After about five Halloweens spent in our patented costumes of “Stoners on the Couch,” this year my fella Jake and I decided to get dressed up and hit the town.

After a small amount of discussion, we decided to go as Nancy and Sluggo, the stars of the Depression-era-and-beyond comic strip Nancy, whose commemorative stamp is pictured above. We both grew up reading Nancy, and found both the girl and her strip completely baffling yet somehow entrancing. As comic genius Lynda Barry puts it, “Nancy was my most favorite comic strip when I was growing up because it was so beautiful and strange and boring and homely and mysterious and normal. I could never not read it.” (Also, since childhood, I’ve been attracted to guys who look vaguely like Sluggo, so the opportunity to see my already vaguely-Sluggoesque boyfriend don full Sluggo regalia was a dream come true.)

Dressing like Sluggo means putting on a T-shirt and a hat. Dressing like Nancy means replicating the look of the weirdest-looking little girl in comic-strip history. Jake said he’d make the costume (he makes things for a living) and I said I’d wear it.

Once I’m ready to become the type of person who puts photos of himself dressed as Nancy on the internet, I will.

Until then, please enjoy this photo of the Nancy wig.

(All praise to Jake.)