However much accidental surrealism sometimes crept into his venerable comic strip “Nancy,” Ernie Bushmiller was apparently a pretty straightlaced, conservative guy. Who knows how he’d feel about his most famous character being handed off recently to a pot-smoking lesbian cartoonist whose resume includes a comic book series called PeePee-PooPoo. Not to worry; Caroline Cash’s “Nancy” has the same sort of silly/clever set-ups and payoffs as Bushmiller’s version, plus the occasional dose of fourth-wall breaking meta humor per the original, with just a few fashion tweaks to remind you what decade you’re in.
Cash’s comic PeePee-PooPoo is something of a throwback too, to the solo-artist alt-comix anthology titles of the ‘80s and ‘90s, such as Dan Clowes’s Eightball. The cover of each issue is a pitch-perfect pastiche of some notable alternative cartoonist’s work: Clowes, R. Crumb, Charles Burns, Julie Doucet, and (deep cut here) Patricia Moodian, who drew the cover for the feminist underground Wimmen’s Comix #1 in 1972.
The numbering on the series is a little wacky: the first issue is #1, the second is #420 and the third #1 The fourth is #80085 — and if you didn’t notice that that spells “BOOBS,” you’re more mature than I am, which might be a liability if you want to read a comic called Peepee-Poopoo. Regarding the title, Cash told The Comics Journal, “I just thought I’d be dumb. That’s how I feel when I think of classic alternative comix-with-an-X-type comix, they’re all named like Squirt or Piss or Shit, you know? I thought it’d be pretty in line with that.” The content is not far off from those older comix either — self-effacing auto-bio tales of slacking, hanging out in bars, buying bras, eating, drinking, smoking and toking, and going on first dates.
Cash lampoons various hipster types, casts her first tax season as a gladiatorial blood sport, and muses over whether poop can be vegan. Her early love of manga shows in some of her page layouts and character designs, though she cites Clowes, Alison Bechdel, Scott Pilgrim and Adventure Time as influences as well. To sweeten the deal, the Silver Sprocket-published editions of the comic each come with a sheet of stickers in the back! PeePee-PooPoo is droll, dopey (in both senses of the word), smart-dumb humor in a laid-back, retro vein.
I am going to have to look into this as well as visit your store. I just discovered you today in the back of The Imp #4. Perhaps you can assist me in my constant fueling of my addiction and obsession with 70’s/80’s/90’s underground adult comix and solo adultos historietas/sensacionales/ghetto librettos. I would love to talk about the concept of a neat-O spot like yours maybe carrying a few titles of ours as well! – Fénix Ramírez (GACK!! COMIX MEXICO) P.S. we live in Detroit 😉