Caroline Cash to take over the Nancy comic strip from Olivia Jaimes

From PeePee PooPoo to Sluggo. Caroline Cash has just been announced as the new cartoonist on the Nancy comic strip. 

Olivia Jaimes – the pen name for a webcartoonist whose true identity has never been revealed – is retiring after a smash hit eight year run on the strip. 

Cash, the Eisner and Ignatz winning creator of the hilarious humor comic Pee Pee Poo Poo, will take over on January 1, 2026, syndicate Andrews McMeel announced today. Reprints of strip by Nancy’s best known practitioner, Ernie Bushmiller will run until then. 

Cash is no stranger to Nancy: she had a guest stint during a sabbatical by Jaimes in 2024. 

 “Nancy has been a comic strip staple for more than 100 years,” said Brent Bartram, AMS President.  “She surged in popularity in recent years, as Jaimes’ revitalization of the strip brought national acclaim.  The modern sensibility that Jaimes brought to the iconic character will no doubt thrive under the tutelage of the Ignatz and Eisner Award-winning Cash.  We are confident that she will continue the tradition of the spirited whirlwind with her strong opinions, animated antics, and avoidance of work, among other things.”

“As a lifelong Nancy fan, I’m honored to be given the opportunity to draw my favorite comic strip,” said Cash.  “This is a real dream come true, and I look forward to sharing what I’ve been working on with everyone. A huge congratulations to Olivia on a truly incredible Nancy run and I hope she enjoys her retirement.” 

“Caroline is a brilliant cartoonist, and I’m thrilled to follow her take on this character we both love so much,” said Jaimes.  “I’m stepping down with a heart full of gratitude for my readers and warmth for anyone who discovered Ernie Bushmiller’s work through the new Nancy. It’s been an honor, but it’s time to move on to the next season of my life. Like rebooting Mafalda. Or maybe Little Lulu.”

Nancy currently runs in more than 100 print newspapers and can be read on GoComics.com.

Although comics strips are a niche product compared to their heyday in from the 30s to the 60s, Nancy has remained on of the few daily humor strips that people can relate to, mostly thanks to Jaimes’s reinvention of the strip with breaking the fourth wall, and Millennial-friendly jokes and memes. 

Under Bushmiller – who took over the feature Fritzi Ritz from strip creators Larry Whittington in 1925 – tyke tyrant Nancy become the focus of the strip, and the name was changed to Nancy. Renowned for its wry humor, mundane surealism, and complex formalism under the guise of geometric simplicity, Bushmiller’s Nancy has fascinated cartoonists for decades. Scott McCloud created a game called “Five Card Nancy” that used individual panels to tell stories. Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik investigated a single Nancy strip for 276 pages in How to Read Nancy. Bill Griffith made a comics biography of Bushmiller inThree Rocks. Essays and homages – and even a silk tie – have celebrated Nancy over the years. 

Jaimes’ takeover in 2018 sparked an internet conflagration for a while. As the first woman to actually work on the strip, Jaimes took on a pseudonym for safety reasons. The strip, hip, relevant and surreal in a way that continued tradition, immediately surged in popularity even as Jaimes’s real identity – a working webcartoonist in her 20s – remained a closely guarded secret. 

Cash has become famed in her own right over the last few years, with PeePee PooPoo’s blend of modern humor, deep cut comics homages, and sharply observed commentary winning awards and finding a growing readership. And if you doubt that she’s the right person to take over the hallowed strip, check out her previous run.