Peanuts: Search and Destroy

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The way I see it, Zippy = newer Peanuts. Same sort of Bizzaro World logic (including the, um, "sense of humor"), but w/out the baggage (that is, switching from the precendent set by previous Peanuts strips to some sort of strange zen-like state of contemplation). Zippy can do it BECAUSE that's been the strip's MO (as far as I can remember); Peanuts can't (at least, the way Schulz did it).

The same goes for Funky Winkerbean's transmogrification into a Melrose-Place-for-geeks cesspool. And regardless of FBOFW's past, turning into a hybrid of Mary Worth and Hi & Lois didn't do a damn thing for me. There's the "funny" page, and there's the "serious" page - STAY ON THE FUNNY PAGE DAMN IT.

Example of newer Peanuts (as seen on my bathroom wall): Lucy & Charlie on the pitchers mound. Lucy sez, "Here's the roster for the other team: Francis, Horatio, Ludwig, Chandler, Francisco, etc etc etc" - all these "unique" male names. Fourth panel - close-up of Charlie, wistful expression (akin to the "rapturous contemplation" look found in every damn FBOFW strip, but, y'know, Peanuts style), and he says, "No one's named Bill anymore." Um. Five cents, please?

Add to my list: Zits, Monty (PKA Robotman), Liberty Meadows, Soup to Nutz, and Rex Morgan MD (as long as Graham Nolan is the artiste).

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, Zits must be kept in the comics. Even though it's declined recently, for a while the writers had a great run going, where every strip would be insightful or funny, and often both.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 23:36 (twenty-three years ago)

i like the one with dogsh and catssh!! there's no jokesh really, just twee little happenshtances.

speaking of twee i don't much like the jokes in "rose is rose" but the art is AMAZING.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 23:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Zippy (the pinhead, yes, not Ziggy) is just written by a guy who has drunk a whole case of Miller Lite that has gone bad and thinks that his insights are really deep. Pass.

― Nicole (Nicole), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 23:56 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.lambiek.net/artists/mcdonnell/mcdonnell2a.jpg

Aw yeah, Mutts is nice.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 00:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Brr. Mutts always pissed me off, I freely admit. Not so much its tweeness as its...well, hard to say, but they were so relentlessly UNFUNNY, at least when I bothered to pay attention when everyone was saying how great it was. DB argues that that's the point, I realize, but I just saw these grim jokes that wouldn't pass for Highlights.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ned are you one of those chuckleheads who always assume the comics needs to be funny?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 01:17 (twenty-three years ago)

You ask me, a Peanuts fan, this.

Let me specify -- when humor was attempted, it was of the cheese variety. When soppiness was attempted, it made me want to pound walls down. When prompted to appreciate how wossname knows his comic artists of the past, I reflect on how The Boondocks looks like the first honestly modern strip in years. Etc.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 01:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Calvin & Hobbes is the greatest strip EVAH- I want to be Hobbes when I grow up. Actually, I love them so much that I swiped one of their comic strip lines for my server's 404 page; it's the geek way of showing appreciation for their humor.

― lyra (lyra), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 01:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Peanuts
June 10, 1997

One panel. Linus, Charlie, and Snoopy are lounging in A Forest. Linus & Charlie lean against a tree, Snoopy against a rock.

Linus: "I hear you've decided no to go to summer camp after all..."

Charlie: "When you have a dog, you should stay home, and make your dog happy ... that's what you should do ... you should stay home..."

Snoopy: "Except for those obviously necessary short trips in to buy dog food..."

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 02:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Read this every week:

http://www.citypaper.com/archives/funny.html

As for y'all's Zippy bashing: Interweb mentalists! Interweb mentalists! Interweb mentalists!

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 07:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't think of an American comic strip, other than Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes, in the last several decades that I think is terrifically good - the '20s and '30s seemed to produce countless masterpieces, but the last 50 years has been very poor. I've not seen Mutts, but the fact that the image posted has a couple of Herriman references makes me interested.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 16:35 (twenty-three years ago)

please explain this joke to me

http://www.deeptrancenow.com/images/marmaduke.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 17:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark S might be the only person in the world who reads Marmaduke. (Doesn't he want to hypnotise the dog into doing something - ie waking up. Typing it out like that does make this explanation sound absurd....)

Martin S - I'd say that the first ten years or so of Johnny Hart's BC are v. underrated; Mort Walker sustained a pretty gd standard on 'Beetle Bailey' for many years; and I love the drawing style of Dik Browne on 'Hagar' and 'Hi and Lois' - crosshatching to rival Crumb's. These are just off the top of my head, but my point is that 'Peanuts' is obv. a work of genius, but it wasn't THAT much better than many of its peers in the post-war gag strip stakes, at least for the first ten or so years of its run...

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 17:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I once saw a 'Wizard of Id' original where new dialogue balloons had been pasted over an old strip - you got two gags for the price of one if you bought the artwork, but talk abt yr cynical recycling...

Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy is indeed a rare and beautiful thing. As is 'Barnaby' by Crockett Johnson, Bill Watterson's main source for 'Calvin and Hobbes'.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 17:58 (twenty-three years ago)

What's not funny about this?

http://home.att.net/~k-doyle/Cats/mutts.jpg

besides anything, I mean. but it's so cute!

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 19:10 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.interestingideas.com/ii/pix/nanart3.gif

There. Now even Marmaduke seems hilarious.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 19:13 (twenty-three years ago)

god ernie bushmiller was a fucking genius.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 19:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark S, book is a book on dog training, owner wants to learn to train dog not to sleep on sofa (difficult thing to do- I've given up on mine) - and thinks hypnosis is the only way to do it b/c dog won't listen otherwise? That's just a guess.

Felicity, your cartoon is awesome.

― lyra (lyra), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 19:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Some good examples there, especially from Andrew, and I like most of the strips that have been mentioned, but I still think there is a substantial gap in standard between those and Schulz or Watterson. A much bigger gap that that between Herriman and Segar pre-WWII and the next best - Crane, Sterrett, Caniff, Capp, Sickles et al. Some might put any of those five ahead of my top two - I don't think that is true of Walker and Bushmiller - who are my two favourites of those proposed, cartoons I have collections of.

Is that a Bushmiller Nancy? He died in '82, but he was only "supervising" the strip from about '78 or '79. Willie Johnson did the dailies and ex-Superman artist Al Plastino did the Sundays. I really like EB's late Nancy strips, when it was so stunningly codified that there were rumours he used rubber stamps to produce the strip.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 20:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is that a Bushmiller Nancy?

good question, Martin. I thought so, although I can't read the date there. It's from here.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 20:09 (twenty-three years ago)

date = 1961?

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 20:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree. Isn't it weird how the lettering in older comics has that strange old-fashioned look to it?

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 20:20 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it read 1981, Mark. You might be right though. I am not claiming that I can tell whether it's Bushmiller or not - I don't think his art style was hard to imitate.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 21:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Martin, have you read Boondocks?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 21:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Non Sequitur (which is the poor man's The Far Side)

and the Dinette Set is the poor man's Non Sequitur

I do like Boondocks.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 21:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Boondocks (or at least the week-behind run on the ucomics website) is in another lacklustre Flagee and Ribbon patch, Dan, so shush and ask him again when it finishes. :)

I am having a spectacularly bad hair day here, if Jazmine could see me now then it'd definitely change her preconceptions of European hair.

― Rebecca (reb), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 22:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Now then, now then! *waves imaginary cigar around*
Must learn to construct proper sentences. Sigh.

― Rebecca (reb), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 22:02 (twenty-three years ago)

No, I've not seen Boondocks. The British press isn't like the US press, where the top strips are very widely syndicated and appear nearly everywhere. We have about ten national papers, and there is no strip overlap. My paper, The Guardian runs two, Doonesbury and what is something like a much more violent British parallel called If... (three dots, unlike the movie!). I don't know if Boondocks has appeared in any Brit paper. Can anyone give me a URL so I can see some?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 22:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Boondocks strips

Boondocks site

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 22:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes (thanks felicity) but also remember that the Flagee and Ribbon strips are as far as I'm concerned not as good as the normal character strips. Just an opinion, though, and mine at that.

― Rebecca (reb), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 23:24 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, they're not supposed to be. Flagee and Ribbon are the O'Reilly Factor scabs (see 9/21/02)

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 23:32 (twenty-three years ago)

just need to add: judging Peanuts on the past decade-plus and/or the merch is like judging Chuck Berry on his post-'60s stuff.

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 26 September 2002 02:23 (twenty-three years ago)

two months pass...

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 9 December 2002 05:07 (twenty-three years ago)

nine months pass...

Fantagraphics has just announced plans to reprint the Complete Peanuts, in order, from the beginning. First volume's due in April 2004.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 27 September 2003 01:17 (twenty-two years ago)

and this makes me happier than anything I've heard all week.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 27 September 2003 01:18 (twenty-two years ago)

wish i had a scanner, but this peanuts I actually had to cut out and save:

Panel 1:
Charlie Brown, awake in bed, staring at ceiling, snoopy sleeping draped over CB's feet: "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, can my generation look to the future with hope?"

Panel 2:
Charlie Brown, lying on side with very worried expression, and snoopy is now awake with identical furrowed brow:
"Then, out of the dark, a voice comes to me that says, 'Why, sure... well, I mean... that is... it sort of depends... I mean... if... when... who... we... and..."

October 23, 1995

most of them were bad, but every once in a while... pow.

― (Jon L), Saturday, 27 September 2003 04:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Older peanuts + the TV stuff = classic.

Only things I could give 2 seconds to these days is Mutts and Get Fuzzy.

― sucka (sucka), Saturday, 27 September 2003 04:16 (twenty-two years ago)

WHAT? WHAT? HOLY FUCKING SHIT. THAT IS UNBELIEVABLE.

A press release about this wondrous event.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Saturday, 27 September 2003 14:23 (twenty-two years ago)

It's weird, why didn't I react the way Mike did when I read that earlier! I think I was feeling more a sense of quiet satisfaction and approval. :-) I was just looking at some of my old and very worn small paperbacks the other day...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 September 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I hope this is enough of a cash cow to give Fantagraphics the freedom to reprint all sorts of other classic comics (not to say that I'm not superexcited by this).

― Chris P (Chris P), Saturday, 27 September 2003 15:25 (twenty-two years ago)

One thing that's amazing about it is the fact that something like 15% of all the Peanuts strips have never been reprinted. He wasn't very fond of his early work, and IIRC there hasn't been a "book of record" covering the 1950-1952 period in any methodical fashion since the very first reprint book went out of print back in the sixties.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Saturday, 27 September 2003 16:00 (twenty-two years ago)

He = Sparky in the above post.

Re-reading the article above, I see that it says over 50% of the first volume consists of stuff that's never been reprinted.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Saturday, 27 September 2003 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Which is something of a sticky wicket re: authorial intent, of course...

― Chris P (Chris P), Saturday, 27 September 2003 16:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I figure it's part of the public domain, it WAS published after all. And just about any comic writer will agree that it can usually take time to fully hit one's stride (Bill Watterson in the ten-year-anniversary Calvin and Hobbes book makes a variety of notes about characters and approaches in early days he didn't pursue later on -- in a parallel case, see also, as I'm sure you two will appreciate, the evolution of MST3K from KTMA to, say, third season).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 September 2003 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, that's an unusual use of the phrase "public domain", but yes. I mean, especially if it's clear to the reader that this is stuff the creator was trying to supress, then it seems OK, especially now that Peanuts is caught between being history and art.

― Chris P (Chris P), Saturday, 27 September 2003 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

And, I mean, Schulz must have known that these strips would be collected and published within a few years of his death -- and hopefully he was OK with it. (I should reread that huge interview in the Comics Journal a few years before he died.)

― Chris P (Chris P), Saturday, 27 September 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

http://www.fantagraphics.com/peanuts/cp_vol1.jpg

Sssexy!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 19 December 2003 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Ooh, I must have this.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Friday, 19 December 2003 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Hella.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

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