{"id":15314,"date":"2018-04-14T12:07:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-14T17:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=15314"},"modified":"2018-04-14T12:07:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-14T17:07:30","slug":"writing-so-much-about-so-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/04\/14\/writing-so-much-about-so-little\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing So Much About So Little"},"content":{"rendered":"

A post title which would also apply to quantum mechanics, but not in this case. Instead, it’s about a nearly 300 page book dedicated to a single cartoon strip. I haven’t actually read it (my unread stack is too high already), so let’s go to Pat Padua’s review<\/a> in Spectrum Culture<\/strong><\/em> back in October ’17:<\/p>\n

You\u2019re heard of the 33 1\/3rd series of small books written about a single beloved album? Cartoonists Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik take the deep reading approach even further with a 276-page book about a three-panel comic strip\u2014a single, three-panel Nancy strip published on August 8, 1959. How to Read Nancy is a nearly 300-page expansion of an article that the authors wrote in 1988 for the collection, The Best of Ernie Bushmiller\u2019s Nancy that seemed to be the definitive analysis of an often-dismissed art form. It turns out that article was just the beginning.<\/p>\n

Coming under microscopic analysis is a strip that depicts a variation on the old \u201chose gag.\u201d Nancy, whose face we never see in this particular strip, watches from a distance as Sluggo, armed with a water pistol, confronts neighborhood kids with the Western clich\u00e9, \u201cDraw, you varmint!\u201d (Crucially, as the authors note, punctuation is merely implied.) In the final panel, Sluggo approaches his goil with the same warning; but unbeknownst to the would-be gunslinger, Nancy\u2019s holster sheaths the end of a long garden hose ready to burst his bubble.<\/p>\n

It seems simple enough, but those three panels, with their sharply-defined lines, selective blacks and significant negative space, hold a world of context and myriad decisions that make it work so efficiently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ability to isolate the aesthetic elements of a particular art form from a single specimen can often help clarify the process to a successful rendition of other members of that art form. They can also speak to those elements which derive from the evolutionary drives to which we’re all subject in this cultural context. While that may seems a sterile enough sentiment, there’s something satisfying in understanding why a particular art work really works – or if it’s admirers are really just poseurs.<\/p>\n

And, really, I wasn’t aware that Nancy<\/em> had such a large following.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A post title which would also apply to quantum mechanics, but not in this case. Instead, it’s about a nearly 300 page book dedicated to a single cartoon strip. I haven’t actually read it (my unread stack is too high already), so let’s go to Pat Padua’s review in Spectrum \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15315,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15314\/revisions\/15315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}