Peanuts: Search and Destroy

I'll have to stick up for the Red Baron sequences, at least the original ones in the '60s. Yes the emphasis on Snoopy and Woodstock in later years and downplaying of Charlie Brown (and Lucy, who pretty much became a nonentity except for the football episodes) was depressing. But, I still think the idea of a dog pretending to be a World War I Flying Ace (flying a SOPWITH CAMEL, yet, and somehow knowing the names of all the French towns he's flying over) is the most bizarre idea ever to hit the comics. It makes Calvin and his pseudo-Buck Rogers fantasies look positively normal.

Wasn't the message of the show A Charlie Brown Christmas about "the true meaning of Christmas" as opposed to commercialism--that is, shopping, for example? Of course, with all the Snoopy dolls, and comic strip collections and games and greeting cards and everything else, we must realize that the "true meaning" is to go out and buy!

I think the strip also began to quit emphasizing the holiday at that time as well.

But the writer (or writers) went through the same plots of Lucy yanking the football from Charlie Brown, of Charlie Brown losing ballgames, etc. even as Snoopy got lost in the desert with his brothers. The new stories didn't make sense and the old ones were worn out. Worse, one wonders if any of the newspapers actually had the guts to drop the strip in favor of newer strips.

The strip had become a narcotic. Had it not been there, perhaps more newspaper editors and readers would have demanded change. But they remained set in their ways--and too many still do. We should be thankful that a few papers have dropped the Peanuts comic strip, but that number is too few.

They are great because they are lame! They make the other ones seem funny.

Am I missing something?

(+ I thought old C&Hs were being reprinted in newspapers, but maybe I'm wrong.)

I sincerely doubt it...newspaper publishers don't like the comic strips in the first place because they take up valuable space that could be used on ad pages. This is why the size of the comics has been shrunken down so much over the past 15 years or so. If the current comic strips were done away with they would not be replaced. Esp. since the readership for newspapers in general has aged so much.

Gil Thorp has REALLY gone in the shitter. It's barely literate! (And no points for the Orel Hershiser guest appearance!)

Zippy is godawful. Sorry.

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).

Aw yeah, Mutts is nice.

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.

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..."

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

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

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

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...

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'.

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

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

There. Now even Marmaduke seems hilarious.

Felicity, your cartoon is awesome.

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.

Agreeing with dinnerboat abt Heritage Auctions. They are the biggest players in the sale of original comics art and often get eye-watering prices for pieces. So while their valuation would not be disinterested - they would want to sell them and make a profit obv - their high-end estimate would be good for insurance purposes alone. These look to be relatively early strips - what's the copyright date on them? - so would be at the top end of the market, especially as they both have Charlie Brown and Lucy on them. In the last ten years or so, fine art and institutional collectors have bought into the comics art market and overinflated prices, but even if there's a bubble burst I don't think it would particularly affect Peanuts originals, which have always been highly prized and valued.

Schulz never needed to sell his originals, although he did give them away to fans (as with your mum), or in trade for other original comic art (especially Krazy Kat originals). So while, yes, he did draw thousands of strips, there aren't that many in private hands - I think most are still held by the Schulz Museum, who might also be worth contacting for advice.

the Museum was my first thought actually, thanks again - I did just submit a Heritage request for reference.

also just left a message at the local museum, reframing seems like the first step here

more complete notes from my mom if this helps, maybe these are not originals? they sure look like it, you can see the brush strokes

"A high school classmate whom I dated briefly wrote to Charles Schultz in probably 1957 and asked him for something to give a girlfriend for her birthday, and got the two strips, unframed at the time. I'm 99.999% certain Les didn't pay anything for them - just asked. I think it would have been my 17th birthday, the summer before my senior year in high school. My father got them framed. (The brown paper backing on them is getting a bit crumbly after 60-some years.) I think you should have them as companions to your complete Peanuts collection. Whether they actually got published or not you'll have to check in your volumes. One of them is particularly interesting because it has a correction, a piece of paper with the correct wording pasted over the original (which left out the apostrophe in one word). That one is signed, "Kindest regards, Charles Schultz." Although I'm not sure they are actually the original drawings, maybe mockups of some sort? They both have dates on them, one says "9-22" in ink on the strip and "9/22/56" in pencil below the frame of that strip, and the other is just "3-21" (no year, but likely 1956). Framed they are each 8"x30"."

posting closeups here as well

https://i.imgur.com/UGPTUuc.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/WS8DBtI.jpg

they look legit - pasting on the header and copyright is totally standard practice, and the only other Peanuts original I've seen was also startlingly large.

Also, of those I've seen, when gifting strips it was standard for Schulz to sign them like that.

so my sister and I have decided to sell these, they are prob gonna go for like $30K each. wild. my mom is in shock lol. we are using Heritage, thanks dinnerboat for that tip!

my mom with the winning quote: "do you even want something that valuable in your house?"

Ha! Mommest thing I've heard in a while....

wow those are amazing!!

That’s amazing

All for selling the expensives btw, let upkeep be somebody else’s problem

Awesome stuff, hope the fetch you that pretty penny!

yer ma has a point! hope you guys make $$$$s

Good luck! And thanks for sharing — your story’s like a prime Antiques Roadshow episode.