Peanuts Worldwide is getting an early jump on the comic strip’s 75th anniversary:
In honor of the 75th anniversary of Charles Schulz’s beloved comic strip, Peanuts, the company is back at San Diego Comic-Con with exclusives on the show floor, a pop-up shop, and more.
Inside the convention center, the festivities will be centered around Booth #1635, highlighting the newspaper origins of Schulz’ comic strip, as well as exclusive merchandise, and more. There will be daily giveaway buttons (each featuring a different character), as well as a Peanuts pop-up book from Abrams, and the English translation of a Japanese bio of Charles Schulz; merit badges featuring the characters; Hallmark Snoopy and Joe Cool plushies…
SDCC Unofficial Blog details the many exclusives and other items at the Peanuts San Diego Comic-Con booth.
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You’re a Good Manga, Charles Schulz
UDON Entertainment has announced the upcoming launch of a new series, Manga Biographies, which will bring the lives of some of history’s most interesting and influential individuals to the medium of Japanese manga. The series will debut with Manga Biographies: Charles Schulz, focusing on the life of the renowned creator of the Peanuts comic strip.
Manga Biographies: Charles Schulz is pitched as a 168-page manga graphic novel written and illustrated by Yuzuru Kuki. This authorized biography seeks to cover Schulz’s life, from his early years in Minnesota and his love of drawing to his time in the army and his rise to fame as a beloved cartoonist.
The Otaku’s Study shares news and illustrations of a new Charles Schulz biography drawn manga style.
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The Competitive World of Charles Schulz
Peanuts is known for its heartwarming, gentle humor – which is why it might surprise fans to learn that creator Charles Schulz was incredibly competitive by nature. This led him to view the comic industry as a “fight” to dominate the attention of newspaper readers on a day-to-day basis, something he did for much of the five decades Peanuts was in publication.
David Michaelis’ comprehensive account of the artist’s life and work, Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, details Schulz’s surprisingly adversarial stance toward other cartoons, and cartoonists. It also proposes that his criticisms of other artists stemmed from the same origin as his own motivation to consistently produce the best work possible.
Ambrose Tardive for ScreenRant looks at Schulz’s drive to stay at #1 as seen through the Michaelis book.
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Changing a Fussbudget
SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn. — A beloved member of the South St. Paul community is down but not out.
Jaclee Slaba, a local artist, has been hard at work repairing a statue of Lucy, the iconic character from the Peanuts comic strip.
Peanuts was created by St. Paul native, Charles Schulz.
The Lucy statue stood in front of the now-closed South St. Paul Library for almost a decade, and the years took their toll.
WCCO reports on repairing and remaking the old girl.
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Pogo, Howard the Duck, Snoopy for President
The promotion of “Snoopy for President” dates back to at least 1961 (possibly earlier, I don’t have great reference on it.) The idea is not limited to US presidential election years, but it does tend to swell then. There was not only merch but newspaper articles on it in 1968.
It did have a fair amount of newspaper visibility in 1976, but that was due the bread company that made Butternut and other brands promoting various campaign-oriented stickers that came in the bread sleeves. There were a dozen stickers, each customizable with your own information… and at least most of them were show in various ads.
Nat Gertler at The AAUGH Blog presents stickers from the 1976 politcal campaign.
It would be great for the Peanuts 75th. anniversary if it was alright for the Schulz estate to have some artists try out to revive the Peanuts comic strip for newspapers and gocomics.com with the winner determined by online vote.
I would try out for that.
In Schulz’s last Peanuts Sunday strip he specifically stated that his family didn’t want Peanuts to be continued by anyone else, so it’s doubtful the estate would ever allow someone else to write or draw it. I’m personally fine that because I don’t think anyone could create the magic in that strip that Schulz did.
They did create new comic book stories, and continue to create new TV shows. I would assume that a rhetorical comic strip project for the 75th Anniversary of Peanuts would be done only as a tribute, not to replace Mr. Schulz’s work. Replacing Schulz would be impossible.