Nancy and Sluggo #185

History

After wrapping his legendary fourteen-year stint on Little Lulu with issue #135 in early 1959, writer-artist John Stanley moved directly to Dell's Nancy comic book series, beginning with issue #162 and scripting through at least #185. Stanley worked in his characteristically storyboard-like fashion, supplying rough visual layouts with dialogue that other artists rendered into finished pages — a method he had refined across thousands of pages of Dell comics. During this run, Dell's Nancy issues also routinely carried backup strips featuring Charles Schulz's Peanuts, which was then in a period of rapid cast expansion; Frieda, the curly-haired new Peanuts character who debuted in the newspaper strip on March 6, 1961, would plausibly have appeared in Peanuts backup pages in late-1961 issues such as #185. Hy Eisman also contributed art to some Dell Nancy stories during the 1960–61 period alongside Stanley's scripts.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published December 1961 by Dell Comics as part of the Nancy and Sluggo series, which ran from #146 through #187 (1957–1962) under Dell before transitioning to Gold Key.
• Issue #185 falls within John Stanley's scripting run on the title, which began at #162 and extended through at least #185 — Stanley's first major assignment after leaving Little Lulu in early 1959.
• Stanley used the Dell Nancy comic books to introduce original supporting characters, most notably Oona Goosepimple (a proto-gothic child living in a haunted house) and Mr. McOnion (Sluggo's crabby neighbor), who brought a distinctive dark-comedy edge to the gag-strip format.
• The series carried Peanuts backup strips — Frieda, the Peanuts character known for her 'naturally curly hair,' debuted in the Peanuts newspaper strip on March 6, 1961, making her appearance in late-1961 Dell Nancy backup pages (such as those in #185) among her earliest comic-book appearances.
• The title was retitled from Nancy to Nancy and Sluggo with issue #174 (January–February 1960), so #185 appeared under the co-starring title that elevated Sluggo to equal billing.
• Ernie Bushmiller — the strip's original newspaper creator — won the National Cartoonists Society's Humor Comic Strip Award for 1961, the same year this issue was published, reflecting the strip's mainstream recognition at the time.
• Dell's run on the series ended two issues later with #187; Gold Key picked up the numbering at #188 (1962), meaning #185 is among the final three Dell issues of the title.
• Stanley's Dell Nancy work was later reprinted in four volumes of the John Stanley Library (Drawn & Quarterly, 2009–2013), bringing renewed critical attention to the comic-book stories he created during this exact period.

Cast · 3 characters