has earned praise from dozens of media outlets, several of which have named it the best comic of the year. This hardcover collection includes the first nine months of Jaimes' run on Nancy, along with an introduction, essay, interview with the author, and a special gallery of Nancy fan art by the author.
Release Date: October 1, 2019

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