After 48 Years, One Masterpiece Nancy Strip Has Finally Gone Viral

While The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes are continual favorites that are shared across social media each and every day, some other classic comic strips only get to go viral from time to time. For Nancy — which has been running in one form or another since the precocious, spiky-haired child took over her Aunt Fritzi's story in 1938 — its first viral moment hit in 2018 when its then new artist, Olivia Jaimes, created a Labor Day strip showing "upcoming" jokes that included the now famous "Sluggo is Lit" moment. Jaimes stayed on the book until the end of 2025, and while they never had another moment to break into the public consciousness to the same extreme, their run was widely regarded as the best since Nancy creator Ernie Bushmiller's run ended in 1982.

Jaimes was succeeded by Caroline Cash, best known for her Eisner-winning autobiographical comic, PeePee PooPoo, and Adventure Time: The Bubbline College Special. Cash brought Nancy back to her roots by focusing on the classic "joke-of-the-day" format with a heavy lean on abstract humor, similar to what Busmiller did in his run. She also added a bit of a punk rock feel to the strip, partly because of her art style, and partly because of her personality. Cash's run was quickly met with love from fans, but two months into her run, she hit pay dirt when a Sunday strip went viral. Making this one all the more special, Cash's strip was playing off an old Bushmiller joke.

Sluggo Has Woims

While Nancy is the heart of the strip, it's hard to argue that her best pal and sometimes boyfriend Sluggo isn't the character readers love most. From his introduction in 1938, Sluggo has been a character who is as likely to make the reader laugh as they are to cry over the tragedy of his life. While Nancy and Aunt Fritzi live in a nice home and exist in a middle-class utopia, Sluggo is a poor ragamuffin who sleeps in a home that is actively collapsing with his uncle, who never seems to be around. Like any poor kid from the 1930s, Sluggo talks with a thick no-nonsense "city" accent, saying things like "Dis log is driftin' towards dat lighthouse!" or, as Ernie Busmiller wrote in a three-panel strip from February 22, 1978, "They pay me in woims."

This strip, where Sluggo reveals to Nancy that he gets paid in worm while working at a bait shop, has been a favorite with longtime Nancy fans, but it didn't break out and become beloved by the masses until Caroline Cash celebrated its 48th anniversary with her own take on it. Using a Sunday strip, she essentially recreated the Bushmiller strip in the first two panels, then uses the next four to put her spin on it as Sluggo repeats "Woims. They pay me in woims" as Nancy tries to make sense of it all.

Cash's strip quickly took off on social media, and with good reason. Her timing in the strip is impeccable, and even people who were unaware of its connection to Bushmiller's strip can get the joke. Plus, the blank expression on Nancy's face as she tries to comprehend what Sluggo has just told her is pure comic gold. Since then, it has become common for people on Twitter and Bluesky to celebrate "Woim Wednesday," sharing either Cash's or Bushmiller's strip.

Ernie Bushmiller Has His Own Viral Strips

Ernie Bushmiller passed away in 1982 while still working on Nancy, and while the strip continued after his death, it became something akin to background noise until Olivia Jaimes took over and revitalized it, giving Nancy a 21st century spin while wiping away decades of continuity, including getting rid of Aunt Fritzi's marriage. With the new attention on the strip, Bushmiller's work began to find new fans and, soon enough, some of his older strips started to make their mark on social media.

Bushmiller's style, quick, easy but inventive jokes with clean, simple art made it perfect for memes, and three moments really caught on. One full strip, where Nancy tries to get a loan of $2 from a bank manager so she can go to the circus, was quickly reworked by online artists to turn into different gags.

A panel of Nancy lying in a dresser drawer saying "No," became a quick and easy response to a post someone didn't like or, more often, used to greet the day by people who didn't want to get out of bed.

And two separate panels of Sloggo also became popular memes. The first, a panel of Slugoo heading up a flight of stairs saying, "I'll spend the day up in the attic reading old comic books" is widely shared by comic book readers. And one of Sluggo saying, "I'm bored - - I think I'll become a beatnik" has been shared by people stuck at work with nothing to do.

And, with her "woims" strip, Caroline Cash has joined in on the meme fun. And, if her run up to this point is any indication, that won't be her only one. In other words, you should be reading Nancy these days.