{"id":155986,"date":"2021-11-22T11:30:05","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=155986"},"modified":"2021-11-22T00:21:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T05:21:01","slug":"nancy-with-the-laughing-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/11\/22\/nancy-with-the-laughing-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy with the Laughing Face"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Lauren Williams, Amanda Gersten, Olivia Kan-Sperling, and Lauren Kane, members of the Review’s editorial staff, on the office fire escape. Photos: Elias Altman<\/p><\/div>\n

The writer and artist Joe Brainard, who once put together an exhibition of 1,500 tiny collages, knew the importance of the little things in life: seashells, matches, expensive sweaters that are, as he put it in \u201cThe Outer Banks<\/a>,\u201d a poem first published in the Review<\/i> in 1981, \u201cthe kind of plain you pay for.\u201d His relationship with the magazine began in 1966, when he and his partner, the New York School poet and editor Kenward Elmslie, coauthored the comic \u201cThe Power Plant Sestina<\/a>,\u201d published in issue no. 38. Brainard\u2019s contributions to the Review<\/i> also include the cover art, \u201cPansy<\/a>,\u201d for issue no. 61 (Spring 1975) and the portfolio \u201cAmazing But True<\/a>,\u201d in issue no. 53. In one of our most beloved house ads, he dressed Ernie Bushmiller\u2019s comics character Nancy\u2014who graced more than a hundred of Brainard\u2019s works between 1963 and 1978\u2014in a Paris Review\u00a0<\/em>tee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Joe Brainard’s ad for issue no. 54, Summer 1972. Nancy \u00a9 Andrews McMeel Syndication for UFS. Used by permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

To celebrate Brainard and the Review<\/i>\u2019s new design, which draws from the issues of the seventies, we are offering Nancy tees and sweatshirts, and several other items besides. Brainard, who died at the age of fifty-two in 1994, always felt strongly about clothes. Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he hoped to become a fashion designer\u2014a local newspaper proclaimed him a \u201cbudding Dior\u201d (and quoted his mother, Marie, as saying: \u201cJoe thinks it\u2019s terribly unfashionable when I wear anything other than spiked heels\u201d). We hope he would deem our Nancy clothing, in the very best sense, the kind of plain you pay for.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

You can preorder our new merch here<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nancy graced more than a hundred of Joe Brainard\u2019s works, including one of our most beloved house ads, in which he dressed her in a Paris Review tee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2559],"tags":[538,67827,6870,68312,3354],"class_list":["post-155986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulletin","tag-fashion","tag-featured","tag-joe-brainard","tag-nancy-comics","tag-polaroids"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNancy with the Laughing Face by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 22, 2021 \u2013 Nancy graced more than a hundred of Joe Brainard\u2019s works, including one of our most beloved house ads, in which he dressed her in a Paris Review tee.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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