Random Acts Of Violence Against Ernie Bushmiller

Ugh, I was going to politely refrain from mentioning this horror.

United Feature Syndicate has a new daily feature, Random Acts of Nancy, credited to Guy Gilchrist and John Lotshaw. Here is their description:

In the 81+ years that Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy and her pals have been cavorting around the funny papers, there have been many surreal, bizarre, manic, unexplainable panels of fun!

Every day, we will bring you one of those moments. If you are dazed, confused, and don't have any clue why and how you are being entertained … You are now a true Nancy fan. We of "Three Rocks" salute you! Brought to you by Guy Gilchrist and John Lotshaw. 

A presentation of isolated panels, often particularly unusual when removed from context, from old Nancy strips. What a fantastic idea! Why didn't I ever think of that? Oh, wait, that's right, I did.

To be fair, I'm hardly the first person to do this, but it seems pretty obvious that UFS "borrowed" the "Random Acts of Nancy" idea from this blog. Hey, they're the rights holders! Fair enough! It's their "property." As I mentioned in my last post, I'm an image services and permissions professional, so what can I say?

Well, what I can say is that Gilchrist just isn't all that good at picking out great Nancy panels. In fact, he's pretty uninspired. Also, OMG what is up with the terrible, horrible, unbelievably bad coloring with the exaggerated fake halftone patterns? Is that Mr. Lotshaw's contribution? These panels all come from strips which were originally published in black and white; this is modern Photoshop coloring, and it is... beyond atrocious. Awful.

On a side note, the comments sections are kind of funny/sad. Some people have pointed out how they "stole" the idea for the feature, but the comments I really like are the ones that say, basically, "Oh, this reminds me of when Nancy was good!" Gilchrist himself participates, and eventually started getting defensive and pissy, which practically makes me levitate with happiness. Keep in mind that Gilchrist is the hired hack who has been drawing the grotesque zombie Nancy which still runs in newspapers today, and that he is guilty of transforming Fritzi Ritz into a trashy alt-Loretta-Lynn rockabilly babe, so please spare me from feeling sorry for him:

Let’s chat about exploitation and piracy. These are copyrighted works. There is only one entity that controls the copyrights for United features and upholds the rights of Ernie Bushmiller. There is only one other entity. That is my company. This “Gilchrist” person who has been writing and drawing NANCY for 19 years. Also, I am the only legal licensing agent of this work. I was going to let you dig a bigger hole….so…don’t mind me…keep shovelling [sic].

This is because somebody is relentlessly trolling him in his own comments section, which is mean and hilarious and great and, no, ha ha, not me.

And, bummer, Gilchrist hints in other comments that they're coming up with other ideas of how to exploit and abuse Bushmiller's creation, so yay! Stay tuned!