Nancy Woods is a fictional character, an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

, who appears in the Archie Comic books

Archie Comics

Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

. A friend of the whole gang, Woods dates Chuck Clayton

Chuck Clayton

Chuck Clayton is an African-American teenage fictional character published by Archie Comics. Chuck lives in the fictional town of Riverdale, and is the friend of Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Jughead Jones, and other students at Riverdale High School....

, a football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 player at Riverdale High.

History

Initially a token character, Nancy has started appearing in the Archie books more frequently since the late 1990s. Unlike the rest of the gang, she did not appear in animated form before her appearance in Archie's Weird Mysteries

Archie's Weird Mysteries

Archie's Weird Mysteries is an American animated children's television program, based on the successful Archie comics. The series premise revolves around a Riverdale High physics lab gone awry, making the town of Riverdale a "magnet" for B-movie style monsters.The show is distributed as meeting the...

. Unlike the other girls in Archie Comics, she has worn her hair in several different styles (in earlier appearances her hair was more often up). In the 2000s, she often wore glasses

Glasses

Glasses, also known as eyeglasses , spectacles or simply specs , are frames bearing lenses worn in front of the eyes. They are normally used for vision correction or eye protection. Safety glasses are a kind of eye protection against flying debris or against visible and near visible light or...

. Her last name was "Harris" when she first appeared, and has occasionally been "Baker" or "Jackson", but is now officially "Woods".

Nancy loves fashion, shopping, and having girls nights with her friends Betty Cooper

Betty Cooper

Betty Cooper is a fictional character of Archie Comics, the blonde-haired daughter of Hal and Alice Cooper. Betty likes sports, and is also a cheerleader. Betty was created in December 1941. Her older brother Chic Cooper and older sister Polly Cooper have both moved out of Riverdale, their hometown...

, Veronica Lodge

Veronica Lodge

Veronica Lodge is a fictional character in the Archie Comics books series.-Fictional history and character:She is called both by her name Veronica and her nickname Ronnie...

 and Midge Klump

Midge Klump

Midge Klump is a fictional character appearing Archie Comics.-History:The character of Midge was designed by Dan DeCarlo and bears an uncanny resemblance to pin-ups he did for men's magazines just before he started working for Archie Comics. She was originally created simply to serve as Moose's...

. She goes to Riverdale High. where she is a cheerleader and plays such sports as tennis and softball. She also works on the school newspaper, "The Blue and Gold", as both a reporter and editor. She is also known to be a talented artist, watercolor being her medium.

Relationship with Chuck

Unlike many of her friends, she and Chuck date appear to date exclusively with each other. In her early appearances, this was due to Archie Comics considering interracial dating controversial; a series of one-time African-American girls (Georgette, Liza, Gina, etc.), whom Chuck had a crush on, appeared before Nancy was officially his girlfriend's name. In later stories, their exclusive relationship has been mainly attributed to their preference to be devoted to each other.

Their relationship is not, however, entirely stable. A frequently-used story element is that Chuck pays so much attention to his cartooning

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

that he forgets about Nancy or fails to notice her, thus angering her. Despite being critical of Chuck's obsession, she has an interest and talent in art herself.