February 11, 2025 • 56 mins
The photocopier makes it’s exciting first appearance in Peanuts! The guys get deep into the discussion of how different readers perceive the art of comics. Michael has a great idea for a Peanuts spinoff strip, and Jimmy gives a complete listing of all the towns in Pennsylvania. Plus: Dick Ayers and Joe Kubert
Transcript available at UnpackingPeanuts.com
Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz, and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show follow @unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads, and @unpackingpeanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Thanks for listening.
Chuck Klosterman essay - Writing About Charlie Brown Feels Like Writing About Myself - https://lithub.com/writing-about-charlie-brown-feels-like-writing-about-myself Playlist of Michael Cohen's songs used in Unpacking Peanuts https://lizsumner.bandcamp.com/album/unpacking-peanuts-theme-music-volume-1
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
VO (00:02):
Welcome to Unpacking Peanuts, the podcast where three cartoonists take an in-depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M.
Schulz.
Jimmy (00:18):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
This is Unpacking Peanuts, and I'm your host for the proceedings, Jimmy Gownley.
I'm also a cartoonist.
I did things like Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up and The Dumbest Idea Ever.
Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts and fellow cartoonists.
He's a playwright and a composer, both for the Man Complicated People as well as for this very podcast.
He's the original editor of Amelia Rules, the co-creator of the original comic book Price Guide, and the creator of such great strips, A Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
(00:48):
It's Michael Cohen.
Michael (00:49):
Say hey.
Jimmy (00:51):
He's executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts, Harold Buchholz.
Harold (01:01):
Hello.
Jimmy (01:02):
Making sure everything runs smoothly, it's our producer, Liz Sumner.
Liz (01:07):
Greetings.
Jimmy (01:08):
All right, Harold, I believe you have some stuff to share with us about Mr.
Schulz in good old 1994.
Harold (01:14):
I do.
So, Schulz went to the National Cartoonist Society annual Rubin Award weekend in 1994, which he was a pretty regular attendee of, even though he was kind of getting out less often, as I understand.
But it wasn't too far.
I think it was in La Jolla, California.
So that's not a huge trek from Santa Rosa.
(01:36):
It's not nothing.
He was actually there to give a talk in a Q&A.
So we have some interesting insights from him right around when the strips we'll be discussing came out.
So I thought we want to share a little bit of that.
This is coming from an account by David Astor in the Editor and Publisher Magazine.
(02:00):
So it's kind of cool because here is Schulz among his peers talking about his strip 44 years in.
And he shared a story.
He said he heard an argument between two women recently in a restaurant, just a few days before this speech.
And they were talking about him, not knowing he was there.
(02:24):
It says one said, I'm dead.
The other said, I'm not.
Even though I've been drawing for 44 years, I'm still here and I'm not ready to retire.
So this is classic Schulz.
You know, here I am a famous person.
And yet people don't even know if I'm still around or not.
He said, I work harder now.
(02:44):
I'm more particular about everything I draw than I have ever been.
I almost never send in anything that I'm not totally pleased about.
And he said, cartoonists should do this not only for themselves, but for the syndicate salespeople.
And we've heard this a lot.
He was so aware of how he fit into the ecosystem that this was an art and a business.
(03:07):
And he said that peanuts would not be carried on by another cartoonist when he retires or dies, quoting that his children asked him.
They didn't want anyone else to do his strip.
And he said being a father of five helped him learn to stop and resume various kinds of work.
He recalled that when one of his kids wanted to play, he would leave his writing and drawing table behind for a while.
(03:32):
And regarding writing and drawing in a strip, he said, a comic must be fun to look at, no matter what the dialogue might say.
And we definitely see that.
We've been talking about that so much that, you know, he's trying to make every drawing of interest.
And I think he does that so well.
(03:53):
And this is interesting too.
We've talked about this recently.
Schulz did say he gets annoyed when he sees what he called extreme drawing that shows a comic character overreacting to something.
And Peanuts is so much about underplaying.
And he talked about how he never liked the name Peanuts.
44 years in, he's still griping about being saddled with the name Peanuts.
(04:17):
And he also called out the importance of understanding the history of comics to his fellow cartoonists.
And he gave his list again of his favorite strips this time.
He called out Skippy by Percy Crosby, which we've talked about early on in this podcast.
Lil Abner, even though Al Cap was not always kind to Schulz.
(04:40):
And Roy Crane, who did Washtub and Captain Easy and Buzz Sawyer.
So that would have been a cool event to be sitting in on.
But I'm glad that David Astor kind of gave us the highlights.
Jimmy (04:55):
Yeah, that is fantastic.
You know, the thing that really bums me out, that the part where he's talking about he was in line, and you heard people talking about whether or not he was alive or dead.
And it's really one of the reasons I wanted to do something like this, because for whatever reason, probably because their commercial origins are shady and filled with ties to organized crime.
(05:20):
But for whatever reason, the content, the characters are famous, and the cartoonists really aren't.
And it's the one medium where that's the truth, you know?
You don't buy records and go, hey, is that band alive or dead?
I don't know.
You know what I mean?
So it's sad to hear that you could achieve so much and still have people not even be aware whether or not you're alive or dead.
(05:48):
But that's the way it goes sometimes.
We're alive and that's a good thing.
Hey, not only are we alive, it's my birthday today.
Not when you're listening, but when we're recording this.
And I can think of no better way than to hang out with all my friends and that includes you guys out there.
And just talk about our favorite comic strip.
(06:09):
So with Harold's prelude out of the way, how about we hit those strips?
Now, if you guys want to follow along, what you can do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread, and you'll get one email a month from us letting you know what strips we're gonna be covering in the upcoming episodes.
And then all you gotta do is go over to gocomics.com, type in the dates we're saying, and away you go.
(06:34):
You can read along with us.
So you do that and then come back here and we'll start right now.
May 2nd, Olaf and Andy are sitting, leaning up against a barn just in enjoying an afternoon.
And Andy says to Olaf, if we're a couple of farm dogs, Olaf, don't you think we should be doing something?
(06:57):
Andy continues, don't you think we should be useful?
And Olaf says, we are useful.
If we move, the barn will fall down.
Michael (07:07):
And in the early days of comics, they used to have the main strip on the Sundays, the main strip taking two-thirds of the page.
And a lot of strips had the secondary strip on the bottom.
Same creators, sometimes same characters.
This would be a good one for Peanuts.
Everyone is these two.
(07:28):
Same, you can use the same panels over and over again.
Jimmy (07:33):
That's brilliant.
Harold (07:34):
There's so many good holding up barn jokes they could just riff on.
Jimmy (07:40):
Now, was that because of the war?
Was that a paper shortage issue that they would make?
You used two strips instead of one?
Michael (07:48):
Well, it would be a bonus to the creator too, because he'd get paid for separately, probably for the secondary strip.
Harold (07:55):
I read in passing, I don't know if this is true.
I'd never seen it before.
I was just researching something else and it came up.
And I think somebody said William Randolph Hurst thought up the idea.
And I don't know if it was to kind of try things out to kind of see if there's something that might break out.
And actually there was some success in that regard, I guess.
(08:16):
But I don't know if that's true.
Jimmy (08:18):
Now that you mentioned that, of course, it's not just the war because that's where Crazy Cat started, right?
It wasn't Crazy Cat a secondary strip to the family upstairs?
The Bums of the Bungle Family or something like that.
Harold (08:31):
Yeah, I can't remember if it was baked into the strip or if it was just along the top or it moved from one to the other.
But it's not a bad idea, right?
Michael (08:41):
Is there a name for this?
For this kind of strip?
Jimmy (08:44):
I don't know.
Harold (08:45):
That's a good question.
Jimmy (08:46):
Listeners?
Anyone know?
Michael (08:47):
Yeah, because Alex Raymond, who was doing Flash Court, had Jungle Gym on the same page on the bottom.
Harold (08:54):
Maybe our listeners know.
Jimmy (08:56):
Yeah, this would be really cute.
And you could just, yeah, it would be great.
They never do anything.
They just have a little conversation every day.
I love both of these character designs.
I love fun to see Andy.
And of course, we know I love Olaf and his own unique beauty.
Harold (09:14):
I like Andy's princess layout ears.
Jimmy (09:18):
He really does have princess layout ears.
So cute.
May 19th, Peppermint Patty is in front of the class giving a report.
And she says, This is my report on Hamlet.
A Hamlet is a small village with a population of maybe a few hundred and and then her teacher interrupts her.
Peppermint Patty says, ma'am.
And she sits down at their desk and Marcy says to her, far and away, sir, one of the great tries of all time.
(09:45):
Peppermint Patty says, I can't stand it.
This goes to them.
This crazy school they go to.
Harold (09:53):
Yeah.
Jimmy (09:54):
That she has to do a report on Hamlet.
Maybe, though, like this will be some sort of insane weight training.
And Patty will get to like high school or whatever and realize she's brilliant because she's already in this unbelievably insane grade school.
Harold (10:11):
Yeah, this teacher is ambitious.
It's nice to see.
I can't stand it as the final line in this trip.
I haven't seen that in a while.
That was a, I just can't stand it.
Jimmy (10:21):
But you know, speaking of hamlets, we know the Amelioverse here is in the great state of Pennsylvania.
Do you know there was only one town in Pennsylvania?
Harold (10:30):
No.
Michael (10:31):
Oh, officially a town?
Jimmy (10:33):
Yep.
There's many hamlets.
Michael (10:34):
Doesn't have a church?
Is that what it is?
Jimmy (10:37):
No, I don't know what that has to do with population size.
Harold (10:40):
Oh, it has to be between 8,302 and 8,307.
Jimmy (10:45):
Something like that.
Michael (10:46):
Yeah, I heard a hamlet actually is a small village with that it doesn't have a church.
Oh, really?
Jimmy (10:53):
Well, they still call hamlets things in America, and I don't think it has to do that, but that's probably where it did start.
Yeah.
And then we, because I grew up in a borough.
But anyway, yeah, Bloomsburg, only town in Pennsylvania.
Harold (11:04):
Really?
Wow, that's pretty cool.
If you go to Bloomsburg, you'll see a big sign.
Michael (11:08):
New York is a town.
It's like, hey, this old town, what a great town.
Chicago is also a great town.
Jimmy (11:13):
Oh yeah, Chicago is definitely a great town.
Michael (11:15):
My kind of town.
Jimmy (11:18):
May 30th, Snoopy and Woodstock are hanging out, and Woodstock is atop a birdbath, and he is fishing in the birdbath.
And it looks like he got something because he gets pulled in the birdbath, and that shocked Snoopy, sending his ears straight up in the air.
Woodstock, in the last panel, managed to clamor his way over to the side of the birdbath, looking disheveled and down at Snoopy, who says, some pretty big ones in there, huh?
Harold (11:46):
Such a cute Woodstock in the first panel, fishing.
Absolutely.
Jimmy (11:51):
One of my talents, especially starting in 1986, when I feel like around 84 to 86 is when they started really using photocopiers in comics.
And one of my great superpowers was trying to find the original image and seeing which ones were the photocopies.
(12:13):
You could really see it.
Bilson Kevich used to do it a lot, and he'd do it with color photocopiers.
And those are never right on, but you could always see.
And yeah, so this bird bath is definitely photocopies three times.
Which one do you guys think is the original?
Can you tell?
Michael (12:30):
You know, the first one.
Jimmy (12:32):
Yeah.
Michael (12:32):
I'm guessing.
Harold (12:34):
So wow.
No, I don't know that we can say that ever happened before.
To our knowledge, we haven't seen this before.
That's something, you know?
Michael (12:45):
You got the same object in three, with Zip-a-tone and three panels.
Harold (12:51):
I'm wondering why.
Jimmy (12:54):
Well, do you think it's because of the Zip-a-tone?
Michael (12:56):
Yeah, I think he couldn't duplicate it.
Yeah.
Harold (12:59):
But the interesting thing is, you know, he would have penciled this, right?
And he would have drawn it three times.
And then he would have, I'm guessing, and then he would have been inking.
And then once he inked the first one, the Zip-a-tone wouldn't have gone down, I'm guessing, until the very end.
Do you think he was all the way into it?
He's like, oh, I'm not going to do this again.
Jimmy (13:21):
Could have been that.
Could have been that he tried to duplicate it and couldn't, and then thought, oh, I know what I'm going to do.
Harold (13:28):
I'm going to copy it.
Jimmy (13:30):
But I suspect that Michael's writing has something to do with the fact that it's, it has that kind of, not elaborate, but intricate little details of the Zip-a-tone on it.
Harold (13:42):
It's nicely done.
It really, it's uniquely Schulz.
I just don't know anybody else who treated Zip-a-tone this the way he did.
Jimmy (13:49):
No, it looks so much more like duo shade.
Your duo shade, you're painting it on.
That's the thing we talked about this before.
It's the chemicals you put on the paper to develop different lines to make the shading.
Harold (14:01):
And that guy Roy Crane, we just mentioned is one of the three people he called out was a master of that.
And what I don't understand is how many people were using this?
How did a company manufacture this stuff and stay in business for years when there's like one or two cartoons to use it?
Michael (14:18):
Well, advertising.
Harold (14:20):
Yeah, but how many times have you seen it in advertising?
I mean, it just doesn't seem like something that there would have been a massive demand for.
I could be wrong, but I just, I don't remember seeing it anywhere but, you know, Buzzsaw.
Jimmy (14:37):
Yeah, I don't know.
But it was, and it was such a great thing.
I was wondering, I don't know if this is, this might be insane, but does it read as gray to modern eyes or does it look like black dots?
Like in a world where everything is high def, like everything in our lives looked grainy and out of focus and weird.
(14:58):
So like you didn't think, okay, those black dots represent gray tones.
Fine.
Because half tones were everywhere in newspapers.
Harold (15:05):
I would bet it varies from person to person.
There are certain things that people see exactly the same thing in such a different way.
Again, we could ask our listeners.
Jimmy (15:19):
Well, I remember when the Batman movie came out, the first one in 1989 and I was in high school, and my geometry teacher pulled me aside because we had a dress down day.
I went to Catholic school, but every once in a while you'd be able to just wear whatever.
Half the school was in Batman shirts.
My geometry teacher pulled me aside and said, I have to ask you a question because I was wearing a Batman shirt.
(15:42):
Just why is everybody wearing yellow teeth?
I'm like, what are you talking about?
Yeah, she saw the yellow circle around the bat as an open mouth with teeth and thought it was the ugliest thing.
Why did suddenly everyone in the world want to wear yellow teeth?
(16:02):
I'm like, no, it's a bat signal.
And it took her a minute.
She's like, oh, I see.
Harold (16:09):
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
I was afraid you got in trouble.
You were going to get dressed down on Dress Down Day.
Jimmy (16:16):
Oh, no.
Harold (16:19):
I bet it's different to different eyes.
I've heard some really fascinating things from people.
I've always said I love the thicks and thins of the line in cartooning.
And I've met people who look at me and go, what are you talking about?
They don't see the variation in line if someone had drawn something.
Liz (16:37):
I don't see it.
Oh, really?
I mean, I think it's you guys as cartoonists see an entirely different thing from those of us who are like auditory people.
Harold (16:47):
Yeah, there's certain things that I don't know if our brain is just trained to shut out stuff that's irrelevant to you.
And so after a while or, you know, you're just it's like when you're looking at a chair and you say it's a chair and versus having to draw the chair.
And then you have to see it in a completely different way in order to recreate it.
(17:08):
Your brain is just saying, well, that's that's Snoopy, you know, there's no reason to analyze the lines that make Snoopy.
Liz (17:15):
But speaking of analyzing the lines, what's with those clouds?
It looks like a flying t-shirt in that second panel.
Jimmy (17:24):
I see what that's kind of looked like, a flying t-shirt.
Harold (17:27):
That's a bat signal.
Jimmy (17:28):
Maybe they're near a baseball field where it's t-shirt day and I shoot them out of a cannon.
I like the third panel Woodstock looking a little moist.
Harold (17:43):
Well, that's interesting.
Talk about seeing things two different ways.
Up until just now, I was seeing Woodstock looking off into the distance.
Now, I'm seeing Woodstock looking directly at Snoopy.
Jimmy (17:57):
Yeah, he's looking at Snoopy.
Harold (17:58):
Because the two lines are so close to looking like two eyes.
Oh, yes.
But it's not.
It is thinner on the second one and that's that little loosey line around the eye.
You can see that Woodstock's had a hard time, but I read that as just Woodstock looking off into the distance a little disheveled, but it's not.
(18:21):
That's so wild.
That's so unusual for...
It's so funny.
We were here, we were talking about it for other things, and I just realized I was misreading Schulz's intent.
Did you guys see it as immediately as Woodstock looking at Snoopy?
Michael (18:36):
It's both at once.
It's that...
Jimmy (18:40):
The rabbit duck thing?
Michael (18:41):
Cubist influence.
Harold (18:44):
I like it both ways.
Michael (18:46):
Picasso influence.
Harold (18:48):
I can just hop back and forth now.
Jimmy (18:50):
I get to use nude descending a staircase as our title for last episode.
Michael (18:54):
I don't know if you can use the word nude on the web, though.
Jimmy (18:58):
Not allowed to, is that...
That's right, yeah.
Harold (19:00):
The downloads are down by 50% because it's all edited out by AI.
I haven't even occurred.
This requires 18 and up.
Jimmy (19:08):
18 and up.
So, just going back to whether you see the lines or don't see the lines, that's really...
I never even considered that, that some people really don't see the thicks and thins.
Because Michael talks about his favorite or one of his favorite artists being Al Williamson, who's in so many ways the opposite of Schulz.
(19:31):
Schulz is fair and cartoony, and Williamson is detailed and realistic.
But, if you look at both of them on a microscopic level, the lines are beautiful despite, they're both beautiful.
It doesn't matter what they're describing or even how they're describing it.
You could, I look at them and I think, oh my gosh, those are just amazing pen and ink lines.
Michael (19:57):
It's funny you mentioned that, because we were just talking about thin and thin lines.
I was just thinking about the guy who was my favorite anchor in the 60s for Kirby, which was Dick Ayers.
Which to this day is still my favorite anchor because that's the stuff I feel in love with.
I go back and look at it.
(20:18):
It's still beautiful, but boy, the thick lines are insane.
It's something I've never tried to do, but it's probably not as fashionable anymore.
But at that time, you really poured it on on those outlines.
Harold (20:35):
Yeah.
I mentioned Joe Kubert in his later career.
He had such incredibly chunky brush lines that I could only see the lines and I had to fight to see what he had drawn because I just saw blotches of ink.
Tor, I think was one of the...
(20:56):
Actually, there was a logo I think they used for his school in New Jersey, his cartooning school.
Jimmy (21:01):
Like a Tarzan kind of guy?
Harold (21:02):
This Tarzan guy.
And when I look at that, I have to fight to see the guy because it's just this massive Rorschach blobs of ink.
Michael (21:11):
Speaking of which...
Harold (21:12):
Maybe because I'm so focused online.
You know, I don't know.
Michael (21:14):
Look at our next trip from talking about blotches of ink.
Harold (21:17):
Oh, wow.
Jimmy (21:19):
June 9th, Snoopy is amid many blotches of ink.
He is an infantry man in World War II, and he is storming the beach at Normandy.
And we see him throwing some grenades, and he's thinking to himself, D plus four, the brave infantry man hurls a grenade at the pillbox.
(21:40):
Then another, and another.
And it looks like a really wild battle scene.
And then we cut to Charlie Brown reading that one book in his chair.
And he says, why do I have the feeling someone is throwing rocks at our front door?
Liz (21:57):
So this is the 50th anniversary of four days after D-Day.
Michael (22:03):
This brings to mind just how incredibly naïve I was and ignorant, and comics taught me so much.
Talk about Joe Kubert again.
Okay, there was a Joe Kubert story, probably, you know, early 60s, a war story.
And I read the title as The Day, the Hour.
(22:23):
And I thought, okay, the guy's really, like, nervous.
Oh, man.
Jimmy (22:39):
We were talking, I guess, last episode about sometimes drawing the way you're drawing, affecting the emotion or being affected, rather by the emotion you're feeling or trying to portray.
This is, and I'm completely projecting.
I don't know anything about this.
But to me, this looks like someone with PTSD.
(23:02):
I mean, this is an intense, violent, ugly, and I don't even mean that in a bad way.
Like, but, you know, expressionistically ugly panel.
Yeah.
Of war in Peanuts.
I think it's pretty wild.
And I remember, I very much remember when these were coming out and thinking the same thing.
(23:27):
Like that pill box just looks evil.
Michael (23:32):
I find it slightly disrespectful.
Jimmy (23:35):
Because it's new.
Michael (23:36):
I know he was in battle, but to make it part of a joke with the dog.
And being this, well, it's as realistic as Schulz gets.
Jimmy (23:47):
Yeah.
Michael (23:47):
About people getting blown up.
Jimmy (23:50):
Yeah, I'm curious.
I believe he heard lots of good things about it from the people who, from vets and stuff like that.
But I definitely see your point because I mean, it's newbie and in most people's mind, it's a simple basic comic strip and not like the creator's personal diary which it really is.
(24:13):
What do you think of the art, Harold?
Harold (24:16):
It's interesting you were saying about the PTSD.
That's really interesting because this is, he's showing the horror here and what's going on.
It is the strange juxtaposition in this comic strip within the panel of Charlie Brown quietly sitting in his chair.
Jimmy (24:36):
Yeah.
Harold (24:37):
Which is actually, I guess, again, this is, this strip maybe is another Rorschach test for people where they may get so sucked into what Snoopy is doing and what he's in the middle of which actually happened, that Snoopy is recreating.
It's either a tribute to the brave soldiers or it's disrespectful.
(25:03):
That's really interesting.
Michael (25:06):
Yeah.
Harold (25:06):
I didn't read it that way because I guess I was just so used to Snoopy.
But we've seen him as the World War I flying ace.
Yeah, but he's fighting a certain person who we know never dies.
Snoopy could be killing somebody.
Michael (25:24):
Yeah.
If he was in the trenches, it would not be good.
Harold (25:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The fact that he's throwing a grenade into a place that has, you expect other beings who could be killed by Snoopy.
That's a little different.
Michael (25:38):
Other dogs, German Shepherds.
Harold (25:46):
That's disrespectful, Michael.
Jimmy (25:49):
I apologize to all our German listeners.
That was just funny.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Liz (25:55):
So what tools is he using there?
Is that a marker?
How to say?
It doesn't look like Zip-A-Tone to me.
Jimmy (26:04):
Well, there's some Zip-A-Tone, I think.
Actually, maybe there's no Zip-A-Tone.
It looks like it's black brushes, and then it looks like he's almost scratching into it with white on top.
Michael (26:14):
Well, there's pretty some pretty tight cross hatching going on too.
Jimmy (26:18):
Yeah, yes.
Michael (26:19):
He never does.
Jimmy (26:20):
No, no, no, no, never.
Harold (26:22):
Almost never.
Jimmy (26:23):
Yeah.
Harold (26:23):
Very, very unique panel.
Jimmy (26:25):
I'd be curious because, you know, because I do this sometimes, I'll scratch into the black, really only in this depression book I'm doing.
I'll scratch over the black with an X-Acto knife to get white lines through it, which I got from an interview with Schulz, where he was talking about how George Harriman doing it that way.
(26:47):
But yeah, I look at this and I see PTSD.
Harold (26:52):
Yeah.
That's really an interesting insight.
I can see that in this art.
It is one of the most tortured panels, if not the most in Peanuts history here.
Jimmy (27:05):
Yeah.
Harold (27:06):
No, I have to go back, Michael.
I confess, I didn't understand that thing you were just saying.
It's been going over my head because I didn't get what you were saying about the day.
Liz (27:15):
Oh, D-Day H-hour.
Michael (27:18):
D-Day H-hour.
Harold (27:19):
What is H-hour?
I don't even have never heard of H-hour.
Michael (27:22):
That's the landing hour.
Jimmy (27:24):
Oh, and he thought it was D-Day.
Liz (27:26):
D-Day, okay.
Harold (27:29):
I didn't know the H-hour, so I was kind of...
Jimmy (27:32):
I guarantee I would have thought that if I saw it.
Definitely.
Harold (27:35):
It makes sense, yeah.
Liz (27:36):
Siga.
Jimmy (27:37):
Siga, yeah.
Here's another one of the D-Day strips, June 10th, and it's Snoopy behind a machine gun in a little machine gun nest with his helmet on.
He's riding home, and he says, Dear Mom, just a note to tell you I am well.
They say we will be home by Christmas.
I hope so.
And that's the entire strip?
Michael (27:58):
Yeah, again, we had one shortly before this, which was no attempt at a punch line.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_2 (28:05):
Yeah.
Harold (28:08):
This is pretty remarkable, Peanuts 44 years in.
Michael (28:11):
Yeah.
This is definitely a Maldon kind of thing, where he'd have people in their trenches riding home.
Liz (28:19):
And maybe it is Zip-A-Tone.
Harold (28:21):
Well, looking at this, unless there was a Zip-A-Tone that was uneven lines, he's doing every single line here.
The reason that I would think, I can't make up my mind on this, but I'm guessing he's drawing every single line here, unless there's some tone I'm not aware of that was just kind of uneven.
Jimmy (28:42):
I mean, there are, but no, not like this.
Liz (28:45):
I think we have to go to the museum and see that exhibit.
Michael (28:48):
Well, you know what happens when you're crosshatching and you're not up really close.
Sometimes some lines are closer and some lines are further apart.
Jimmy (28:59):
Yeah, no, that's definitely what's going to happen.
Michael (29:01):
Then the reproduction.
Yeah, I'm sure it's cleaner in the original.
Harold (29:04):
But you're saying Michael, this is hand done every single one of these lines.
Jimmy (29:08):
Yeah.
Harold (29:09):
That's a lot.
He spent a lot of time because there are probably a good 400 plus lines.
Liz (29:15):
But the way he cuts it out, I mean, it looks like the way he does Zip-A-Tone.
Harold (29:21):
Yes, you're right.
That's what I was looking at.
Now, in this case, what he would do is he would take some sort of a white out and drop it on top of the lines he's already drawn, right?
That's how he would do this.
So he'd do all the lines.
Well, sometimes, I think.
Jimmy (29:38):
Yeah, where it's on top of it, on the right-hand side of like above Snoopy, those little nurdles of white.
But I think in some other instance, when he's bumping up against the trees, not all the way, I mean, he just did it that way, I believe.
I don't think he did the whole thing and then went over top of all of it.
Harold (29:56):
This is a strip I really would like to see in person, and you can really see the technique that he, I mean, the fact that we're discussing this and trying to figure it out shows that he, this is a remarkable work that he's done.
As cartoonists, we can't fully figure out what he was up to.
Jimmy (30:16):
The other thing that's interesting about it is, if you go back to 1950 and he's given this tiny little, little strip and he's like, well, I'm going to fight back using white space and everything's going to be about drawing the eye to my thing.
And this is not carrying, I guarantee you, I haven't seen it in the newspaper in 31 years, but I'm guarantee that looked just like a smudge in the newspaper, the two or this whole sequence.
(30:42):
And I'm guarantee, I also guarantee that he knew that.
Harold (30:45):
Well, I think it's interesting, 44 years in, Schulz has influenced a lot of cartoonists, and everybody I think moved in his direction, or most people moved in his direction.
So there's a ton of white space now in the strips.
And so he mixes it up.
He's like, well, if that's where you guys are now, I can go the other direction.
Liz (31:09):
And have we seen Snoopy holding a pencil in his paw?
Harold (31:13):
No, that was such a strange drawing.
It looks like it's just balancing on the top of a paw that it looks like it's going the wrong direction even, right?
Liz (31:23):
Well, he's left-handed.
Jimmy (31:25):
Oh, yeah, he would be left-handed.
Yeah, so Snoopy is a left-handed writer.
Wow, that's weird.
Harold (31:32):
I read it as his right paw.
I thought the little paw, I saw a little paw down that's in front of him, which would have been his left paw, maybe?
Jimmy (31:42):
Oh, you're right, Harold.
Oh, I see what it is.
No, no, yeah, you're totally right.
Oh, that's, you have to really zoom in to see that.
But yeah.
Harold (31:50):
Yeah, it's very, very unusual drawing.
Jimmy (31:55):
Well, you know what?
Having successfully stormed the beach at Normandy, I think we need to take a break, recollect, and before we advance.
Sound good?
Liz (32:04):
Sure.
Yes, sir.
Hi, everyone.
We love it when you write or call to tell us how much you enjoy the show.
But don't just tell us, tell your friends, tell complete strangers, share your appreciation in a review.
It doesn't have to be on Apple Podcasts.
Sixty percent of you listen on other apps.
(32:25):
Some of those apps have review sections.
Think of all the poor peanuts fans out there who haven't found us yet.
There are review instructions on our website at unpackingpeanuts.com/spread the word.
Thank you for your support.
And now let's hear what some of you have to say.
Jimmy (32:45):
And we are back.
Hey, Liz, I'm hanging out in the mailbox.
Do we got anything?
Liz (32:49):
We do.
We heard from Colin from Ireland who writes, big fan of the pod.
Jimmy (32:55):
All right.
Liz (32:56):
I work in a bookstore and I'm always perusing this site called Lit Hub.
And I recently came across a great article by Chuck Klosterman about peanuts called Writing About Charlie Brown Feels Like Writing About Myself.
I can't vouch for the quality of Klosterman's other work, but I very much enjoyed this.
(33:16):
And I will put the link on social media.
He says, thanks for the great show.
Me and my partner always look forward to the new episode.
Jimmy (33:26):
Oh, well, thank you so much.
Liz (33:27):
PS.
I've been recently deep diving R.E.M.'s back catalog.
Jimmy (33:32):
Yes.
Liz (33:33):
While listening to the pod, Are You Talking REM.
Remy?
Jimmy (33:37):
Oh, a great pod.
Adam Scott, Scott Ackerman.
I know it well.
Very nice.
Liz (33:43):
And he says, I might have to agree with Jimmy that they're the best band ever, along with the Smiths, of course.
Jimmy (33:50):
What a great day it is for me, my birthday.
Fantastic.
Thank you so much.
Michael (33:58):
And I have read all of Chuck Klosterman's books of essays.
They're great.
He's very funny.
Also, he's writing about pop music generally.
Harold (34:08):
So you can vouch for Chuck Klosterman's.
Michael (34:10):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he's one of my favorites.
Jimmy (34:12):
Yeah, he's great.
Liz (34:13):
So thank you, Colin.
That was great.
Harold (34:15):
Thank you.
Liz (34:16):
And then we also heard from Paul Ebert, who writes, Hey gang, I'm listening to the 1993 part two episode where you talk about Rerun's relationship with Snoopy.
Bringing Rerun back with more to do than comment about being on the back of a bicycle was, as far as I see it, the last brilliant thing Schulz brought to the strip, especially for how he put Snoopy and Rerun in a deeply meaningful relationship.
(34:42):
Jimmy's comment on how Snoopy and Rerun are on the same wavelength left me with a question for y'all.
This all happened when Calvin and Hobbes was the thing in comic strips.
Any speculation on the idea that Rerun and Snoopy as a pair of characters was influenced by Waterson?
Be of good cheer.
SPEAKER_6 (35:01):
Oh, interesting.
Jimmy (35:02):
Well, he'd never admit it.
Michael (35:07):
Well, we don't actually see these Snoopy Rerun strips till later this year.
And this is the year that I've been waiting for this to happen.
That Rerun actually comes into his own as a main character.
Jimmy (35:24):
21 years after his, maybe I'm wrong about that, but around 21 years after he was first introduced, which is wild.
Harold (35:33):
They certainly are, it's two very different types of relationships, Calvin and Hobbes and Rerun and Snoopy.
Jimmy (35:41):
Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely.
Harold (35:44):
There seems to be this, I've read so few of them and here I am going in order now.
So the vast majority of strips ahead of me I've not seen, but the ones that I have seen just kind of randomly through the years, there seems to be a very pure relationship between the two of them.
That in some ways reminds me of Snoopy and Woodstock.
Jimmy (36:06):
Yeah.
Harold (36:07):
Because that is a different, well, it's so interesting.
I think that's one of the wonderful things about Calvin and Hobbes is you have this Tiger character who is, you know, you're dancing in the world of Calvin's fantasy, but it can't be Calvin's fantasy.
So is he real?
Is he not?
And that's one of the dynamics of the strip, of course.
(36:29):
But to have somebody who is as thoughtful and playful as Hobbes with Calvin, who is much more, he can be cynical and he can be super self-serving.
It's a great balance, but it's definitely a different dynamic, of course, than Rerun and Snoopy, who are just kind of fighting joy in each other.
Jimmy (36:52):
I think it probably is more likely that Schulz would look at Watterson's work and see the things Watterson took from him rather than seeing things he could take from Watterson.
Harold (37:01):
You know what I mean?
Jimmy (37:03):
You know how it is.
Harold (37:04):
But he is a student.
We know he's a student of what's going on around him, and he absolutely is going to glean from somebody who is at the top of his game in the field that he works in.
So, I think Schulz would also be a fool to not see why is this working and is there something I can pull?
(37:25):
He's very, very good at that.
Liz (37:27):
We also heard from regular listener, Sarah Wilson, who writes, Dear ma'am, I mean, sweet cheeks, I mean, hon.
Harold (37:38):
Oh, no.
That's a good start.
Liz (37:42):
Just last week, I popped into Snoopy Town here in Tokyo and noticed that all the Olaf merch was discounted and on sale.
Harold (37:51):
Oh, my.
Jimmy (37:51):
Scoop that up.
Liz (37:54):
And this fad, too, passed already.
But then I discovered why.
There's a new dog in town named Andy.
And she sent us pictures, which I will post.
And she says, I thought the Japan peanuts merch people just made him up.
But then I did my reading assignment for Unpacking Peanuts and met Andy at Snoopy's bedside.
(38:15):
Serendipitous timing.
Yeah, she closes with, But I don't think the Japanese like Spike.
I don't think I've seen him once.
Jimmy (38:24):
I'm not sure if the Americans like Spike.
Harold (38:28):
Yes.
Is there much Spike merch out there?
I can't remember seeing anything at the time.
Jimmy (38:33):
They have all the brothers and sisters in plush at the museum, I know.
So I'm sure there's a Spike there.
Harold (38:39):
And there's probably just the cactus collection.
Liz (38:45):
And that's it for the mail.
Jimmy (38:47):
I got a couple of things.
We got a voicemail and two texts.
So let's start with the texts.
Dear UP, how much a product of its time is Peanuts?
Do you think a similar property would succeed if it started today?
Thanks for the amazing podcast, Charles Kulak.
And then he has a PS.
I think you should post a playlist of Michael's music for the show.
Liz (39:10):
Oh, we have it.
Jimmy (39:13):
What?
Liz (39:14):
I put it out at Christmas a year ago.
Jimmy (39:16):
Well, he did.
Liz (39:17):
And it's on Bandcamp, I think.
But I will.
Jimmy (39:20):
Oh, awesome.
Harold (39:21):
Fantastic.
Liz (39:22):
I will make sure that it is in the show notes and more available, maybe on the website.
Harold (39:28):
That's wonderful.
Jimmy (39:28):
Charles, this is how good we are at marketing.
Not even all of the people on the podcast knew that.
So don't feel bad that you didn't know it, Charles.
Michael (39:40):
I had no idea I wrote music for the show.
Liz (39:44):
Well, I'm really glad that somebody asked about it.
Harold (39:47):
Yeah.
It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_2 (39:49):
That's cool.
Harold (39:49):
You can just loop that and you'll be imagining your own Unpacking Peanuts episode.
SPEAKER_2 (39:55):
There you go.
Jimmy (39:56):
Yeah, you can play it in headphones and walk around town.
My neighbor is sitting by the thinking wall.
Harold (40:05):
Every once in a while, have a little Aziza thing pop in, a little track.
Jimmy (40:10):
How much of a product of its time do you think Peanuts is?
Would a similar property succeed today?
Michael (40:17):
I don't think anybody is really paying attention to the comic strips today.
Jimmy (40:21):
Well, yeah, that's what I was thinking is it would have to be in a different medium, right?
Harold (40:25):
Right.
As a property, of course, you know, he's kind of opened up that question.
It doesn't necessarily have to be in the comic strip.
Jimmy (40:32):
Oh, yeah.
Do you think a similar property would succeed?
SPEAKER_2 (40:34):
Right.
Harold (40:35):
Well, given we've been talking about Gen Z really responding to Snoopy, no, you know, this is a character that was created 75 years ago, and Snoopy is relevant.
I kind of think that Peanuts, although it was a slow burn in terms of Schulz having to grow into being the phenomenon he was, I think he would have had to have done it through his own means, and over the course of years got better and better, and then it would have caught on.
(41:07):
But because we have the Internet, I think that was possible.
So I would say the answer is yes, that this would have found an audience today.
Jimmy (41:16):
Well, there you go, Charles.
I agree.
And we heard from Pat M who writes, I just found your delightful podcast already up to 1964 and Lucy's slideshow of CB's fault.
It got me thinking, what media would Lucy use to critique Charlie Brown in 2025?
Michael (41:37):
Wow, TikTok.
Jimmy (41:40):
Yeah, a couple TikTok reels.
Liz (41:41):
Twitter.
Jimmy (41:44):
Maybe like just a bunch of GIFs, like ant looping GIFs of him failing at various things.
What do you think, Harold?
Harold (41:54):
I think those are good answers.
Jimmy (41:56):
All right, that's what you got.
He's going to be humiliated with GIFs on TikTok.
We got this voicemail.
SPEAKER_6 (42:05):
Hi, this is Marcia Hepps.
One-time Snoopy, long-time listener, fan of all you unpackers.
I am so grateful that you pointed me to February 20th.
I'm calling because I don't want you to worry.
I love this trip.
I love all of the cozy Linus and Snoopy in Frames 2, 3, 4, and 5 especially.
(42:35):
Then the wackiness of the tossings and turnings, and then ending up with Snoopy in the blanket.
Linus is on the Dark House.
Jimmy (42:48):
I think this is brilliant.
She is referring to the strip we discussed where it's kind of that the futurist take, where we're seeing multiple images of Snoopy and Linus as they're trying to get comfortable as they nap.
So that is the strip she was talking about liking.
Liz (43:08):
Thank you, Marcia.
Harold (43:11):
Yes, that is a great strip.
Thanks, Marcia.
Liz (43:12):
And it's one that needs to be seen to appreciate.
Jimmy (43:16):
Yeah, it's hard to even discuss that one without having it directly in front of you because it is so weird.
But it is a cool one.
And that's it.
Liz (43:25):
I just want to add one more thing that Michael had an interview today with regular listener Tim Young, who runs the podcast Deconstructing Comics.
And his interview with Michael will be out sometime this spring, I think.
We will let you know when it happens.
Jimmy (43:41):
That's fantastic, Tim.
Thank you so much for doing that.
Michael, did you represent us well?
Did you do us proud?
Michael (43:48):
I sure did.
I said we were good.
All right.
Liz (43:52):
He knew what questions to ask because he has memorized your intro of Michael.
Jimmy (43:58):
Oh, are you kidding?
Oh my God.
Me too, buddy.
Well, thank you.
So if you guys want to reach out and keep this conversation going, there's a couple of different ways you can do it.
You can call us on our hotline or leave a text there, 717-219-4162, or you can email us through our website, UnpackingPeanuts at gmail.com.
(44:23):
And you can follow us on social media too, but I'll give you that litany at the end.
How about right now?
We go right to the strips.
Sure.
SPEAKER_2 (44:31):
Okay.
Jimmy (44:32):
June 27th.
We're at the good old mall with Peppermint Patty and Marcy.
They have shopping bags and ice cream.
And Marcy says, my grandpa says when he was little, kids used to roll hoops, shoot marbles and spin tops.
And Peppermint Patty says to her, at the mall?
Love another appearance of the mall.
(44:54):
I think it's great.
I think what I'm interested in this one is the way he just designed the background to frame them.
And I'm also interested in the fact that this is a mall.
But basically, there are very, very few things indicating what anything is.
There's some items on like a makeup counter, including, what, the world's smallest lamp.
Michael (45:19):
Oh, I think that was like a ketchup bottle and sauce.
Jimmy (45:23):
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, maybe it is.
I don't know what it is.
Yeah, it's it's that's what it is.
It's condiments and that's a paper towel roll.
Liz (45:29):
Oh, no, it's a toilet paper roll.
That doesn't look like a paper towel.
Michael (45:34):
I don't know.
Jimmy (45:35):
That's what it is.
Harold (45:36):
It's a vertical toilet paper.
Jimmy (45:37):
I also don't know what's in the store on the left hand side.
Michael (45:41):
Those look like shirts.
Jimmy (45:43):
Oh, yeah, maybe shirts.
Yeah.
Harold (45:45):
So do you think he purposely kept it unclear so that the punchline would hit?
And then you have to see it afterward?
Jimmy (45:52):
And the thing that I think that's amazing is that you know it's a mall.
But why do you know it's a mall?
Michael (46:00):
She says so.
Jimmy (46:01):
Yeah, but then you're like, you don't go, is that a mall?
I don't know.
I just think it's a really interesting, graphically designed long panel, especially the big white space with the two of them in it.
Yeah, I think it really works.
And I just like any appearance of the mall because that's it.
Liz (46:16):
Honestly, when I first read this before we started, because I always read word balloons without looking at the pictures first, I thought the punchline was hysterically funny.
Because I didn't realize they were at the mall until after I dollied back out.
(46:37):
So when you introduce the strip by saying they're at the mall, I think it loses some of the humor.
Jimmy (46:43):
Really?
Harold (46:44):
But to the point, I think the way he drew it, you don't know it's a mall until you've read it, even if you're looking at it.
So I think maybe that was intentional for the very reason you said, Liz.
It is funnier if you don't know they're at the mall, at least at first.
Jimmy (47:02):
Well, I ruined that furry Sparky.
I'm sorry.
July 15th, Charlie Brown is lying awake in his bed and Snoopy is actually now laying, and not in the doghouse but on his lap, adorably curled up.
But Charlie Brown's having a rough night and he says, sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, where have I gone wrong?
(47:23):
Then he rolls over and continues, then a voice says to me, this is going to take more than one night.
Harold (47:29):
Oh, wow.
Jimmy (47:33):
I cannot help but think this is an older man with some regrets that he's putting into the strip.
To me, I look at that and I think, wow, Charles Schulz had some regrets.
That's great.
You know what I mean?
Like everybody.
Harold (47:49):
Right?
Jimmy (47:50):
You know, if after 44 years and he was drawing a comic strip of Charlie Brown in his bed thinking, you know what?
Everything I did was fantastic.
It would be no one would like that.
But this is this feels very relatable to me.
Harold (48:08):
Yeah, this is I love the Zip-A-Tone on the blanket.
It's so well done.
It's so evocative of a rumbly striped comforter.
It just works so well and it's snoopy.
And that first panel kind of curled around.
But it's probably Charlie Brown's foot.
I don't know.
Jimmy (48:28):
Yeah, it would have to be his foot.
Harold (48:32):
It's really nice.
Again, talking about 44 years into the strip.
And this hasn't existed before.
He's definitely true to the themes and the characters.
But artistically, imagine this in 1960, 1970, you can't, I mean, he just was not there artistically.
(48:55):
And he said, like in that interview, I worked harder on the strip than I ever have in terms of the visuals.
Now, part of that is because of the struggle that he has with the tremor.
But that's forced him to do new things, to incorporate that tremor into the work.
Jimmy (49:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
And one great place to do it is a good old rumpily comforter.
July 18th, Charlie Brown answers the phone.
Hello?
And we see, oh, it's Peppermint Patty giving him a call.
She says, hi Chuck, just thought I'd let you know I'm back from camp.
I had a nice time.
Did you miss me, Chuck?
(49:33):
And Charlie Brown answers, who is this?
Peppermint Patty slumps to a floor, looks miserable and says, I've never heard of you either, Chuck.
Harold (49:43):
So Charlie Brown must be visual and not auditory.
Jimmy (49:46):
Yes, he must be.
He must be.
And here's a peanut's obscurity.
Those things that they have in their hand, that's what telephones used to look like.
You couldn't even get Instagram on those.
It was not the least of all.
July 27th, Lucy and Rerun are hanging out outside and Lucy has a good old jump rope and she says, see Rerun, it's jump rope.
(50:14):
You twirl the rope and you jump up and down like this.
And she demonstrates and she continues to skip rope.
And she says, then you count how many times you jump.
To which Rerun asks, why?
Don't start asking that question, Rerun.
It's the rest of your life.
And you will have no answers.
Michael (50:36):
Odds are no one out there knows what the hell she's doing.
Jimmy (50:41):
People jump rope.
Michael (50:43):
They do?
Jimmy (50:43):
People do it for exercise.
Michael (50:44):
Yes.
Well, still Lester Stallone maybe.
Jimmy (50:49):
I don't know the little kids are out.
I guess they still are.
Yeah.
Liz (50:53):
She would have slugged Linus if he'd said that.
Jimmy (50:56):
Well, that's true.
Now that we see like the classic rerun design and we see him next to Lucy being so tiny.
Well, although look at the difference between panel one and panel four.
He shrinks.
He shrinks quite a bit.
Harold (51:12):
Yeah.
He'd better if he's going to say that to Lucy.
He's got to be kind of diminutive.
Jimmy (51:17):
The top of his head is like by her hairline in the first one.
And then he's beneath her nose in the last one.
I like the short and smaller one.
Harold (51:28):
My vote for where I wish Schulz had stayed with Rerun is right here.
Wearing overalls, being shorter.
That's Rerun.
You don't have to mess with his hair.
You don't need the bird's nest.
He could just.
Yeah, that's Rerun.
Jimmy (51:43):
Yeah, that works great.
I agree.
July 28th.
Rerun has now taken some lessons from Linus who's shooting a basketball.
Always like good basketball content.
And Linus says, this is how we shoot baskets, Rerun.
See, we bounce the ball a couple of times to get our rhythm.
Then we flip it through the basket and Rerun asks again, why?
Michael (52:07):
I'm still asking that question.
Jimmy (52:09):
It's just fun.
Michael (52:12):
It's fun.
Jimmy (52:13):
I like the fact that he used the Zip-A-Tone on the bouncing ball for some reason.
That really does give me the texture of a basketball.
It does on the first panel too.
It's hard to draw a basketball.
The stitching is weird.
Harold (52:25):
Yeah.
And for the next five and a half years, this is the punchline to every peanut strip.
Jimmy (52:31):
Why?
Well, but here we go, July 29th, theme variations.
So now Lucy is reading Rerun a book and she says, okay, Rerun, I'm going to read you this story.
And if you say why, I'm going to pound you.
To which Rerun says, how come?
Harold (52:53):
Grace period's over.
Jimmy (52:55):
So this is Rerun making a big play for being in the strip, having his own little thing.
And I'm excited about it.
I like to see him.
I like his overalls.
I like his whole vibe at this point.
Harold (53:09):
Yeah.
Jimmy (53:09):
And I also feel like he was off on his own all these decades, just getting weird.
Nobody really was paying attention to him.
Now he's just going to reveal his weirdness to us.
So what do you say we wrap it up there?
This is unprecedented because I picked so many strips.
We're going to a part four, which will forever upset Michael's OCD that we have one that is wrong.
(53:38):
And I apologize in advance, but I just couldn't stop picking them.
So we would love for you to come back if you want to keep this conversation going until then there's a bunch of different ways you could do it.
First, we would love to hear from you because remember when I don't hear, I worry.
So you can send us an email at unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.
You can reach out to us on our hotline where you can call or leave a text message.
(54:01):
That number is 717-219-4162.
Or you can follow us on social media.
We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.
And we would absolutely love to hear from you.
So come back next week for 1994 part 4.
(54:24):
Then we're going to be wrapping up this season with only one official season left where we do strips.
But we have a special surprise for you.
Liz, why don't you tell us what we're doing after 1994?
Liz (54:37):
We have some very exciting guests coming on the podcast.
Jimmy (54:43):
First, we have Rita Grimsley Johnson, author of Good Grief, which was the only authorized biography of Charles Schulz.
And she tells us great stories about getting to hang out with him and her writing life and writing career.
We have Judy Sladke, who was handpicked by Charles Schulz to be Snoopy in the ice shows.
And she was Snoopy for decades.
Liz (55:04):
It still is.
Jimmy (55:05):
It's still Snoopy, she could do backflips and tell you stories about Charles Schulz, and it's fantastic.
And we have Lynn Johnston, creator of For Better or For Worse, one of the all-time great comic strips, one of the most successful comic strips in history, personal friend of Mr.
Schulz.
And one of the few people who could really tell us what it's like to be a daily cartoonist at that level.
So we are more than excited to bring those people to you.
(55:28):
And we can't wait to get there, and we hope you share it with us.
So, until all that good stuff happens for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
Harold (55:39):
Yes, be of good cheer.
Liz (55:42):
Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted by Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner.
Produced and edited by Liz Sumner.
Music by Michael Cohen.
Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.
(56:05):
For more about Jimmy, Michael and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Jimmy (56:12):
Nurdles of White.
Welcome to Unpacking Peanuts, the podcast where three cartoonists take an in-depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M.
Schulz.
Jimmy (00:18):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
This is Unpacking Peanuts, and I'm your host for the proceedings, Jimmy Gownley.
I'm also a cartoonist.
I did things like Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up and The Dumbest Idea Ever.
Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts and fellow cartoonists.
He's a playwright and a composer, both for the Man Complicated People as well as for this very podcast.
He's the original editor of Amelia Rules, the co-creator of the original comic book Price Guide, and the creator of such great strips, A Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
(00:48):
It's Michael Cohen.
Michael (00:49):
Say hey.
Jimmy (00:51):
He's executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts, Harold Buchholz.
Harold (01:01):
Hello.
Jimmy (01:02):
Making sure everything runs smoothly, it's our producer, Liz Sumner.
Liz (01:07):
Greetings.
Jimmy (01:08):
All right, Harold, I believe you have some stuff to share with us about Mr.
Schulz in good old 1994.
Harold (01:14):
I do.
So, Schulz went to the National Cartoonist Society annual Rubin Award weekend in 1994, which he was a pretty regular attendee of, even though he was kind of getting out less often, as I understand.
But it wasn't too far.
I think it was in La Jolla, California.
So that's not a huge trek from Santa Rosa.
(01:36):
It's not nothing.
He was actually there to give a talk in a Q&A.
So we have some interesting insights from him right around when the strips we'll be discussing came out.
So I thought we want to share a little bit of that.
This is coming from an account by David Astor in the Editor and Publisher Magazine.
(02:00):
So it's kind of cool because here is Schulz among his peers talking about his strip 44 years in.
And he shared a story.
He said he heard an argument between two women recently in a restaurant, just a few days before this speech.
And they were talking about him, not knowing he was there.
(02:24):
It says one said, I'm dead.
The other said, I'm not.
Even though I've been drawing for 44 years, I'm still here and I'm not ready to retire.
So this is classic Schulz.
You know, here I am a famous person.
And yet people don't even know if I'm still around or not.
He said, I work harder now.
(02:44):
I'm more particular about everything I draw than I have ever been.
I almost never send in anything that I'm not totally pleased about.
And he said, cartoonists should do this not only for themselves, but for the syndicate salespeople.
And we've heard this a lot.
He was so aware of how he fit into the ecosystem that this was an art and a business.
(03:07):
And he said that peanuts would not be carried on by another cartoonist when he retires or dies, quoting that his children asked him.
They didn't want anyone else to do his strip.
And he said being a father of five helped him learn to stop and resume various kinds of work.
He recalled that when one of his kids wanted to play, he would leave his writing and drawing table behind for a while.
(03:32):
And regarding writing and drawing in a strip, he said, a comic must be fun to look at, no matter what the dialogue might say.
And we definitely see that.
We've been talking about that so much that, you know, he's trying to make every drawing of interest.
And I think he does that so well.
(03:53):
And this is interesting too.
We've talked about this recently.
Schulz did say he gets annoyed when he sees what he called extreme drawing that shows a comic character overreacting to something.
And Peanuts is so much about underplaying.
And he talked about how he never liked the name Peanuts.
44 years in, he's still griping about being saddled with the name Peanuts.
(04:17):
And he also called out the importance of understanding the history of comics to his fellow cartoonists.
And he gave his list again of his favorite strips this time.
He called out Skippy by Percy Crosby, which we've talked about early on in this podcast.
Lil Abner, even though Al Cap was not always kind to Schulz.
(04:40):
And Roy Crane, who did Washtub and Captain Easy and Buzz Sawyer.
So that would have been a cool event to be sitting in on.
But I'm glad that David Astor kind of gave us the highlights.
Jimmy (04:55):
Yeah, that is fantastic.
You know, the thing that really bums me out, that the part where he's talking about he was in line, and you heard people talking about whether or not he was alive or dead.
And it's really one of the reasons I wanted to do something like this, because for whatever reason, probably because their commercial origins are shady and filled with ties to organized crime.
(05:20):
But for whatever reason, the content, the characters are famous, and the cartoonists really aren't.
And it's the one medium where that's the truth, you know?
You don't buy records and go, hey, is that band alive or dead?
I don't know.
You know what I mean?
So it's sad to hear that you could achieve so much and still have people not even be aware whether or not you're alive or dead.
(05:48):
But that's the way it goes sometimes.
We're alive and that's a good thing.
Hey, not only are we alive, it's my birthday today.
Not when you're listening, but when we're recording this.
And I can think of no better way than to hang out with all my friends and that includes you guys out there.
And just talk about our favorite comic strip.
(06:09):
So with Harold's prelude out of the way, how about we hit those strips?
Now, if you guys want to follow along, what you can do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread, and you'll get one email a month from us letting you know what strips we're gonna be covering in the upcoming episodes.
And then all you gotta do is go over to gocomics.com, type in the dates we're saying, and away you go.
(06:34):
You can read along with us.
So you do that and then come back here and we'll start right now.
May 2nd, Olaf and Andy are sitting, leaning up against a barn just in enjoying an afternoon.
And Andy says to Olaf, if we're a couple of farm dogs, Olaf, don't you think we should be doing something?
(06:57):
Andy continues, don't you think we should be useful?
And Olaf says, we are useful.
If we move, the barn will fall down.
Michael (07:07):
And in the early days of comics, they used to have the main strip on the Sundays, the main strip taking two-thirds of the page.
And a lot of strips had the secondary strip on the bottom.
Same creators, sometimes same characters.
This would be a good one for Peanuts.
Everyone is these two.
(07:28):
Same, you can use the same panels over and over again.
Jimmy (07:33):
That's brilliant.
Harold (07:34):
There's so many good holding up barn jokes they could just riff on.
Jimmy (07:40):
Now, was that because of the war?
Was that a paper shortage issue that they would make?
You used two strips instead of one?
Michael (07:48):
Well, it would be a bonus to the creator too, because he'd get paid for separately, probably for the secondary strip.
Harold (07:55):
I read in passing, I don't know if this is true.
I'd never seen it before.
I was just researching something else and it came up.
And I think somebody said William Randolph Hurst thought up the idea.
And I don't know if it was to kind of try things out to kind of see if there's something that might break out.
And actually there was some success in that regard, I guess.
(08:16):
But I don't know if that's true.
Jimmy (08:18):
Now that you mentioned that, of course, it's not just the war because that's where Crazy Cat started, right?
It wasn't Crazy Cat a secondary strip to the family upstairs?
The Bums of the Bungle Family or something like that.
Harold (08:31):
Yeah, I can't remember if it was baked into the strip or if it was just along the top or it moved from one to the other.
But it's not a bad idea, right?
Michael (08:41):
Is there a name for this?
For this kind of strip?
Jimmy (08:44):
I don't know.
Harold (08:45):
That's a good question.
Jimmy (08:46):
Listeners?
Anyone know?
Michael (08:47):
Yeah, because Alex Raymond, who was doing Flash Court, had Jungle Gym on the same page on the bottom.
Harold (08:54):
Maybe our listeners know.
Jimmy (08:56):
Yeah, this would be really cute.
And you could just, yeah, it would be great.
They never do anything.
They just have a little conversation every day.
I love both of these character designs.
I love fun to see Andy.
And of course, we know I love Olaf and his own unique beauty.
Harold (09:14):
I like Andy's princess layout ears.
Jimmy (09:18):
He really does have princess layout ears.
So cute.
May 19th, Peppermint Patty is in front of the class giving a report.
And she says, This is my report on Hamlet.
A Hamlet is a small village with a population of maybe a few hundred and and then her teacher interrupts her.
Peppermint Patty says, ma'am.
And she sits down at their desk and Marcy says to her, far and away, sir, one of the great tries of all time.
(09:45):
Peppermint Patty says, I can't stand it.
This goes to them.
This crazy school they go to.
Harold (09:53):
Yeah.
Jimmy (09:54):
That she has to do a report on Hamlet.
Maybe, though, like this will be some sort of insane weight training.
And Patty will get to like high school or whatever and realize she's brilliant because she's already in this unbelievably insane grade school.
Harold (10:11):
Yeah, this teacher is ambitious.
It's nice to see.
I can't stand it as the final line in this trip.
I haven't seen that in a while.
That was a, I just can't stand it.
Jimmy (10:21):
But you know, speaking of hamlets, we know the Amelioverse here is in the great state of Pennsylvania.
Do you know there was only one town in Pennsylvania?
Harold (10:30):
No.
Michael (10:31):
Oh, officially a town?
Jimmy (10:33):
Yep.
There's many hamlets.
Michael (10:34):
Doesn't have a church?
Is that what it is?
Jimmy (10:37):
No, I don't know what that has to do with population size.
Harold (10:40):
Oh, it has to be between 8,302 and 8,307.
Jimmy (10:45):
Something like that.
Michael (10:46):
Yeah, I heard a hamlet actually is a small village with that it doesn't have a church.
Oh, really?
Jimmy (10:53):
Well, they still call hamlets things in America, and I don't think it has to do that, but that's probably where it did start.
Yeah.
And then we, because I grew up in a borough.
But anyway, yeah, Bloomsburg, only town in Pennsylvania.
Harold (11:04):
Really?
Wow, that's pretty cool.
If you go to Bloomsburg, you'll see a big sign.
Michael (11:08):
New York is a town.
It's like, hey, this old town, what a great town.
Chicago is also a great town.
Jimmy (11:13):
Oh yeah, Chicago is definitely a great town.
Michael (11:15):
My kind of town.
Jimmy (11:18):
May 30th, Snoopy and Woodstock are hanging out, and Woodstock is atop a birdbath, and he is fishing in the birdbath.
And it looks like he got something because he gets pulled in the birdbath, and that shocked Snoopy, sending his ears straight up in the air.
Woodstock, in the last panel, managed to clamor his way over to the side of the birdbath, looking disheveled and down at Snoopy, who says, some pretty big ones in there, huh?
Harold (11:46):
Such a cute Woodstock in the first panel, fishing.
Absolutely.
Jimmy (11:51):
One of my talents, especially starting in 1986, when I feel like around 84 to 86 is when they started really using photocopiers in comics.
And one of my great superpowers was trying to find the original image and seeing which ones were the photocopies.
(12:13):
You could really see it.
Bilson Kevich used to do it a lot, and he'd do it with color photocopiers.
And those are never right on, but you could always see.
And yeah, so this bird bath is definitely photocopies three times.
Which one do you guys think is the original?
Can you tell?
Michael (12:30):
You know, the first one.
Jimmy (12:32):
Yeah.
Michael (12:32):
I'm guessing.
Harold (12:34):
So wow.
No, I don't know that we can say that ever happened before.
To our knowledge, we haven't seen this before.
That's something, you know?
Michael (12:45):
You got the same object in three, with Zip-a-tone and three panels.
Harold (12:51):
I'm wondering why.
Jimmy (12:54):
Well, do you think it's because of the Zip-a-tone?
Michael (12:56):
Yeah, I think he couldn't duplicate it.
Yeah.
Harold (12:59):
But the interesting thing is, you know, he would have penciled this, right?
And he would have drawn it three times.
And then he would have, I'm guessing, and then he would have been inking.
And then once he inked the first one, the Zip-a-tone wouldn't have gone down, I'm guessing, until the very end.
Do you think he was all the way into it?
He's like, oh, I'm not going to do this again.
Jimmy (13:21):
Could have been that.
Could have been that he tried to duplicate it and couldn't, and then thought, oh, I know what I'm going to do.
Harold (13:28):
I'm going to copy it.
Jimmy (13:30):
But I suspect that Michael's writing has something to do with the fact that it's, it has that kind of, not elaborate, but intricate little details of the Zip-a-tone on it.
Harold (13:42):
It's nicely done.
It really, it's uniquely Schulz.
I just don't know anybody else who treated Zip-a-tone this the way he did.
Jimmy (13:49):
No, it looks so much more like duo shade.
Your duo shade, you're painting it on.
That's the thing we talked about this before.
It's the chemicals you put on the paper to develop different lines to make the shading.
Harold (14:01):
And that guy Roy Crane, we just mentioned is one of the three people he called out was a master of that.
And what I don't understand is how many people were using this?
How did a company manufacture this stuff and stay in business for years when there's like one or two cartoons to use it?
Michael (14:18):
Well, advertising.
Harold (14:20):
Yeah, but how many times have you seen it in advertising?
I mean, it just doesn't seem like something that there would have been a massive demand for.
I could be wrong, but I just, I don't remember seeing it anywhere but, you know, Buzzsaw.
Jimmy (14:37):
Yeah, I don't know.
But it was, and it was such a great thing.
I was wondering, I don't know if this is, this might be insane, but does it read as gray to modern eyes or does it look like black dots?
Like in a world where everything is high def, like everything in our lives looked grainy and out of focus and weird.
(14:58):
So like you didn't think, okay, those black dots represent gray tones.
Fine.
Because half tones were everywhere in newspapers.
Harold (15:05):
I would bet it varies from person to person.
There are certain things that people see exactly the same thing in such a different way.
Again, we could ask our listeners.
Jimmy (15:19):
Well, I remember when the Batman movie came out, the first one in 1989 and I was in high school, and my geometry teacher pulled me aside because we had a dress down day.
I went to Catholic school, but every once in a while you'd be able to just wear whatever.
Half the school was in Batman shirts.
My geometry teacher pulled me aside and said, I have to ask you a question because I was wearing a Batman shirt.
(15:42):
Just why is everybody wearing yellow teeth?
I'm like, what are you talking about?
Yeah, she saw the yellow circle around the bat as an open mouth with teeth and thought it was the ugliest thing.
Why did suddenly everyone in the world want to wear yellow teeth?
(16:02):
I'm like, no, it's a bat signal.
And it took her a minute.
She's like, oh, I see.
Harold (16:09):
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
I was afraid you got in trouble.
You were going to get dressed down on Dress Down Day.
Jimmy (16:16):
Oh, no.
Harold (16:19):
I bet it's different to different eyes.
I've heard some really fascinating things from people.
I've always said I love the thicks and thins of the line in cartooning.
And I've met people who look at me and go, what are you talking about?
They don't see the variation in line if someone had drawn something.
Liz (16:37):
I don't see it.
Oh, really?
I mean, I think it's you guys as cartoonists see an entirely different thing from those of us who are like auditory people.
Harold (16:47):
Yeah, there's certain things that I don't know if our brain is just trained to shut out stuff that's irrelevant to you.
And so after a while or, you know, you're just it's like when you're looking at a chair and you say it's a chair and versus having to draw the chair.
And then you have to see it in a completely different way in order to recreate it.
(17:08):
Your brain is just saying, well, that's that's Snoopy, you know, there's no reason to analyze the lines that make Snoopy.
Liz (17:15):
But speaking of analyzing the lines, what's with those clouds?
It looks like a flying t-shirt in that second panel.
Jimmy (17:24):
I see what that's kind of looked like, a flying t-shirt.
Harold (17:27):
That's a bat signal.
Jimmy (17:28):
Maybe they're near a baseball field where it's t-shirt day and I shoot them out of a cannon.
I like the third panel Woodstock looking a little moist.
Harold (17:43):
Well, that's interesting.
Talk about seeing things two different ways.
Up until just now, I was seeing Woodstock looking off into the distance.
Now, I'm seeing Woodstock looking directly at Snoopy.
Jimmy (17:57):
Yeah, he's looking at Snoopy.
Harold (17:58):
Because the two lines are so close to looking like two eyes.
Oh, yes.
But it's not.
It is thinner on the second one and that's that little loosey line around the eye.
You can see that Woodstock's had a hard time, but I read that as just Woodstock looking off into the distance a little disheveled, but it's not.
(18:21):
That's so wild.
That's so unusual for...
It's so funny.
We were here, we were talking about it for other things, and I just realized I was misreading Schulz's intent.
Did you guys see it as immediately as Woodstock looking at Snoopy?
Michael (18:36):
It's both at once.
It's that...
Jimmy (18:40):
The rabbit duck thing?
Michael (18:41):
Cubist influence.
Harold (18:44):
I like it both ways.
Michael (18:46):
Picasso influence.
Harold (18:48):
I can just hop back and forth now.
Jimmy (18:50):
I get to use nude descending a staircase as our title for last episode.
Michael (18:54):
I don't know if you can use the word nude on the web, though.
Jimmy (18:58):
Not allowed to, is that...
That's right, yeah.
Harold (19:00):
The downloads are down by 50% because it's all edited out by AI.
I haven't even occurred.
This requires 18 and up.
Jimmy (19:08):
18 and up.
So, just going back to whether you see the lines or don't see the lines, that's really...
I never even considered that, that some people really don't see the thicks and thins.
Because Michael talks about his favorite or one of his favorite artists being Al Williamson, who's in so many ways the opposite of Schulz.
(19:31):
Schulz is fair and cartoony, and Williamson is detailed and realistic.
But, if you look at both of them on a microscopic level, the lines are beautiful despite, they're both beautiful.
It doesn't matter what they're describing or even how they're describing it.
You could, I look at them and I think, oh my gosh, those are just amazing pen and ink lines.
Michael (19:57):
It's funny you mentioned that, because we were just talking about thin and thin lines.
I was just thinking about the guy who was my favorite anchor in the 60s for Kirby, which was Dick Ayers.
Which to this day is still my favorite anchor because that's the stuff I feel in love with.
I go back and look at it.
(20:18):
It's still beautiful, but boy, the thick lines are insane.
It's something I've never tried to do, but it's probably not as fashionable anymore.
But at that time, you really poured it on on those outlines.
Harold (20:35):
Yeah.
I mentioned Joe Kubert in his later career.
He had such incredibly chunky brush lines that I could only see the lines and I had to fight to see what he had drawn because I just saw blotches of ink.
Tor, I think was one of the...
(20:56):
Actually, there was a logo I think they used for his school in New Jersey, his cartooning school.
Jimmy (21:01):
Like a Tarzan kind of guy?
Harold (21:02):
This Tarzan guy.
And when I look at that, I have to fight to see the guy because it's just this massive Rorschach blobs of ink.
Michael (21:11):
Speaking of which...
Harold (21:12):
Maybe because I'm so focused online.
You know, I don't know.
Michael (21:14):
Look at our next trip from talking about blotches of ink.
Harold (21:17):
Oh, wow.
Jimmy (21:19):
June 9th, Snoopy is amid many blotches of ink.
He is an infantry man in World War II, and he is storming the beach at Normandy.
And we see him throwing some grenades, and he's thinking to himself, D plus four, the brave infantry man hurls a grenade at the pillbox.
(21:40):
Then another, and another.
And it looks like a really wild battle scene.
And then we cut to Charlie Brown reading that one book in his chair.
And he says, why do I have the feeling someone is throwing rocks at our front door?
Liz (21:57):
So this is the 50th anniversary of four days after D-Day.
Michael (22:03):
This brings to mind just how incredibly naïve I was and ignorant, and comics taught me so much.
Talk about Joe Kubert again.
Okay, there was a Joe Kubert story, probably, you know, early 60s, a war story.
And I read the title as The Day, the Hour.
(22:23):
And I thought, okay, the guy's really, like, nervous.
Oh, man.
Jimmy (22:39):
We were talking, I guess, last episode about sometimes drawing the way you're drawing, affecting the emotion or being affected, rather by the emotion you're feeling or trying to portray.
This is, and I'm completely projecting.
I don't know anything about this.
But to me, this looks like someone with PTSD.
(23:02):
I mean, this is an intense, violent, ugly, and I don't even mean that in a bad way.
Like, but, you know, expressionistically ugly panel.
Yeah.
Of war in Peanuts.
I think it's pretty wild.
And I remember, I very much remember when these were coming out and thinking the same thing.
(23:27):
Like that pill box just looks evil.
Michael (23:32):
I find it slightly disrespectful.
Jimmy (23:35):
Because it's new.
Michael (23:36):
I know he was in battle, but to make it part of a joke with the dog.
And being this, well, it's as realistic as Schulz gets.
Jimmy (23:47):
Yeah.
Michael (23:47):
About people getting blown up.
Jimmy (23:50):
Yeah, I'm curious.
I believe he heard lots of good things about it from the people who, from vets and stuff like that.
But I definitely see your point because I mean, it's newbie and in most people's mind, it's a simple basic comic strip and not like the creator's personal diary which it really is.
(24:13):
What do you think of the art, Harold?
Harold (24:16):
It's interesting you were saying about the PTSD.
That's really interesting because this is, he's showing the horror here and what's going on.
It is the strange juxtaposition in this comic strip within the panel of Charlie Brown quietly sitting in his chair.
Jimmy (24:36):
Yeah.
Harold (24:37):
Which is actually, I guess, again, this is, this strip maybe is another Rorschach test for people where they may get so sucked into what Snoopy is doing and what he's in the middle of which actually happened, that Snoopy is recreating.
It's either a tribute to the brave soldiers or it's disrespectful.
(25:03):
That's really interesting.
Michael (25:06):
Yeah.
Harold (25:06):
I didn't read it that way because I guess I was just so used to Snoopy.
But we've seen him as the World War I flying ace.
Yeah, but he's fighting a certain person who we know never dies.
Snoopy could be killing somebody.
Michael (25:24):
Yeah.
If he was in the trenches, it would not be good.
Harold (25:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The fact that he's throwing a grenade into a place that has, you expect other beings who could be killed by Snoopy.
That's a little different.
Michael (25:38):
Other dogs, German Shepherds.
Harold (25:46):
That's disrespectful, Michael.
Jimmy (25:49):
I apologize to all our German listeners.
That was just funny.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Liz (25:55):
So what tools is he using there?
Is that a marker?
How to say?
It doesn't look like Zip-A-Tone to me.
Jimmy (26:04):
Well, there's some Zip-A-Tone, I think.
Actually, maybe there's no Zip-A-Tone.
It looks like it's black brushes, and then it looks like he's almost scratching into it with white on top.
Michael (26:14):
Well, there's pretty some pretty tight cross hatching going on too.
Jimmy (26:18):
Yeah, yes.
Michael (26:19):
He never does.
Jimmy (26:20):
No, no, no, no, never.
Harold (26:22):
Almost never.
Jimmy (26:23):
Yeah.
Harold (26:23):
Very, very unique panel.
Jimmy (26:25):
I'd be curious because, you know, because I do this sometimes, I'll scratch into the black, really only in this depression book I'm doing.
I'll scratch over the black with an X-Acto knife to get white lines through it, which I got from an interview with Schulz, where he was talking about how George Harriman doing it that way.
(26:47):
But yeah, I look at this and I see PTSD.
Harold (26:52):
Yeah.
That's really an interesting insight.
I can see that in this art.
It is one of the most tortured panels, if not the most in Peanuts history here.
Jimmy (27:05):
Yeah.
Harold (27:06):
No, I have to go back, Michael.
I confess, I didn't understand that thing you were just saying.
It's been going over my head because I didn't get what you were saying about the day.
Liz (27:15):
Oh, D-Day H-hour.
Michael (27:18):
D-Day H-hour.
Harold (27:19):
What is H-hour?
I don't even have never heard of H-hour.
Michael (27:22):
That's the landing hour.
Jimmy (27:24):
Oh, and he thought it was D-Day.
Liz (27:26):
D-Day, okay.
Harold (27:29):
I didn't know the H-hour, so I was kind of...
Jimmy (27:32):
I guarantee I would have thought that if I saw it.
Definitely.
Harold (27:35):
It makes sense, yeah.
Liz (27:36):
Siga.
Jimmy (27:37):
Siga, yeah.
Here's another one of the D-Day strips, June 10th, and it's Snoopy behind a machine gun in a little machine gun nest with his helmet on.
He's riding home, and he says, Dear Mom, just a note to tell you I am well.
They say we will be home by Christmas.
I hope so.
And that's the entire strip?
Michael (27:58):
Yeah, again, we had one shortly before this, which was no attempt at a punch line.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_2 (28:05):
Yeah.
Harold (28:08):
This is pretty remarkable, Peanuts 44 years in.
Michael (28:11):
Yeah.
This is definitely a Maldon kind of thing, where he'd have people in their trenches riding home.
Liz (28:19):
And maybe it is Zip-A-Tone.
Harold (28:21):
Well, looking at this, unless there was a Zip-A-Tone that was uneven lines, he's doing every single line here.
The reason that I would think, I can't make up my mind on this, but I'm guessing he's drawing every single line here, unless there's some tone I'm not aware of that was just kind of uneven.
Jimmy (28:42):
I mean, there are, but no, not like this.
Liz (28:45):
I think we have to go to the museum and see that exhibit.
Michael (28:48):
Well, you know what happens when you're crosshatching and you're not up really close.
Sometimes some lines are closer and some lines are further apart.
Jimmy (28:59):
Yeah, no, that's definitely what's going to happen.
Michael (29:01):
Then the reproduction.
Yeah, I'm sure it's cleaner in the original.
Harold (29:04):
But you're saying Michael, this is hand done every single one of these lines.
Jimmy (29:08):
Yeah.
Harold (29:09):
That's a lot.
He spent a lot of time because there are probably a good 400 plus lines.
Liz (29:15):
But the way he cuts it out, I mean, it looks like the way he does Zip-A-Tone.
Harold (29:21):
Yes, you're right.
That's what I was looking at.
Now, in this case, what he would do is he would take some sort of a white out and drop it on top of the lines he's already drawn, right?
That's how he would do this.
So he'd do all the lines.
Well, sometimes, I think.
Jimmy (29:38):
Yeah, where it's on top of it, on the right-hand side of like above Snoopy, those little nurdles of white.
But I think in some other instance, when he's bumping up against the trees, not all the way, I mean, he just did it that way, I believe.
I don't think he did the whole thing and then went over top of all of it.
Harold (29:56):
This is a strip I really would like to see in person, and you can really see the technique that he, I mean, the fact that we're discussing this and trying to figure it out shows that he, this is a remarkable work that he's done.
As cartoonists, we can't fully figure out what he was up to.
Jimmy (30:16):
The other thing that's interesting about it is, if you go back to 1950 and he's given this tiny little, little strip and he's like, well, I'm going to fight back using white space and everything's going to be about drawing the eye to my thing.
And this is not carrying, I guarantee you, I haven't seen it in the newspaper in 31 years, but I'm guarantee that looked just like a smudge in the newspaper, the two or this whole sequence.
(30:42):
And I'm guarantee, I also guarantee that he knew that.
Harold (30:45):
Well, I think it's interesting, 44 years in, Schulz has influenced a lot of cartoonists, and everybody I think moved in his direction, or most people moved in his direction.
So there's a ton of white space now in the strips.
And so he mixes it up.
He's like, well, if that's where you guys are now, I can go the other direction.
Liz (31:09):
And have we seen Snoopy holding a pencil in his paw?
Harold (31:13):
No, that was such a strange drawing.
It looks like it's just balancing on the top of a paw that it looks like it's going the wrong direction even, right?
Liz (31:23):
Well, he's left-handed.
Jimmy (31:25):
Oh, yeah, he would be left-handed.
Yeah, so Snoopy is a left-handed writer.
Wow, that's weird.
Harold (31:32):
I read it as his right paw.
I thought the little paw, I saw a little paw down that's in front of him, which would have been his left paw, maybe?
Jimmy (31:42):
Oh, you're right, Harold.
Oh, I see what it is.
No, no, yeah, you're totally right.
Oh, that's, you have to really zoom in to see that.
But yeah.
Harold (31:50):
Yeah, it's very, very unusual drawing.
Jimmy (31:55):
Well, you know what?
Having successfully stormed the beach at Normandy, I think we need to take a break, recollect, and before we advance.
Sound good?
Liz (32:04):
Sure.
Yes, sir.
Hi, everyone.
We love it when you write or call to tell us how much you enjoy the show.
But don't just tell us, tell your friends, tell complete strangers, share your appreciation in a review.
It doesn't have to be on Apple Podcasts.
Sixty percent of you listen on other apps.
(32:25):
Some of those apps have review sections.
Think of all the poor peanuts fans out there who haven't found us yet.
There are review instructions on our website at unpackingpeanuts.com/spread the word.
Thank you for your support.
And now let's hear what some of you have to say.
Jimmy (32:45):
And we are back.
Hey, Liz, I'm hanging out in the mailbox.
Do we got anything?
Liz (32:49):
We do.
We heard from Colin from Ireland who writes, big fan of the pod.
Jimmy (32:55):
All right.
Liz (32:56):
I work in a bookstore and I'm always perusing this site called Lit Hub.
And I recently came across a great article by Chuck Klosterman about peanuts called Writing About Charlie Brown Feels Like Writing About Myself.
I can't vouch for the quality of Klosterman's other work, but I very much enjoyed this.
(33:16):
And I will put the link on social media.
He says, thanks for the great show.
Me and my partner always look forward to the new episode.
Jimmy (33:26):
Oh, well, thank you so much.
Liz (33:27):
PS.
I've been recently deep diving R.E.M.'s back catalog.
Jimmy (33:32):
Yes.
Liz (33:33):
While listening to the pod, Are You Talking REM.
Remy?
Jimmy (33:37):
Oh, a great pod.
Adam Scott, Scott Ackerman.
I know it well.
Very nice.
Liz (33:43):
And he says, I might have to agree with Jimmy that they're the best band ever, along with the Smiths, of course.
Jimmy (33:50):
What a great day it is for me, my birthday.
Fantastic.
Thank you so much.
Michael (33:58):
And I have read all of Chuck Klosterman's books of essays.
They're great.
He's very funny.
Also, he's writing about pop music generally.
Harold (34:08):
So you can vouch for Chuck Klosterman's.
Michael (34:10):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he's one of my favorites.
Jimmy (34:12):
Yeah, he's great.
Liz (34:13):
So thank you, Colin.
That was great.
Harold (34:15):
Thank you.
Liz (34:16):
And then we also heard from Paul Ebert, who writes, Hey gang, I'm listening to the 1993 part two episode where you talk about Rerun's relationship with Snoopy.
Bringing Rerun back with more to do than comment about being on the back of a bicycle was, as far as I see it, the last brilliant thing Schulz brought to the strip, especially for how he put Snoopy and Rerun in a deeply meaningful relationship.
(34:42):
Jimmy's comment on how Snoopy and Rerun are on the same wavelength left me with a question for y'all.
This all happened when Calvin and Hobbes was the thing in comic strips.
Any speculation on the idea that Rerun and Snoopy as a pair of characters was influenced by Waterson?
Be of good cheer.
SPEAKER_6 (35:01):
Oh, interesting.
Jimmy (35:02):
Well, he'd never admit it.
Michael (35:07):
Well, we don't actually see these Snoopy Rerun strips till later this year.
And this is the year that I've been waiting for this to happen.
That Rerun actually comes into his own as a main character.
Jimmy (35:24):
21 years after his, maybe I'm wrong about that, but around 21 years after he was first introduced, which is wild.
Harold (35:33):
They certainly are, it's two very different types of relationships, Calvin and Hobbes and Rerun and Snoopy.
Jimmy (35:41):
Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely.
Harold (35:44):
There seems to be this, I've read so few of them and here I am going in order now.
So the vast majority of strips ahead of me I've not seen, but the ones that I have seen just kind of randomly through the years, there seems to be a very pure relationship between the two of them.
That in some ways reminds me of Snoopy and Woodstock.
Jimmy (36:06):
Yeah.
Harold (36:07):
Because that is a different, well, it's so interesting.
I think that's one of the wonderful things about Calvin and Hobbes is you have this Tiger character who is, you know, you're dancing in the world of Calvin's fantasy, but it can't be Calvin's fantasy.
So is he real?
Is he not?
And that's one of the dynamics of the strip, of course.
(36:29):
But to have somebody who is as thoughtful and playful as Hobbes with Calvin, who is much more, he can be cynical and he can be super self-serving.
It's a great balance, but it's definitely a different dynamic, of course, than Rerun and Snoopy, who are just kind of fighting joy in each other.
Jimmy (36:52):
I think it probably is more likely that Schulz would look at Watterson's work and see the things Watterson took from him rather than seeing things he could take from Watterson.
Harold (37:01):
You know what I mean?
Jimmy (37:03):
You know how it is.
Harold (37:04):
But he is a student.
We know he's a student of what's going on around him, and he absolutely is going to glean from somebody who is at the top of his game in the field that he works in.
So, I think Schulz would also be a fool to not see why is this working and is there something I can pull?
(37:25):
He's very, very good at that.
Liz (37:27):
We also heard from regular listener, Sarah Wilson, who writes, Dear ma'am, I mean, sweet cheeks, I mean, hon.
Harold (37:38):
Oh, no.
That's a good start.
Liz (37:42):
Just last week, I popped into Snoopy Town here in Tokyo and noticed that all the Olaf merch was discounted and on sale.
Harold (37:51):
Oh, my.
Jimmy (37:51):
Scoop that up.
Liz (37:54):
And this fad, too, passed already.
But then I discovered why.
There's a new dog in town named Andy.
And she sent us pictures, which I will post.
And she says, I thought the Japan peanuts merch people just made him up.
But then I did my reading assignment for Unpacking Peanuts and met Andy at Snoopy's bedside.
(38:15):
Serendipitous timing.
Yeah, she closes with, But I don't think the Japanese like Spike.
I don't think I've seen him once.
Jimmy (38:24):
I'm not sure if the Americans like Spike.
Harold (38:28):
Yes.
Is there much Spike merch out there?
I can't remember seeing anything at the time.
Jimmy (38:33):
They have all the brothers and sisters in plush at the museum, I know.
So I'm sure there's a Spike there.
Harold (38:39):
And there's probably just the cactus collection.
Liz (38:45):
And that's it for the mail.
Jimmy (38:47):
I got a couple of things.
We got a voicemail and two texts.
So let's start with the texts.
Dear UP, how much a product of its time is Peanuts?
Do you think a similar property would succeed if it started today?
Thanks for the amazing podcast, Charles Kulak.
And then he has a PS.
I think you should post a playlist of Michael's music for the show.
Liz (39:10):
Oh, we have it.
Jimmy (39:13):
What?
Liz (39:14):
I put it out at Christmas a year ago.
Jimmy (39:16):
Well, he did.
Liz (39:17):
And it's on Bandcamp, I think.
But I will.
Jimmy (39:20):
Oh, awesome.
Harold (39:21):
Fantastic.
Liz (39:22):
I will make sure that it is in the show notes and more available, maybe on the website.
Harold (39:28):
That's wonderful.
Jimmy (39:28):
Charles, this is how good we are at marketing.
Not even all of the people on the podcast knew that.
So don't feel bad that you didn't know it, Charles.
Michael (39:40):
I had no idea I wrote music for the show.
Liz (39:44):
Well, I'm really glad that somebody asked about it.
Harold (39:47):
Yeah.
It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_2 (39:49):
That's cool.
Harold (39:49):
You can just loop that and you'll be imagining your own Unpacking Peanuts episode.
SPEAKER_2 (39:55):
There you go.
Jimmy (39:56):
Yeah, you can play it in headphones and walk around town.
My neighbor is sitting by the thinking wall.
Harold (40:05):
Every once in a while, have a little Aziza thing pop in, a little track.
Jimmy (40:10):
How much of a product of its time do you think Peanuts is?
Would a similar property succeed today?
Michael (40:17):
I don't think anybody is really paying attention to the comic strips today.
Jimmy (40:21):
Well, yeah, that's what I was thinking is it would have to be in a different medium, right?
Harold (40:25):
Right.
As a property, of course, you know, he's kind of opened up that question.
It doesn't necessarily have to be in the comic strip.
Jimmy (40:32):
Oh, yeah.
Do you think a similar property would succeed?
SPEAKER_2 (40:34):
Right.
Harold (40:35):
Well, given we've been talking about Gen Z really responding to Snoopy, no, you know, this is a character that was created 75 years ago, and Snoopy is relevant.
I kind of think that Peanuts, although it was a slow burn in terms of Schulz having to grow into being the phenomenon he was, I think he would have had to have done it through his own means, and over the course of years got better and better, and then it would have caught on.
(41:07):
But because we have the Internet, I think that was possible.
So I would say the answer is yes, that this would have found an audience today.
Jimmy (41:16):
Well, there you go, Charles.
I agree.
And we heard from Pat M who writes, I just found your delightful podcast already up to 1964 and Lucy's slideshow of CB's fault.
It got me thinking, what media would Lucy use to critique Charlie Brown in 2025?
Michael (41:37):
Wow, TikTok.
Jimmy (41:40):
Yeah, a couple TikTok reels.
Liz (41:41):
Twitter.
Jimmy (41:44):
Maybe like just a bunch of GIFs, like ant looping GIFs of him failing at various things.
What do you think, Harold?
Harold (41:54):
I think those are good answers.
Jimmy (41:56):
All right, that's what you got.
He's going to be humiliated with GIFs on TikTok.
We got this voicemail.
SPEAKER_6 (42:05):
Hi, this is Marcia Hepps.
One-time Snoopy, long-time listener, fan of all you unpackers.
I am so grateful that you pointed me to February 20th.
I'm calling because I don't want you to worry.
I love this trip.
I love all of the cozy Linus and Snoopy in Frames 2, 3, 4, and 5 especially.
(42:35):
Then the wackiness of the tossings and turnings, and then ending up with Snoopy in the blanket.
Linus is on the Dark House.
Jimmy (42:48):
I think this is brilliant.
She is referring to the strip we discussed where it's kind of that the futurist take, where we're seeing multiple images of Snoopy and Linus as they're trying to get comfortable as they nap.
So that is the strip she was talking about liking.
Liz (43:08):
Thank you, Marcia.
Harold (43:11):
Yes, that is a great strip.
Thanks, Marcia.
Liz (43:12):
And it's one that needs to be seen to appreciate.
Jimmy (43:16):
Yeah, it's hard to even discuss that one without having it directly in front of you because it is so weird.
But it is a cool one.
And that's it.
Liz (43:25):
I just want to add one more thing that Michael had an interview today with regular listener Tim Young, who runs the podcast Deconstructing Comics.
And his interview with Michael will be out sometime this spring, I think.
We will let you know when it happens.
Jimmy (43:41):
That's fantastic, Tim.
Thank you so much for doing that.
Michael, did you represent us well?
Did you do us proud?
Michael (43:48):
I sure did.
I said we were good.
All right.
Liz (43:52):
He knew what questions to ask because he has memorized your intro of Michael.
Jimmy (43:58):
Oh, are you kidding?
Oh my God.
Me too, buddy.
Well, thank you.
So if you guys want to reach out and keep this conversation going, there's a couple of different ways you can do it.
You can call us on our hotline or leave a text there, 717-219-4162, or you can email us through our website, UnpackingPeanuts at gmail.com.
(44:23):
And you can follow us on social media too, but I'll give you that litany at the end.
How about right now?
We go right to the strips.
Sure.
SPEAKER_2 (44:31):
Okay.
Jimmy (44:32):
June 27th.
We're at the good old mall with Peppermint Patty and Marcy.
They have shopping bags and ice cream.
And Marcy says, my grandpa says when he was little, kids used to roll hoops, shoot marbles and spin tops.
And Peppermint Patty says to her, at the mall?
Love another appearance of the mall.
(44:54):
I think it's great.
I think what I'm interested in this one is the way he just designed the background to frame them.
And I'm also interested in the fact that this is a mall.
But basically, there are very, very few things indicating what anything is.
There's some items on like a makeup counter, including, what, the world's smallest lamp.
Michael (45:19):
Oh, I think that was like a ketchup bottle and sauce.
Jimmy (45:23):
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, maybe it is.
I don't know what it is.
Yeah, it's it's that's what it is.
It's condiments and that's a paper towel roll.
Liz (45:29):
Oh, no, it's a toilet paper roll.
That doesn't look like a paper towel.
Michael (45:34):
I don't know.
Jimmy (45:35):
That's what it is.
Harold (45:36):
It's a vertical toilet paper.
Jimmy (45:37):
I also don't know what's in the store on the left hand side.
Michael (45:41):
Those look like shirts.
Jimmy (45:43):
Oh, yeah, maybe shirts.
Yeah.
Harold (45:45):
So do you think he purposely kept it unclear so that the punchline would hit?
And then you have to see it afterward?
Jimmy (45:52):
And the thing that I think that's amazing is that you know it's a mall.
But why do you know it's a mall?
Michael (46:00):
She says so.
Jimmy (46:01):
Yeah, but then you're like, you don't go, is that a mall?
I don't know.
I just think it's a really interesting, graphically designed long panel, especially the big white space with the two of them in it.
Yeah, I think it really works.
And I just like any appearance of the mall because that's it.
Liz (46:16):
Honestly, when I first read this before we started, because I always read word balloons without looking at the pictures first, I thought the punchline was hysterically funny.
Because I didn't realize they were at the mall until after I dollied back out.
(46:37):
So when you introduce the strip by saying they're at the mall, I think it loses some of the humor.
Jimmy (46:43):
Really?
Harold (46:44):
But to the point, I think the way he drew it, you don't know it's a mall until you've read it, even if you're looking at it.
So I think maybe that was intentional for the very reason you said, Liz.
It is funnier if you don't know they're at the mall, at least at first.
Jimmy (47:02):
Well, I ruined that furry Sparky.
I'm sorry.
July 15th, Charlie Brown is lying awake in his bed and Snoopy is actually now laying, and not in the doghouse but on his lap, adorably curled up.
But Charlie Brown's having a rough night and he says, sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, where have I gone wrong?
(47:23):
Then he rolls over and continues, then a voice says to me, this is going to take more than one night.
Harold (47:29):
Oh, wow.
Jimmy (47:33):
I cannot help but think this is an older man with some regrets that he's putting into the strip.
To me, I look at that and I think, wow, Charles Schulz had some regrets.
That's great.
You know what I mean?
Like everybody.
Harold (47:49):
Right?
Jimmy (47:50):
You know, if after 44 years and he was drawing a comic strip of Charlie Brown in his bed thinking, you know what?
Everything I did was fantastic.
It would be no one would like that.
But this is this feels very relatable to me.
Harold (48:08):
Yeah, this is I love the Zip-A-Tone on the blanket.
It's so well done.
It's so evocative of a rumbly striped comforter.
It just works so well and it's snoopy.
And that first panel kind of curled around.
But it's probably Charlie Brown's foot.
I don't know.
Jimmy (48:28):
Yeah, it would have to be his foot.
Harold (48:32):
It's really nice.
Again, talking about 44 years into the strip.
And this hasn't existed before.
He's definitely true to the themes and the characters.
But artistically, imagine this in 1960, 1970, you can't, I mean, he just was not there artistically.
(48:55):
And he said, like in that interview, I worked harder on the strip than I ever have in terms of the visuals.
Now, part of that is because of the struggle that he has with the tremor.
But that's forced him to do new things, to incorporate that tremor into the work.
Jimmy (49:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
And one great place to do it is a good old rumpily comforter.
July 18th, Charlie Brown answers the phone.
Hello?
And we see, oh, it's Peppermint Patty giving him a call.
She says, hi Chuck, just thought I'd let you know I'm back from camp.
I had a nice time.
Did you miss me, Chuck?
(49:33):
And Charlie Brown answers, who is this?
Peppermint Patty slumps to a floor, looks miserable and says, I've never heard of you either, Chuck.
Harold (49:43):
So Charlie Brown must be visual and not auditory.
Jimmy (49:46):
Yes, he must be.
He must be.
And here's a peanut's obscurity.
Those things that they have in their hand, that's what telephones used to look like.
You couldn't even get Instagram on those.
It was not the least of all.
July 27th, Lucy and Rerun are hanging out outside and Lucy has a good old jump rope and she says, see Rerun, it's jump rope.
(50:14):
You twirl the rope and you jump up and down like this.
And she demonstrates and she continues to skip rope.
And she says, then you count how many times you jump.
To which Rerun asks, why?
Don't start asking that question, Rerun.
It's the rest of your life.
And you will have no answers.
Michael (50:36):
Odds are no one out there knows what the hell she's doing.
Jimmy (50:41):
People jump rope.
Michael (50:43):
They do?
Jimmy (50:43):
People do it for exercise.
Michael (50:44):
Yes.
Well, still Lester Stallone maybe.
Jimmy (50:49):
I don't know the little kids are out.
I guess they still are.
Yeah.
Liz (50:53):
She would have slugged Linus if he'd said that.
Jimmy (50:56):
Well, that's true.
Now that we see like the classic rerun design and we see him next to Lucy being so tiny.
Well, although look at the difference between panel one and panel four.
He shrinks.
He shrinks quite a bit.
Harold (51:12):
Yeah.
He'd better if he's going to say that to Lucy.
He's got to be kind of diminutive.
Jimmy (51:17):
The top of his head is like by her hairline in the first one.
And then he's beneath her nose in the last one.
I like the short and smaller one.
Harold (51:28):
My vote for where I wish Schulz had stayed with Rerun is right here.
Wearing overalls, being shorter.
That's Rerun.
You don't have to mess with his hair.
You don't need the bird's nest.
He could just.
Yeah, that's Rerun.
Jimmy (51:43):
Yeah, that works great.
I agree.
July 28th.
Rerun has now taken some lessons from Linus who's shooting a basketball.
Always like good basketball content.
And Linus says, this is how we shoot baskets, Rerun.
See, we bounce the ball a couple of times to get our rhythm.
Then we flip it through the basket and Rerun asks again, why?
Michael (52:07):
I'm still asking that question.
Jimmy (52:09):
It's just fun.
Michael (52:12):
It's fun.
Jimmy (52:13):
I like the fact that he used the Zip-A-Tone on the bouncing ball for some reason.
That really does give me the texture of a basketball.
It does on the first panel too.
It's hard to draw a basketball.
The stitching is weird.
Harold (52:25):
Yeah.
And for the next five and a half years, this is the punchline to every peanut strip.
Jimmy (52:31):
Why?
Well, but here we go, July 29th, theme variations.
So now Lucy is reading Rerun a book and she says, okay, Rerun, I'm going to read you this story.
And if you say why, I'm going to pound you.
To which Rerun says, how come?
Harold (52:53):
Grace period's over.
Jimmy (52:55):
So this is Rerun making a big play for being in the strip, having his own little thing.
And I'm excited about it.
I like to see him.
I like his overalls.
I like his whole vibe at this point.
Harold (53:09):
Yeah.
Jimmy (53:09):
And I also feel like he was off on his own all these decades, just getting weird.
Nobody really was paying attention to him.
Now he's just going to reveal his weirdness to us.
So what do you say we wrap it up there?
This is unprecedented because I picked so many strips.
We're going to a part four, which will forever upset Michael's OCD that we have one that is wrong.
(53:38):
And I apologize in advance, but I just couldn't stop picking them.
So we would love for you to come back if you want to keep this conversation going until then there's a bunch of different ways you could do it.
First, we would love to hear from you because remember when I don't hear, I worry.
So you can send us an email at unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.
You can reach out to us on our hotline where you can call or leave a text message.
(54:01):
That number is 717-219-4162.
Or you can follow us on social media.
We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.
And we would absolutely love to hear from you.
So come back next week for 1994 part 4.
(54:24):
Then we're going to be wrapping up this season with only one official season left where we do strips.
But we have a special surprise for you.
Liz, why don't you tell us what we're doing after 1994?
Liz (54:37):
We have some very exciting guests coming on the podcast.
Jimmy (54:43):
First, we have Rita Grimsley Johnson, author of Good Grief, which was the only authorized biography of Charles Schulz.
And she tells us great stories about getting to hang out with him and her writing life and writing career.
We have Judy Sladke, who was handpicked by Charles Schulz to be Snoopy in the ice shows.
And she was Snoopy for decades.
Liz (55:04):
It still is.
Jimmy (55:05):
It's still Snoopy, she could do backflips and tell you stories about Charles Schulz, and it's fantastic.
And we have Lynn Johnston, creator of For Better or For Worse, one of the all-time great comic strips, one of the most successful comic strips in history, personal friend of Mr.
Schulz.
And one of the few people who could really tell us what it's like to be a daily cartoonist at that level.
So we are more than excited to bring those people to you.
(55:28):
And we can't wait to get there, and we hope you share it with us.
So, until all that good stuff happens for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
Harold (55:39):
Yes, be of good cheer.
Liz (55:42):
Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted by Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner.
Produced and edited by Liz Sumner.
Music by Michael Cohen.
Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.
(56:05):
For more about Jimmy, Michael and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Jimmy (56:12):
Nurdles of White.
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