New "Peanuts" material from Kaboom??
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
^^ That always cracks me up.
As for Stephen Pastis, I've been reading his comics for years and I corresponded with him briefly and I get the impression that he would handle Peanuts with integrity. The cynical edge of his writing is driven by underlying heart and compassion, not the usual adolescent bitterness. That's what makes it work.
As for Stephen Pastis, I've been reading his comics for years and I corresponded with him briefly and I get the impression that he would handle Peanuts with integrity. The cynical edge of his writing is driven by underlying heart and compassion, not the usual adolescent bitterness. That's what makes it work.
Pastis is the only reason I'm not foaming at the mouth with rage over this news. That and the fact that this is really just an adaptation of a cartoon that was adapted from something Schulz actually wrote, not unlike the book adaptations of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" and "Snoopy Come Home" back in the day.
OTOH if this becomes a monthly or, god forbid, they start up a zombie daily then I'm going to Bill Bixby with white eyes levels of pissed off.
OTOH if this becomes a monthly or, god forbid, they start up a zombie daily then I'm going to Bill Bixby with white eyes levels of pissed off.
All growed up.
I'd buy THAT for a dollar
but seriously, for all the kids spouting bible quotes in that strip, they sure did portray a lesbian dom and sub fairly accurately
As Patty observes to Weapon, "she's kind of a weird kid."
Nah. Not really. Patty was a tomboy and Marcie was a shy kid but both of them had crushes on Charlie Brown.
The real "serious" question is what does it say about grown men who can't help but sexualize a strip about little kids?
Eh. They're probably doing it for research purposes.
Wasn't it He's a Bully, Charlie Brown! that really played around with that? The kids have gone to summer camp, and it's Marcie that keeps ending up spending time with Charlie Brown, and Patty keeps getting upset and flustered by that? I didn't really like that special overall (the animation style didn't sit right with me), even though I loved the Joe Agate story from the comic strip years ago, but the storytelling heart was in the right place.
I always thought it was a humorous exaggeration, until I flipped to the comics one day and there was a particular strip that involved Marcie calling Charlie Brown on Patty's behalf, with some really odd dialog. I can't remember specifics right now, just that I found it hard to believe that Schultz wouldn't have been aware of the not-at-all-subtle subtext he was working into that. I guess it was just a more innocent time?
Well, that's because it's not a strip about little kids. Most readers get that.
Just did a little research. Apparently, Schultz admitted that Marcie was based on his friend, Billie Jean King, shortly before he died. Might not mean anything, but....
Having reached the current end of the run on "Blockhead's War" (update 216) over at Yungbluth's site I must say that I look forward to the climax of the story with some trepidation. Things never do really work out for Good Ol' Weapon Brown...but at least
he got laid by Orphan Anne. 
Pastis is great, and I'm sure he did a terrific job on the Peanuts special. I got a kick out of the way he coordinates his parodies with other cartoonists. I contacted him when I used Rat in my web comic, and he was really nice. He seems like a great guy.
BOOM!'s graphic novel version of Happiness is a Warm Blanket is really interesting. Storywise, it's tighter than the cartoon (which is longer than I think it needed to be, as they were trying to give material to all the major characters) and I'd say that I liked it more than the cartoon, but that's not why it's interesting.
It's the style.
The artwork, very deliberately, looks like Schulz's work, circa 1961. Each page of the graphic novel is basically one or two Peanuts strips, reworked and reformatted to fit a single comic book page. If you ever wondered what Schulz's work would have been like, had Peanuts been a single-page gag comic instead of a daily four-panel comic strip, that's exactly what the graphic novel is. It's like reading an alternate universe Peanuts.
The next special is supposed to be based on the Snoopy vs. the Red Baron strips. This worries me a bit, because I'm concerned with how they'll handle Snoopy's thought balloons.
It's the style.
The artwork, very deliberately, looks like Schulz's work, circa 1961. Each page of the graphic novel is basically one or two Peanuts strips, reworked and reformatted to fit a single comic book page. If you ever wondered what Schulz's work would have been like, had Peanuts been a single-page gag comic instead of a daily four-panel comic strip, that's exactly what the graphic novel is. It's like reading an alternate universe Peanuts.
The next special is supposed to be based on the Snoopy vs. the Red Baron strips. This worries me a bit, because I'm concerned with how they'll handle Snoopy's thought balloons.
Probably no worse than Schultz, though the strip didn't really jump the shark until Woodstock showed up.
