Happy birthday Ludwig van Beethoven. You do not look a day over 185 years old.
Library Book Loss
Charlie Brown is the Atlas of comic strip characters, he carries the weight of the world. This strip illustrates perhaps a thing of the past, lost books. I paid a few bucks in the past at libraries. I am ashamed to admit I made a few books disappear, they are nestled in my private collection. They cost less when you pay the library price. Mind you libraries are begging for you to lose your books, most kids are on computers surrounded by walled books. They don’t even bother taking books out. Libraries have just become Wi-Fi hotspots. All you need is coffee and you are set. Wait they have those already, they are called Starbucks.
Restart
Try as hard as you want. Kids pick mom most of the times over dad. Who’s your favorite mom or dad?
Are you having a bad day at the office?
Abbey Road going to Peanuts?
Dagwood splits the Atom.
Paperback Charlie Brown
The Peanuts universe will never be the same after the Paperback Charlie Brown site discovers forgotten paperback Peanuts books.
I Have Never Drawn PEANUTS for Children
The success of the Peanuts can be pinned down to one letter written to a fan of Peanuts in 1977. In the letter Charles Schulz tells David Desmond (fan) how he approaches the strip.
“The answer to your question of developing the strips to appeal to children without turning adults off is a simple one. I have never drawn PEANUTS for children. I have always drawn the strip with adults in mind, and fortunately, everyone seems to find something there. I draw from a child’s point of view, which is probably a significant factor to attracting young readers, but much of the dialogue is beyond a small child’s scope of understanding.”
via-lettersofnote
Norah Jones Peanuts Tribute Poster
I am not a fan of Norah Jones but I am a fan of the Peanuts tribute Norah Jones poster created by Matt Leunig. You can buy this limited lithograph at La La Land and other great concert posters.
via-superpunch
The Peanuts Collection: Treasures from the World’s Most Beloved Comic Strip
Nat Gertler’s The Peanuts Collection: Treasures from the World’s Most Beloved Comic Strip is perhaps one of the greatest collection of Peanuts memorabilia in book form. This is the ultimate book for the Peanuts enthusiast. If you live in North America it’s a good chance that Peanuts has crossed your life at one point or another. The archetypes of the Peanuts universe have touched many facets of the pop culture and is part of the American lexicon fabric. Peanuts has become a security blanket to our youth. That eternal youthful optimism is captured by the strip and gives us hope even if Charlie Brown is doomed to be a failure. Nat Gertler’s book is a collection of memories of our own life as we skip through a time capsule of rare time pieces emulated through the Peanuts impact on society. We all have a claim on the Peanuts universe, there is a piece of us in all the characters. The Peanuts Collection: Treasures from the World’s Most Beloved Comic Strip is a celebration of our love for the basic fundamentals of a rich comic strip that beats to a universal chord. Peanuts always leaves you with a fuzzy feeling of happiness. After all, happiness is a warm puppy.
Peanuts Moleskine Notepads
This is a big year for Peanuts and the merchandising agreements are peaking also as we celebrate 60 years of Peanuts this Autumn. The Peanuts Moleskine notepads are a thing of beauty. They look too good to write on.
via-moleskine
60 Years of Peanuts Countdown
Can you believe it, it will be 60 years since the first Peanuts strip was published on October 2, 1950. Some of the greatest moments of Peanuts lore comes in the shape of the Halloween special with some of the archetypes explored in the seasonal special. Nothing tops up a Halloween with the classic special.
Maybe it’s Linus waiting in the pumpkin patch for the appearance of the Great Pumpkin. Or Charlie Brown looking in his trick-or-treat bag and saying, “I got a rock.” Or Snoopy in his Halloween costume as the World War I Flying Ace. Everyone has a favorite PEANUTS Halloween memory.
No wonder, since Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy and the gang have been celebrating the holiday for 60 years—ever since Charles Schulz published his first PEANUTS comic strip on October 2, 1950. That’s six decades in which to gather a treasure trove of great memories—which grow even richer when you share them with your friends.
As a kid, every time I’d read my dad’s strip and see Lucy trying to get Charlie Brown to kick the football, I’d think, “Don’t do it, Charlie Brown!” But he always did it! Sigh!-Craig Schulz
Peanuts Early Newspaper Ad
It’s amazing to think that this lonely little unexceptional ad from the 50′s would spawn a money making machine long after Charles Schulz would die. The merchandising juggernaut just keeps churning cash like it’s going out of style.
via-rosebud archives (ad) and Press Democrat
“Our biggest fear has always been somebody buying up the rights and us not having any control,” Schulz said. “We’d rather have this property make $10 million a year for 50 years, than make $100 million in one year and walk away from it.”
The “Peanuts” brand is licensed in more than 40 countries and drives annual retail sales topping $2 billion, with more than 24,000 new products approved every year.-Craig Schulz
My Life with Charlie Brown
The book Schulz and Peanuts a Biography by David Michaelis left a bitter taste in the mouth with the Schulz estate who gladly opened the doors to him with an exclusivity into the Peanuts world and in return David misconstrued the cartoonist in a rather negative light. Die-hard fans were not too impressed by a well written biography that took many liberties on a man who could not defend himself because of his predicament of being dead. The only way to shed a better light into Charles Schulz is to collect most of his life captured through his own writings. My Life with Charlie Brown is a collection of autobiographical essays, introductions, articles, reviews, and lectures that tell the personal tale of the Peanuts creator. Comic book scholar M. Thomas Inge edits and supplies an introduction to what promises to great addition to the Peanuts universe.
Inge and the Schulz estate have chosen a number of illustrations to include. With the approval and cooperation of the Schulz family, Inge draws on the cartoonist’s entire archives, papers, and correspondence to allow Schulz full voice to speak his mind. The project includes his comics criticism, his introductions to Peanuts volumes, his essays about philanthropy, his commentary on Christianity, his newspaper articles about the creation of his characters, and more. My Life with Charlie Brown will reveal new dimensions of this legendary cartoonist.
Zamboni 60 Years Old
One would think that the Zamboni was created in Canada. Alas that is not the case. Maybe in a cold city in America. Far from that. The Zamboni was created in Paramount, California in the heart of Los Angeles by Frank Joseph Zamboni where snow is nonexistent. The Zamboni has been featured many times in Peanuts. Charles M. Schulz an ardent fan of hockey created Sparky the Seal, the Seal’s mascot a lesser known Schulz creation. Hockey roots in California were planted way before Wayne Gretzky brought hockey to the sunbelt. The Zamboni was ready for hockey way before the teams of the Kings and the Seals laced their blades on Californian soil.
Until 1949, resurfacing an ice rink required a tractor-pulled shaver followed by three or four workers scooping away the shavings and then spraying and squeegeeing water. The process-including the refreezing-took more than an hour. That all changed when a tireless inventor by the name of Frank J. Zamboni, who also happened to own a 20,000-square-foot rink in Southern California, put his mind to creating a quality sheet of ice in a shorter time. The story of the machines he produced—now as beloved as ice skates and hockey pucks among winter sports enthusiasts—is fully told for the first time in this book, a fun-filled history of machine-age ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit that forever changed the nature of sports on ice.
Peanuts Meets X-Men, Calvin and Hobbes Meets Spider-Man Comics Mashups
In a classic case of Reese’s Pieces , where chocolate and peanut butter meet by accident, artist Ryan Dunlavey mashes up some of the most popular comic strips with other strips and creates new strips with hilarious outcomes. See more>>
Charlotte Braun
The mysterious disappearance of Charlotte Braun from the Peanuts universe can be attributed to an ardent fan, Elizabeth Swaim, who demanded the demise of the character. Charlotte Braun was the female version of Charlie Brown. “Good Ol’ Charlotte Braun first appeared on November 30, 1954 and went ink-less as of February 1, 1955. Charles M. Schulz agreed with the fan and sent her a personal letter with an axe on Charlotte Braun’s head. Schulz reminded the fan that she was responsible for the axing of the character. Shortly Charlotte Braun was replaced by Sally Brown a much richer character. The infamous letter has been donated in 2000 to the Library of Congress, unfortunately Elizabeth Swaim a librarian most of her life passed away at the age of 66 just a few weeks after she revealed the secret letter.
“Remember, however, that you and your friends will have the death of an innocent child on your conscience. Are you prepared to accept such responsibility?” At the bottom of the handwritten letter is a drawing of the ill-fated character, with an ax on her head.
See also
Personal Touch in Library’s ‘Peanuts’ Cache