Phoebe, Millie, et al.

April 13, 2022 9:04 PM

Phoebe and Her Unicorn is just about ten years old. Its initial syndication deal in 2015 introduced it to over 100 different newspapers, it has fourteen printed collections in your local library and/or bookstore, with more on the way, and it's set to become a Nickelodeon animated series next year. It's the whimsical adventures of a nine-year-old girl, a justifiably self-absorbed unicorn, and their attempts to understand the world and each other. But before Phoebe, Dana Simpson wrote several other comics:

Ozy and Millie was an online webcomic running from 1998 to 2008, telling the story of Ozymandias Justin Llewellyn, a calm and philosophical gray fox boy raised by dragons, Millicent Mehitabel Mudd, a witty and rambunctious red fox girl whose father is a pirate captain, and their friends and family. It featured many similar dynamics to Phoebe and Her Unicorn, most specifically the fantasy race with strange fonts and stranger ideas about life (dragons in Ozy, unicorns in Phoebe), as well as occasional bouts of topical/political humor.

In the latter years of Ozy and Millie, between 2004 and 2007, Dana also ran a political webcomic called I Drew This, venting her frustrations with the George W. Bush presidency and its reactions from the media, the Democratic party, and so on. After Ozy and Millie ended she briefly attempted an online graphic novel called Raine Dog, most of which is no longer available.

Then in 2009 she won Amazon's Comic Strip Superstar contest with a new comic, named simply "Girl" after the title character and recycling several specific Ozy and Millie punchlines. By November 2011, she was ready with a first draft of the resulting comic, which returned to Ozy and Millie's formula of two main characters who are both interesting: Heavenly Nostrils, after the unicorn's full name of Marigold Heavenly Nostrils. A second draft followed next month, with further refinements to plot and characterization, and then finally the strip was ready to begin. (It kept the "Heavenly Nostrils" name for three years before rebranding to Phoebe and Her Unicorn.)

Dana Simpson was initially inspired by Bloom County, among other comics. Marigold the unicorn is additionally inspired by The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, who wrote the introduction to the first printed collection. Dana has also worked on other projects, such as illustrating I'm Not a Girl, a children's book about a transgender boy written by a transgender boy. (Dana herself is transgender too.)

(Previously)

posted by one for the books (13 comments total)

Well this is utterly delightful!

I had never heard of Phoebe or her unicorn, so I am greatly looking forward to exploring the strip and the characters.

(A few clicks of the Random button at Go Comics brought me to this excellent early-ish strip: Phoebe's wish.)

(Also, this random Ozy and Millie strip is pretty great: we can't do that now.)

I haven't discovered a syndicated comic strip I liked a lot since Cul de Sac. I'm really excited about catching up with ten years of Phoebe and Marigold.

Thank you so much for posting this, one for the books!
posted by kristi at 9:50 PM on April 13, 2022

I used to read Ozy and Millie pretty devotedly back when it was being updated. A friend of mine was amazed at how wise Simpson could be at that age. Anyway, it's delightful.
posted by suetanvil at 5:17 AM on April 14, 2022

Dana Simpson! I wasn’t expecting to see her today! Oh man, Ozy and Millie was one of my favorite comics way back when. I used money with my first debit card from my first job to buy an Ozy and Millie shirt off of the internet! It’s rad Nickelodeon is picking up her comic, good for her! She’s been working a long time to get here.
posted by gc at 5:17 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I had no idea Pheobe... was syndicated. Like, I knew the strip was orders of magnitude more successful than Ozy and Millie and the compiled volumes have been on my go-to book gift list and I've sometimes even bought copies of them in actual physical stores, but I had no idea it was this successful, much less on the verge of becoming a Nickelodeon-produced animated series. Shows how long it's been since I've been actively following newspaper comics (also how few comics my local paper actually carries).

This is very much deserved, and congratulations Dana! She's always been destined for comics greatness. Ozy and Millie was always that webcomic which couldn't be described without accidentally invoking Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes and it was certainly my favorite.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:20 AM on April 14, 2022

Like RonButNotStupid, I had no idea it ran in newspapers. I only know it from the books my niece reads.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:34 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I did not know that it existed, let alone that it had been syndicated; I followed Ozy and Millie back in the day, but had very little time for I Drew This and definitely did not think Raine Dog worked - a creator maybe doing something that was a little too far out of their wheelhouse.

Anyway, I'm glad to see she's doing well, especially with something that seems to have taken the best parts of Ozy and Millie and left the parts that didn't work quite as well behind.
posted by Merus at 6:01 AM on April 14, 2022

I read Ozzy and Millie back in the day, but hadn't followed what Simpson had been up to since. It's a fun comic.
posted by sfred at 6:42 AM on April 14, 2022

I remember this being posted an age ago - it seemed charming as heck, and the idea that a newspaper strip can still be popular enough to become an animated series is mind-boggling. Good job, cartoonist!
posted by Going To Maine at 7:11 AM on April 14, 2022

There is a little Phoebe board book called “Today I’ll be a Unicorn” that my toddler enjoys me reading to her, I’m excited for the day when she finds out there’s so many more stories about these characters!
posted by lepus at 11:31 AM on April 14, 2022

My daughter read and re-read and RE-read the whole series during the pandemic. Not sure that she "got" all of the references (I didn't!) but they really got her hooked on reading. We had a yard sale recently and she decided to add them to the sale. I was pretty shocked, but if she's ready to move on to other things, eh. The mom and daughter who bought the collection were extremely excited!
posted by medeine at 12:58 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Phoebe and her unicorn is internationally successful as well. It has been translated to at least German and I have gifted a couple to a now 9 year old.
posted by mmkhd at 2:25 PM on April 14, 2022

Phoebe is a big favorite of my (10-yo) granddaughter, and therefore of mine as well.
It matches her sense of humor exactly.
Not sure I like the unicorn as much as Phoebe though...
posted by MtDewd at 6:14 PM on April 14, 2022

I've been following Pheobe and Marigold for perhaps five years. When I culled by GoComics account a few years ago, I never even considered deleting Phoebe.
posted by lhauser at 8:03 PM on April 14, 2022