From a Prince comic book, three illustrations: Excellent artwork, in my opinion, although the likeness is closer to Mario Van Peebles than Prince.
That Bushmiller Nancy strip reminded me of my first job with a real paycheck. The guy who trained me(I'm retire and he still is my best boss,RIP) ran the building "numbers game"-a poor person's lottery usually run by organized crime. This racket did not use the usual race track info for their chosen number. The guy tried to explain ( I never quite understood the scam)that it had to do with the how many of Nancy's fingers could be seen in each panel. Nancy was one of the few cartoon-style characters that actually had five digits on each hand(many cartoons were drawn with four digits,making them easier to draw and fit in the space). Nancy was usually a four-block daily(three here,since the last block takes up two spaces). So,if I understand the system, the first panel shows Nancy with nine digits,the second there are five and Nancy doesn't show up ion the last two,so that counts(I think)as 0 and 0. The winning number would be 9-5-0-0. I never bet but do remember a day when a sucker bet(a number that many bet out of laziness but rarely pays off)came in the the guy was not in the plant for many days to escape paying off the winning number. The flaws in this system(e.g.-the comic strip was usually set up weeks in advance) with many folks in the know well in advance,but,remember,this was a poor person bet and many bettors had little education and little hope,save for a few cents spent each day in a get-rich scheme. Add to that,Nancy was a comic clearly drawn by Bushmiller(studied today as a icon of newspaper comics) and could be consumed by almost anyone,regardless of age or education.Bushmiller also had a knack for the occasional absurd moment that defied logic but for many,no matter what their background,still gave a chuckle. Nancy,bless her heart,stills exists after 84 years with new material every day.
Ha! Nice job of posting that strip mmars had trouble with, sallymae... but I challenge you to post the July 11 2017 Baldo strip (which can be seen here:Baldo by Hector D. Cantu and Carlos Castellanos for Jul 11, 2017 | GoComics.com ) I was unable to find a way to post the image.
Jump Start was in the Toronto Sun for several years but was dropped as far back as 1994. It was one of their best strips at the time too. It was replaced by Baby Blues, which isn't bad, and certainly has had plenty of moments over the years. Jump Start always had a musical sensibility. I'm relying on memory here from a quarter-century ago, but I recall a strip where the protagonist (the black cop) said to another character that he wouldn't go to see a show by one of the big acts of the day (one was mentioned in the strip, it might have been New Kids on the Block). The other character asked, "Because of the horrible screeching fans"? And the cop answers, "No, because of the horrible screeching singers!".
