With Paige Braddock, Creative Director Emeritus for the Schulz Studio

We are thrilled to welcome Paige Braddock, the Creative Director Emeritus for the Schulz Studio. Hired by Charles Schulz himself as Creative Director in 1999, Paige is also the talented cartoonist behind Jane’s World, Peanut, Butter, & Crackers, and more. 

Paige recommends the book Love Letters to Jane's World as a place to start. https://janesworld.us/janes-world/ Her current work, Peanut Butter & Crackers, is available from Penguin Books and from Nosy Crow in the UK. https://peanutbutterandcrackers.com/

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.

Episode Transcript

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 (00:19):
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.
It is a special day here at Unpacking Peanuts.
It's always a special one when
we have a guest in the studio, but today is the most specialist of all.
And I'll be your host for the proceedings.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts and fellow cartoonists, Michael Cohen.

Michael (00:37):
Say hey.

Jimmy (00:38):
And Harold Buchholz.

Harold (00:40):
Hello.

Jimmy (00:40):
And joining us as always is our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.

Liz (00:44):
Howdy.

Jimmy (00:46):
We have Paige Braddock here today.
Paige is the creative director emeritus for the Schulz Studio.
She was hired by Charles Schulz as creative director in 1999.
After running the Schulz Studio, not the museum, for 25 years, she stepped away from the day-to-day management of the licensing business to focus on content.
As she heads into retirement, she's also a world-class cartoonist herself, and she's here to talk with us today.

(01:12):
Paige, thank you so much for coming and hanging out with Unpacking Peanuts.

Paige (01:16):
Thanks so much for having me.

Jimmy (01:17):
Well, this just means everything to me that you decided to come and talk to us.
Obviously, we're huge fans of Peanuts.
I don't know if you've picked up on that.

Paige (01:27):
I've heard that rumor.

Jimmy (01:29):
What I want to know is, where were you when Peanuts and Charles Schulz first collided with your life?
How old were you?
Do you remember the situation?

Paige (01:39):
Well, I didn't remember it.
But after I got this job, a childhood friend of mine reminded me of this story that I guess I had tucked away somewhere in my brain.
She said we were about 10 years old and we were sitting in her backyard under a tree.
Picture that scene like when Marcy and Peppermint Patty are under a tree because that would have pretty much been us because she wore glasses and I was Peppermint Patty except I couldn't do sports.

(02:08):
Anyway, she said we were talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up.
I said to her, I'm going to work at Charles Schulz's studio.
I have no memory of saying that, but that's weird, right?
I mean, how did I even know he had a studio?
I mean, I don't even know.

Jimmy (02:27):
That is so good.
What was it about him that made you think, yeah, that's my destiny?
What was about that work?

Paige (02:38):
Well, I knew that I wanted to be a cartoonist probably from age seven.
I lived in rural Mississippi at the time.
We didn't have comic shops or anything like that.
But so my only encounter with Peanuts or other comics was the Sunday comic section.
And I would just like sit with that for hours and try to draw the characters.

(03:01):
I really was drawn to Peanuts, obviously.
Love to draw Snoopy and Beetle Bailey, oddly, was another favorite when I was a kid.
I mean, and Popeye, those the character design of those three, it's all very different, but, you know, some of the best stuff.

Jimmy (03:21):
Did you ever do any mashups, put three of them together, do anything like that?

Paige (03:25):
No, I kept, even then I kept their worlds separate.

Jimmy (03:29):
Now, when did you decide that, like, all right, I can be a, this is more than just fun and hobby, I'm going to be a professional cartoonist.
Like, was that an early thing?
Where did that happen?

Paige (03:42):
You know, probably like other cartoonists my age, I just decided I'm going to be a cartoonist.
And then pretty much anybody else will tell you that everyone tells you you can't do it.
Like everyone says, it's impossible.
You can't do a career in comics.
I mean, at the time, it was the 70s and 80s, you know, there was no sequential art in school.

(04:04):
You know, my art professors in college were like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
You know, comics isn't a real, it's not a real art job.
So you just sort of push through and you're like, I'm doing this.
This is what I want to do.
I'm going to do it.
And then, you know, for a long time, I was not a professional, quote unquote, professional cartoonist in like probably industry eyes.

(04:30):
I was working as an illustrator for newspapers and sort of doing comics at night and on the side.
And in 1995, I had been doing this comic for a while called Jane's World.

Jimmy (04:44):
Jane's World.

Paige (04:46):
But just kind of entertaining myself with it.
And then this sort of nerdy friend of mine at the AJC, the Journal of Constitution in Atlanta, he said, hey, let's build a website and you could post your comics.
And I was like, what is a website?
It was like 1995, you know?
Anyway, so we did this very rudimentary.
Basically, all it was was you go to the page and you see the comic.

(05:06):
You know, that was it.
Yeah.
And it was like I described it to a friend of mine as like being like a Model T car of websites, like even I could code it.
You know what I mean?
Like it was so simple.
But anyway, that's how Jane started.
And so that was the early days of of nobody who hardly was doing web comics then.

(05:26):
But but as you know, then it sort of took off and then people that, you know, the indie comic industry sort of grew after that.
But anyway, I feel like I'm rambling, but it was a long, you know, it was a long and winding road, as the Beatles say.

Jimmy (05:46):
Kind of a Beatles reference, nice.

Paige (05:48):
Yes.

Jimmy (05:48):
Now, so and you did Jane's World for two decades?

Paige (05:53):
Yeah, for a long time.
20 years.
That's amazing.

Jimmy (05:57):
Well, let's get back to the Schulz of it all.
So you're doing this comic strip.
Now you're working on it, what, eight years now, something like that?
When you first apply at the Schulz Studio, how did that happen?
And what was the process of applying?
Like, did you show him your strips?
What was it?

Paige (06:14):
No, dude, it was so random.
I was trying to get a comic syndicated.
And so I would actively go to events where I would meet and be able to work with syndication editors.
I had been in development with Sarah Gillespie, who was Schulz's editor back in college in the 80s, because the first encounter I had with Schulz was a letter exchange in 1985 through his editor.

(06:44):
Anyway, so I was going to the National Cartoonist Society meetings just trying to soak up all the mentorship I could from the old crew who was working in comics.
And I was lucky.
I had some very nice elder statesmen in comics as mentors in the 70s.

(07:06):
Dave Growey, who took over over Alley Oop from VT Hamlin, lived in the same town I did when I went to high school in North Carolina and he offered to show me the ropes kind of and he gave me my first dip pen.
He gave me my first T-square.
I know he had this amazing studio with all this original comic art.
He pretty much knew everybody.

(07:27):
It was so fun to go to his studio.

Jimmy (07:30):
Oh, that must have been magical.
How old were you in high school, he said?

Paige (07:32):
I was in high school, so he also, Sarah Gillespie, was his editor.
So Sarah was sort of this connector in this little group of people.
Anyway, fast forward to the late 90s and I had been doing Jane's World for a while and I was at this NCS meeting in San Antonio and I was on a panel with Jan Elliott and Hilary Price.

(07:56):
I think there was somebody else on the panel, but I can't remember who.
We were supposed to be talking about why there weren't more women in comics because this was the 90s and we're at the NCS and there's like 500 members and like six of them are women and everybody else are guys.
It's that kind of scene, not at all like it is today.
Anyway, and Schulz and his wife Jeannie were sitting on the second row when we did this panel discussion.

(08:20):
After the panel was over, he just walked up and asked me if I wanted a job.
That was how I ended up getting a job.

Liz (08:25):
Oh my word.

Paige (08:26):
Yeah.

Jimmy (08:27):
You're kidding me.

Paige (08:28):
No, it was, I remember because I like, I was like, he was, he said, do you want, do you want a job?
And I was like, yes.
And he goes, I don't know exactly what it is.
And I said, I don't care.
That was basically the interview process.
And then I remember I went downstairs in the hotel because I needed some cash to get for something.

(08:48):
And I remember my whole body, I just had like chills all up and down my arms like, wow, there's something big is happening.
You know?

Harold (08:55):
Yeah.

Michael (08:57):
Where were you living at the time?

Paige (08:58):
Atlanta.

Jimmy (09:00):
Oh, wow.

Michael (09:01):
Had you thought of moving to California before?

Paige (09:03):
No, no, no, no.
I loved Atlanta.
I loved everything about Atlanta.
I'm from the South originally.
My parents live in Georgia.
So my friends in journalism, I had just, I had been getting these offers to go work for the New York Times.
And I couldn't quite pull the trigger on moving to New York because I didn't know if I could, I didn't know if that was my scene.

(09:25):
But anyway, in the middle of all that, I get this offer from Schulz and my friends in journalism are like, are you crazy?
You're gonna quit your 12 year journalism career and go work for some guy in California.
I mean, I knew who he was, but they're like, you don't even know what you're gonna do.
And I'm like, I don't care.
It was really a leap of faith.

Jimmy (09:45):
Wow.
Did you ever talk to him about that and say like, what was that about, man?

Paige (09:52):
Oh yeah, I was like, when I got out there and I kind of started working, I was like, first off, I was like, okay, this is too good to be true.
And I didn't sell my house in Atlanta for the first six months because I was like, this is all gonna fricking blow up and I'm gonna be living in my parents' attic if I'm not careful, right?

Jimmy (10:08):
Right.

Paige (10:09):
And so I would say to him, I'd say, you could have picked somebody a lot better as an art.
I mean, I went to the University of Tennessee.
It's not some high minded Ivy League school.
I didn't go to an art college.
I didn't even major in comics.
I majored in illustration.
I mean, there's smarter, more educated people than me that could be doing this job.

(10:32):
And he said he hired me because he knew I wouldn't be afraid to say no.
Wow.
So really random.
I didn't know what that meant at the time, but obviously over the years you figured that out.

Jimmy (10:48):
But that's just mind blowing to me.
I mean, that is an incredible, incredible story.
So, okay, so you pack everything up, you head out to Santa Rosa.
Can you take us to your first day?
What year would this have been?
And like just the whole scene, what would that was that?
What that like for you?

Paige (11:05):
Well, it was 1999.
And I remember I drove by the ice arena.
If you've been to the complex, there's a museum, there's an ice arena, the studio is down the street, there's a gift shop, and Sparky, we all call him Sparky, which that took a minute too, because I show up and I'm like, Mr.
Schulz.
Hello, Mr.
Schulz.
Hello, Mr.
Schulz.
And he's like, I'm from the south and he's like a senior person.

(11:29):
And he's like, no, no, you got to call me Sparky.
And I'm like, all right, I'll try, but that's weird.
So anyway, I would drive by and I'd see his car at the ice arena, because he would always go there to get breakfast and coffee first and then come to the studio.
And I would just get this, my stomach would just do this flip, because I'd see his car and go, holy shit, this is, I'm in Santa Rosa.

(11:50):
How did this happen?
So it was interesting though, because I had never worked in licensing and his studio basically did, like sort of had the creative and editorial oversight of all the product.
We don't do any of the contract or the legal stuff.
It's just all the creative stuff.

(12:10):
And it ended up that licensing is very similar in some ways to the experiences I had in journalism because it's all about creating a creative and an editorial framework in which things exist, right?
And keeping that sort of infrastructure sound regardless of what the project is.

(12:31):
So it was funny, I could utilize a lot of the skills I had learned in journalism for this new job, even though I didn't totally have licensing experience.
But he was great.
He would, unfortunately, I didn't get to work with him for super long because he didn't realize when I started working there that he was sick.

(12:51):
And it was just sort of fate or something that I was there to help when he needed it most, right?
Because I barely got to train with him.
And then he had a stroke and discovered he had cancer and all this stuff started happening.

(13:11):
But before that, working with him, it was like he would show up at my office door at like 3 o'clock and say, I have apple pie.
Where do you want to eat it?
And we'd go sit in the conference room and have coffee and pie and talk about comics or theology or whatever.
He likes to talk a lot about theology.
And then sometimes on the weekend, most times on the weekend, he would come in on Monday and he'd walk in with his big, I'd meet him in the parking lot and he'd have one of his Sunday strips that he'd worked on over the weekend and he'd show me that.

(13:42):
Sometimes we'd sit in his office and have coffee and just go through the syndication booklet.
You know what that is?
It's like syndicates used to send out a printed booklet with all the comics for the week, all the strips that they sold.
And so United Feature Syndicate would send out all of their strips.
Peanuts would want them, but there was a whole bunch of other ones in there.

(14:03):
So we'd sit there and like drink coffee and critique everybody's strips.

Jimmy (14:09):
And that's amazing.
I mean, he must have thought so highly of your work as a cartoonist to bring you right next to him.
And like you say, it ended up being right when he needed someone the most.

Paige (14:23):
I think, I don't know.
I don't know if he thought it was a great cartoonist.
He did make some funny comments about Jane's World.
Like I can see why people really like it.
Like, you know, because it's a character driven comedy ensemble, not unlike Peanuts, right?
But it doesn't.
It's not.
I'm not doing as much philosophical stuff as, say, he was doing with Linus or, you know, it's different in tone.

(14:48):
But there were some minor similarities.
I wouldn't even try to compare my work to Peanuts.
I remember when I first started working there, I was like, OK, this is it, man.
I'm going to crack the code.
I'm here.
This is Charles M.
Schulz.
I'm going to find out how the magic happens.
So we were at lunch one day and we were walking around the gift shop.
And I was like, so why does...

(15:11):
I was always asking these character questions.
You know, I was like, why does Marcy call Peppermint Patty sir?
And he goes, I have no idea.
She's very strange.
And I'm like, dude, that's not helpful.
It's like, so then you think, you're like, okay, he doesn't even know some of this stuff is just intuitive genius happening, right?

(15:35):
And we're just getting to see it every day.

Jimmy (15:39):
Yeah, wow.
Well, it must've been amazing too.
Were you able to watch him draw the strip ever?

Paige (15:44):
No, he would go in his office and close the door.
And I was, everybody, me included, was very respectful about not interrupting him when he was in the zone, as I call it.

Jimmy (15:55):
Yeah, I can absolutely imagine that would be the one rule, huh?
Yeah.
Because it all falls apart without that.

Michael (16:03):
Right.

Jimmy (16:04):
And so how long were you there before he had the strip?
And you were there that day, right, when he did have the strip?

Paige (16:10):
Yeah, he was in my office when he started feeling weird.
He leaned up against my doorframe and he said, I feel very strange.
He had not been feeling well all week and I was trying to help him.
So he, you know, it was a matter of pride to him that no one had ever touched the comic but him, right?

Jimmy (16:33):
Right.

Paige (16:33):
So he wasn't feeling well.
And I was the first person at the studio to have, maybe not the first, but definitely the first person to use Photoshop and stuff.
And I was like, we can, we can scan your lettering and other things and I can help you, you know, we can finish out these few strips that you're having a hard time with, you don't feel well.

(16:54):
And it's still all you, right?
I'm not, I'm just using your work to finish your work.
And so that's what we were talking about when he, when that happened and we needed to go to the hospital.
So yeah.

Jimmy (17:08):
But there was no thought of him retiring before that or maybe there was or?

Paige (17:12):
I mean, I think he was definitely burned out on licensing stuff because he just wanted, I think he wanted to finish out his career working on the strip and nothing else.
Just being able to focus on that.
And I don't blame him.
It's a lot.
And the business was, you know, it just keeps growing and growing and growing.
So it's funny how you create something amazing like that and your characters, they have a life of their own apart from you, right?

(17:41):
And fandom sort of embraces them and does all this stuff with them.
And it's just a funny thing to think about.

Harold (17:48):
Yeah.

Jimmy (17:50):
Yeah.
Well, it's, I'm so happy that you're here to tell us about this period because, you know, when you read 17,890 of these strips, you really feel like you sort of know this guy, or you at least feel connected and like, you know, you want the best for him.
So I don't know, I'm glad that you were there to help him out at the end.

(18:13):
That was, that's great.

Paige (18:15):
I was glad I was there too.
I really was.
And I think it was important that it was a cartoonist, you know, who under, who could relate, you know, even, I mean, nobody can relate to being Charles Schulz.
Totally.
You know what I mean?
But you understand like the love of the craft, the sort of personal, it's like one man's story, right?

(18:37):
It's like you said, everything that's in the strip is him.
And so when you're a cartoonist and you understand that, that's a unique creative pursuit, I guess, comics.

Jimmy (18:52):
Yeah.
So, Paige, so we're wondering at the end there, things like the Zip-a-Tone and the actual Photoshop at the studio, who was doing that stuff?

Paige (19:04):
Well, there was another production artist that worked there, that had come over from the ice arena and just trained on the job.
Her name's Erin Samuels.
She still works at the studio.
And she was doing, so I don't know if you guys know, but the color process for Sundays was that you worked with this company, I think they're in Minnesota, called American Color.

(19:30):
And you had this color sheet with numbers signed.
You probably get, you know all this or you've talked about this before maybe.
Yeah.
Okay.
So he would like quickly do a tissue overlay, mark colors on it, and then Erin would do that sort of production stuff.
She would color it all in.
And then after a while, he just let her pick the colors, and she would just color them and send that stuff in.

(19:51):
So that was happening.
And then he started using Zip-A-Tone.
I'm not sure why he started all using it.
Probably, I think there was part of him that just wasn't afraid to experiment a little bit because he sort of freaked me out when he suggested we start doing some stuff in Photoshop because I was like, really?

(20:11):
I don't know, Ann.
I mean, why mess with perfection, right?
Like, yeah, Photoshop is this new shiny thing, but I don't know.
Anyway, and it started probably because of the Zip-A-Tone because he would, in blue pencil, indicate where he wanted shading to be.
He would give the original strip to Erin, and then she would add Zip-A-Tone to those areas that were shaded.

(20:34):
So she's basically using a knife.
She's cutting on this original strip.
She's, you know what I mean?
This is very nerve-wracking stuff, right?
And then he was still folding the originals and nailing them in.
He did this forever.
And I was like, so then I show up, and I'm used to sort of more of a digital world, right, from being in newspapers.

(20:57):
And I'm like, you know, we don't have to send these in the mail.
We could scan these.
It sounds hilarious now to say it, right?
We could scan these.
And you know what else we could do?
We could do the Zip-A-Tone digitally, so you're not actually doing anything to the original strip.
And so, he liked that idea, obviously.
So, that's what we started doing.

(21:18):
So then, we got Erin.
Erin had a computer.
She got Photoshop.
You know, we started doing the Zip-A-Tone digitally.
And then he was like, he...
I don't know if you'd...
I'm sure you do, but remember there were some old strips in the 90s where he would do things with like Xerox images and like those in the strip.

(21:39):
Okay, so that was an early cheat before you could do posterization and stuff in Photoshop.
So then he was like, well, hey, could we do this?
And he wanted to do a strip where Snoopy is a patriot during the Revolutionary War.
And he goes to the shore, but he's just missed Washington crossing the Delaware.

(21:59):
And he wanted that image in the strip.
And that was the first one we really did with Photoshop.
I was so nervous, and I was like, oh my God.
And I look back at that stuff now, and it's like, you know, it's the dark ages of Photoshop, and it looks like it, right?
It's like, oh, I learned how to do it.
I learned how to do a gradiated screen.
I'm going to do it on everything now.

(22:20):
It's horrible.

Jimmy (22:22):
Yeah, well, there was just no way to avoid that in the 90s and early 2000s.
That was just, if you buy, I'm embarrassed to admit how many rock magazines I still have from the 90s.
And that is the ugliest graphic design that has ever designed anywhere.

Liz (22:37):
But people in the 90s thought it was really cool.

Jimmy (22:40):
Yeah, I still secretly think it's really cool.

Paige (22:44):
I thought it was cool for about 10 minutes, and I'm like, oh no, what have I done, you know?

Jimmy (22:50):
Well, I know we were talking about one really cool looking couch that was colored in like plaids and reds.
It was very nice.

Paige (22:59):
Yeah, that was me.
That was me.

Jimmy (23:02):
That was you?
It was really good looking.

Paige (23:04):
I have a thing for plaid.
It's a problem.

Jimmy (23:07):
Oh yeah.
Well, it looked awesome.
It looked awesome.
I'm ripping it off in my upcoming book just so you know.
All right.
So let's take a break here, and then we'll come back and Paige has selected five strips for us to discuss that are special to her, and you don't want to miss that.
So we'll be right back.

Liz (23:26):
Did you complete the great Peanuts reread?
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(23:47):
Order your T-shirts today at unpackingpeanuts.com/store.

Jimmy (23:56):
All right.
We're back.
Paige Braddock is here.
She is telling us about her time with Charles Schulz, her work as a cartoonist, and all kinds of other good stuff.
And like we like to do, we asked Paige to come up with five Peanuts comic strips that mean something to her.
And we're going to talk about them right now.

(24:16):
So Paige, tell us what was your criteria?
What made you pick these particular strips?

Paige (24:23):
Well, they're they kind of range in like in terms of era.
So there's certain things about the art.
There's certain things about the story.
But basically they're just moments in the strip that really resonated with me for one reason or another.
Yeah, kind of just a gut feeling about these.

Jimmy (24:44):
Well, they are good ones.
So I'm going to go ahead and read them and then we'll go ahead and discuss them.
First up, January 14th, 1985.
Peppermint Patty is on stage.
She has just received an award.
She looks lovely in her little dress.

(25:05):
And she has a kind of nervous sheepish grin on her face.
And she's at the microphone, which is about two feet taller than she is.
And she says, ladies and gentlemen, I...
And she looks up to see the microphone and then looks off panel and yells, Marcy.
And then Marcy comes out, lifts Peppermint Patty up so she could be near the microphone and Peppermint Patty continues.

(25:29):
I want to thank you for this award.

Paige (25:32):
Hilarious.
It's so funny.
And every time I see it, I laugh.

Jimmy (25:41):
And is it the drawing?
Is it just the pure drawing of the last panel?
What is it about it?

Paige (25:46):
It's okay.
It's multiple things.
First, it's Peppermint Patty in a dress, which you know she is not at her best and feels sort of like a fish out of water.
She's on stage.
That's also like in that first panel.
She also does a great job of sort of capturing that awkward nervousness in her simple expression.
Right.

(26:06):
And then the hilarious where she looks up to the microphone and then calls for her friend, Marcy.
And then rather than lowering the microphone, Marcy raised her patty.
And there's like this ingenious kid logic that he he always was still able to tap into even as a you know, a seasoned adult, that that is what a kid would do.

(26:30):
You know, like just try to get higher rather than raise the you know, rather than lower the microphone.
But also on another level, it's like, oh my God, this is what true friendship is.
You know what I mean?
Marcy's Marcy's all in whatever Peppermint Patty needs.
She's there.
So it's like, it's the visual gag is funny.

(26:51):
The emotional content, you know, feeling how Peppermint Patty feels.
And then there's just like amazing friendship that the two of them have.
I don't know, but the strip just has it all.

Jimmy (27:03):
Their relationship is amazing.
And I have this theory that Peppermint Patty is like the first modern YA cartoon character, you know.
One of my favorite works of art of any kind in the world is the book Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, which I read like in fourth grade.

(27:23):
And that came out in 1964 and Patty's in 1965.
They just feel like from, they still almost feel like they're from the future.
He was so tuned in to something that was pretty removed from him.
I mean, do you have any insight into how he was able to, he just was able to just express so many different types of characters and they all seem so authentic?

Paige (27:49):
Well, he was a great observer.
And I think that does make a good cartoonist.
Like I always say, the best dialogue is the dialogue you steal from real conversations, right?
Because you just can't make it up sometimes.
And he at the time was friends with Billie Jean King.

(28:10):
He was friends with other women in his circle who probably reminded him of or inspired, you know, Pervin Patty and Marcie's relationship.
I mean, me being sort of, well, being like a tomboy growing up in the 70s, I loved these characters because I saw myself represented on the comics page.

(28:34):
Right.
How did he do that?
How did he tap into that?
It wasn't like he was trying to make a statement or anything.
He was just, as you said, way ahead of his time in terms of creating female characters that sort of broke the mold on the comics page.

Jimmy (28:51):
Yeah, certainly going back to Lucy.
She's shockingly original when you're going through it.

Paige (28:56):
Yes.
Yeah.
Because I mean, maybe there are other examples that are this way, but as a kid, what I remember is like, you know, Blondie and Dagwin Blondie and like, you know, all the female characters in Beetle Bailey.
Like I related more to Beetle than I did to like the women on the cusp.
You know what I mean?
Like there are more male characters that I resonated with or related to more so than the female characters, because they were always sort of just these pretty, you know, arm candy for like the humor of the strip.

(29:30):
They were sort of the straight men, right?
In the comedy scenario.
I'm not doing a very good job of explaining that.
I remember when I was in high school, and I was working with Dave Growey, and he was looking at my work.
And at the time, I was doing a comic about a cowboy, which is hilarious to think about now.
But it was the era of Clint Eastwood, and my dad loved, you know, Westerns and all that stuff.

(29:55):
And Dave said, well, why, you're a woman, why are you drawing a male character as your lead?
And that question has stuck with me forever, because at the time I was like, yeah, why am I doing that?
And then when I answered him, I said, well, because I feel like a male character can do more in a comic strip than a female character.

(30:21):
And I have thought about that.
It was like my own internalized sexism about what a female character can do, which somehow Schulz didn't have that, right?
So it took me a while to turn all those internal filters off and do something more real later on.

(30:42):
You know, it took a long time, but...

Jimmy (30:45):
Well, you know, but you're a trailblazer.
I mean, there wasn't, in the ways that there wasn't much of a model for Schulz in what he was doing, there wasn't much of a model for you in a comic strip format.
Right?

Paige (30:59):
Right.
It is, it is true.
Like, if you...
I didn't set out to do, like, a gay comic strip or, you know, a lesbian strip or whatever.
But there, it was in the era where, if you were a member of the LGBTQ community, you were that, you were always that first.
You're a GMA cartoonist, you're a lesbian.

(31:20):
And I was like, I used to, I used to annoy the crap out of me.
I was like, why?
Just because I'm, you know, this, because this is who I am.
Why does my strip have to be political?
Why can't I just, why can't it just be stupid and funny?
Like, you know, people don't know this, but lesbians do have a sense of humor, you know, like.

Jimmy (31:42):
My gosh, we're breaking news on this podcast.
That's right.

Paige (31:46):
I always said, you know, I would say, cause you had Alison Bechel doing this great work that was funny and political and deep.
And I was like, okay, well, if she's that, I'm like the Gilligan's Island, right?

Jimmy (32:02):
That's a huge, hugely important thing, though.
Right.
I mean, that is a hugely important thing.
I think people need, you know, and it's not like I've come up with this theory, but obviously, representations matters, not just to the people who are being represented, but so that, you know, people on the outside of the community have empathy and, you know, view these people as regular people like they think they are.

Liz (32:31):
Learn something.

Jimmy (32:31):
You know, it's hugely important.
They may learn something, yeah, and still have fun.
It's a magic trick and a gift, really.

Paige (32:39):
We're all just people.
We have to feed our dogs.
We have to go to the grocery store.
Care light bill.
I mean, it's not, it's, you know.

Jimmy (32:45):
Well, yeah, I used to...

Paige (32:45):
It's glamorous as people make it seem.

Jimmy (32:47):
Right.
All right.
February 1st, 1954, going back in time.
All right.
So panel one, we have a delighted Shermy, just playing with his really elaborate little HO railroad setup.

(33:08):
He's got at least two trains, no, three trains going on multiple tracks around a little town in his living room.
And Charlie Brown looks on with sort of a neutral expression, just taking it all in.
And then he puts his coat on, still kind of lost in thought, then silently walks home.
And then in the last panel, we see Charlie Brown with his own little model train, only it is a tiny little track in just a little tiny loop right in front of him.

(33:35):
And he looks at it with just a look of absolute sadness.
All right, tell us about this one.

Paige (33:44):
In this one, no words in this comic.
It's just visuals.
It's an entire story in four panels.
It's about, you could almost say, I guess it's about class.
It's about all these different things.
I don't know if you guys probably know Stephen Pastis, who does Pearls Before Swine.

(34:08):
He worked at the studio for a brief minute, and he and I used to talk about this comic.
And it was, it's my opinion, I think it was his opinion too, that this strip is When Peanuts Became Peanuts.

Liz (34:22):
Wow.

Paige (34:23):
If you look at the work before this in the 50s, Charlie Brown is kind of a prankster, and it's all the, it's very gag driven.
There's a lot more drawing in the panels.
He's sort of, Schulz is trying to figure out who the characters are, what Peanuts is.
And up until this point, he's sort of, he's staying within the sort of style of kids' comics of that era, where kids are little scoundrels, and they're running around playing pranks on each other, and you know, doing kid things.

(34:56):
And all of a sudden, here's this strip, where Charlie Brown sees what Schroeder has, which is this elaborate thing, as you said.
You don't really know what's going on in his mind, but you can see when he puts his jacket on to leave, he's thinking, right?

Jimmy (35:09):
Yes.

Paige (35:10):
And then in the third panel, he's walking through this sort of wintery, you know, you sort of feel like this wintery background that he's in, and then he goes and looks at his pitiful little train set, and you're like, this is when Charlie Brown becomes Charlie Brown.
Yeah.

Jimmy (35:27):
Wow.
That's amazing.

Paige (35:30):
The sort of longing for, longing for what he doesn't have, realizing his life isn't the same as Schroeder's.
I don't know, like, I don't want to read too much into it, but you feel it in that last panel.
Yeah.

Harold (35:47):
Yeah.
That sense of empathy in the comic strip is so strong in Schulz, and it seems like that, we didn't see a whole lot of that in comic strips.
It was coming out of a much more aggressive world, it seems like a lot of times, and he really did make us focus on the person who, well, we were picking our favorite strips of all time, and the one where Linus gets so excited about the football game, and then Charlie Brown, all I could think of is, how did the other team feel who lost the game?

(36:24):
It's so striking.
He's just so original in that regard, and yet he's influenced so many people to feel free to do that in their work, I think.

Paige (36:35):
Well, and we look at this, and it's hard not to see it through a modern lens, but if you picture it on the comics page of that era in the 50s, you got to imagine the other guys that are working and doing comics are like, what is this guy doing?
That is not even funny.
That's not even funny, right?
Like nobody was doing comics that were making, I don't think that we're making any sort of social statement, right, in that era.

(36:59):
It was all like adventure stories and...

Jimmy (37:02):
Yeah, there wasn't, was Pfeiffer even around in 54 or just beginning, you know, and so that wasn't a daily.

Paige (37:08):
No.

Jimmy (37:08):
Yeah, nobody, no.

Paige (37:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Jimmy (37:10):
So anyway, we, when we were picking those 10, Michael picked a few from 1954 as his favorites.
And just looking at it, just from a craft point of view, the inking is absolutely just glorious and beautiful.
You know, just the quality of the line, the way the lines define the forms.

(37:32):
And I'm wondering, I love your inking.
And I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about, like, what's your favorite part of the process?
And just as if you really want to get into it, how did you ink?
What tools did you use?
How did you make this strip?
Was it different than what you saw Schulz do?

Harold (37:51):
The Radio 914 nib, right?

Paige (37:53):
Yeah, I started out using a Sharpie marker on a spiral notebook because it was webcomics and nobody was gonna see it, right?
Yeah, and then when I got to the studio, Schulz gave me a box of his pen nibs.
I think at the time there was only three boxes left.

(38:15):
I still have a box in my sock drawer.
That's what I always tell everybody.
If anything happens to me, they're in my sock drawer.
Yeah, so once I got that nib, I was like, oh man, this is a really good nib.
And I started sort of taking more care with my stuff because in early 2000, I started collecting it into books.

(38:39):
And so obviously, you need better resolution.
You want to see the artwork more refined.
Anyway, I feel like being at the studio, being around Schulz, just encouraged me to raise my craft all across the board, just really take my own work more seriously, put more time into it, improve.
I feel like there was like a huge leap between what I was doing in the 90s and what I was doing after I came to the studio.

Harold (39:04):
So.
Wow.
Paige, can you talk about that nib?
That's kind of a mythical nib on our podcast.
We talk about it a lot.
We have a T-shirt that has those little fun nibs.

Paige (39:14):
Oh, that's funny.
It is a mythical nib.

Harold (39:17):
How do you describe it?
How does it feel different than the other tools you've worked with?

Paige (39:22):
Well, it's a substantial nib, because it was meant to be an everyday nib for a bank, right?
Like a nib you can just write with or sign a check with or whatever.
I think it's the nib that...
I think I read in interviews that it was the nib that Sparky used in our instruction school to sign things, right?
So it wasn't supposed to be a drawing nib, but it's a strong nib, and so you can put a lot of pressure on it.

(39:52):
And so he drew on really heavy three-ply hot press crystal, and he drew really large.
If you've ever seen his originals, they're really big.
So he is having to get a pretty substantial line weight when he draws in order for that to reduce and still look as good as it does.

(40:14):
The newspaper size, right?
So he's putting a lot of pressure on that nib every time he draws down an ink, a line.
And when you look at the originals, the ink, it almost pools on top of that hot press paper.
You can almost, the ink almost has like a three-dimensional quality to it when you look at the originals, which is really cool to see.
But you can also get a really fine line with that nib.

(40:36):
So you can seriously do an entire drawing with that one nib, which I think is why he liked it.
You know, every variation of line.
And then for the blacks, you can tell like in, like say in that 1954 strip, Schroeder shorts and his hair, that's definitely done with the nib.

(40:57):
But sometimes you'll see when he does a silhouette, he has switched to a brush.
You get those broader loose strokes, which I love when he does silhouettes because he doesn't completely fill a space, which gives, even though it's in silhouette, it gives us this really, this energy, right?
Yeah.
Another thing he did, and he may have been penciling more carefully in 54, but later, he, if you looked at, sometimes I would get to go and see his strip in process, you know, that he hadn't inked yet.

(41:28):
And he did very little under drawing with pencil, hardly any.
It would just be like, there's a circle here, I'm gonna put a head here.
I couldn't read his handwriting at all when he would like to strip it out.
Only his secretary Edna could read his handwriting.
I couldn't read it at all when he was lettering.

(41:48):
And then, which is crazy, right?
Because when he letters it, it's perfection.
It's, yeah, he wasn't lining it, he wasn't lining at all.

Jimmy (41:56):
He saves it up.

Paige (41:57):
Yeah.
Um, anyway, so all of that to say that when he-

Jimmy (42:01):
But the fact that he's not lining it off is crazy.

Paige (42:04):
Right?
It's crazy.
I said that to him one time.
I said, I said, I measured this.
This is perfect.
I don't know how you do this, you know?

Jimmy (42:11):
That's insane.

Paige (42:12):
But he, um, because he didn't do under drawing, I think he, especially later in the strip, you get this really intimate sort of organic line.
I don't even know how to describe it, but he's like drawing with the ink.
So and you feel it as a viewer, I think.

Jimmy (42:31):
Yeah, absolutely.

Harold (42:34):
Yeah, Paige Crack, one other last 914 question for you.
As somebody who knows that nib, can you go back and look at the strip and was he working with it from day one or can you see when he started to use it in the strip?

Paige (42:49):
Yeah, I don't know if I could, I don't know if I could see that.
It looks like he's using it here in this 54 strip to me.
Early on, I think he used a mix of ink, of like a nib and brush more.

Harold (43:03):
It seems like, yeah.
Like a slightly thicker line, easier to get out of whatever he was using possibly.

Paige (43:11):
Yeah, when I first started working in the studio, I could not imitate his sort of textured line with a nib.
I had to use a brush.
So I'm thinking he probably started out with a brush.
I would say it took me like 10 years to master that 914.

Jimmy (43:27):
Oh yeah, you have to get your head around it.
It's a very strange tool.
It's different than a Hunt 102 or anything like that.
Yeah.
March 2nd, 1997.
All right, we see one of them symbolic panels at the beginning here with Snoopy looking at an abstract shape, which is actually some land on a map.

(43:51):
And then we see Charlie Brown pulling out a book from a bookshelf.
This is a Sunday, so that's the top tier.
And then in the bottom tier, it is just one giant picture of Sally, Charlie Brown, Linus, and Snoopy all hanging out on the couch.
Well, Charlie Brown has the book out.
And Sally says to Charlie Brown, Can you read that bit again about Moses parting the sea?

(44:13):
Charlie Brown obliges and says, And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground.
To which Linus says, How do you suppose Moses knew when it was safe to go across?
And then Snoopy, eyes closed and full of contentment and self-assuredness says, This dog probably went across first.

Paige (44:37):
Great dog joke.

Jimmy (44:42):
Now, what made you pick this one?
Is it the dog joke of it all?

Paige (44:47):
It's a combination of the Old Testament and the dog joke, and sort of the juxtaposition of those two things together.
Those always make me laugh when he does those kind of jokes.
That opening, the throwaway panel, the first panel where he's sitting on the map, is like, if you grew up in the church, you've seen those maps in the back of your Bible.

(45:11):
They're always in the back of the Holy Land.
And so that's what Snoopy's standing next to.
But probably to most people, it just looks like, what is that?
It's like a random shape.
I don't know what that is.
It's like the Dead Sea or something.
Anyway, yeah, so I think I just picked this one because people always, a lot of people read into Schulz's beliefs based on what he put in the strip, right?

(45:39):
Because he does make references to Old Testament stories.
And it was kind of a genius move that he would reference Old Testament stories but not get into sort of so much into the New Testament because...

Jimmy (45:58):
There's like nothing past Christmas.

Paige (45:59):
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, the Old Testament stories are something that so many people globally can relate to or tap into or have heard or...
Yeah, it was just like...
But then he doesn't, if you're not raised in a Christian faith, if you don't have belief, he handles the material in such a way that you still laugh at the dog joke.

(46:26):
You're not offended in any way that he is making this biblical reference in a Sunday panel.

Michael (46:33):
Yeah.

Harold (46:34):
Paige, in conversation, you said he would talk, he would just bring stuff up.
What was he like in conversation, talking about these things?
Do you always have questions in his mind that he was mulling over or what was he doing?

Paige (46:46):
Well, he had read the Bible through at least once, maybe more than that, I don't know.
In his early years, he was a member of an evangelical church in the Midwest, where they did a lot of Bible study.
And he even did that kind of side comic for the church called Young Pillars.
Have you guys seen that?

Jimmy (47:06):
Oh, yeah.

Paige (47:07):
That one's really funny, but you really have to know the Bible to get some of those jokes.
They're very, very subtle and very funny.
I'm surprised the church thought that was great because...

Jimmy (47:21):
Do you think maybe it was just because of his celebrity?
Like, hey, you know, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Paige (47:28):
No, I don't know.
I really don't know what the...
Probably Benjamin at the museum would know the origin story of those strips.
I discovered them later, like after I started working in the studio.
I didn't even know he had done them.
And he didn't really talk about them too much.
I think, you know, as with many people who start out in a more conservative place with their faith, exposure to life and other experiences and sort of maturing as you read scripture, you end up in a different place later in life.

(48:05):
And I don't know.
I don't know.
I never got to ask him what he, how he felt about those earlier experiences and, you know, when he reflected back on them.
But he was forever sort of thinking about our place in the universe, you know, what God means, you know, what God means to us, like, what is faith, you know, you'd see it in the strip.

(48:29):
He's always trying to work out all those sort of bigger questions.

Jimmy (48:33):
Yeah.
And you feel that he is trying to work them out, as opposed to trying to tell us the truth, you know?
And that's the huge difference, I think.

Paige (48:42):
Yes.
It's a big difference.

Harold (48:44):
But the fact that he was willing to just speak so freely about it in conversation is a really interesting side of him, you know?

Paige (48:52):
Yeah.

Harold (48:52):
I didn't know you very long and all of a sudden he's now...

Paige (48:55):
Oh, my God...

Harold (48:55):
.
bring stuff up.
It's really deep.

Paige (48:57):
The first time we ever met, before he offered me the job, this was a few years before at a different NCS meeting, I was...
I got there early.
I was walking around the grounds of the hotels in Pasadena at the Ritz-Carlton.
They had this big lawn out back and I saw somebody pitching around a baseball and I thought, oh, my God, I think that's Charles Schulz.
This was like maybe three years before he offered me the job and I had never really talked to him, but I knew who he was, obviously.

(49:23):
So I thought, okay, I'm just going to sit on the steps over here and watch him pitch the baseball around with...
It was his wife, Jeannie.
They were throwing the ball around, waiting for people to get to this event.
And the sprinklers came on and they quit throwing the ball and he came over and sat down next to me and Jeannie went on to do something else.

(49:44):
She's not much of somebody who can sit still for very long.
So he comes over and he sits down and I had my sketchbook and not a very good sketchbook mind you and not one that I wanted Charles Schulz to see and he's like, oh, is that your sketchbook?
Do you mind if I look at it?
And so I was like, yeah, okay, this is awful.
So he looks at it and then there had that week, there had been a school shooting in Arkansas.

(50:08):
And so right out of the bat, I mean, we had been talking for five minutes maybe.
And he's like, you know, I've been wondering, do you think evil exists in the world?
Or is it just something that happens?
And so we had this whole big conversation about evil in the world.

(50:28):
So I mean, like he was not a guy for Small Talk, which I really liked.
I hate Small Talk.
You just jump right in, right?

Jimmy (50:34):
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Well, he must have felt comfortable or kinship to you, like from the start.
I mean, even if he is not one for Small Talk, I can't imagine anyone he met.
Was it the sketchbook?
There was something about you that made him say, this is someone I want to talk to.

(50:55):
Yeah.

Paige (50:56):
Maybe.
You know what's weird is I never really, even though I obviously admired him and everything, I never really treated him like a celebrity, which maybe he appreciated.
Yeah.
I don't have any pictures of me and him posing like you do when you meet somebody famous.
I remember even my brother was at that event, and we were sitting next to, we were at the buffet going to go sit down.

(51:21):
My brother was going to go on through a hard time, and so I invited him to come for the weekend.
Sparky said, where are you guys sitting?
I'm going to come sit with you.
I was like, oh my God, he's going to eat breakfast with us.
This is so weird.
Then he came and sat down with us, and my brother on the side was like, can you take your picture?
I was like, don't take it.
Everybody always does that to him.
I have no pictures hardly at all of me working together because I just treated him like a person.

(51:47):
Because I felt like there was part of him maybe that was, when you're super famous, you got to be a little bit lonely for people that will just be themselves with you.

Jimmy (51:58):
Well, especially there is literally no one in his league.
And I guess you could say like Jim Davis and stuff, there were people that had commercial success that approached it.
But the commercial success combined with the artistic success, combined with the fact that everybody knew it was all him.

(52:20):
There was nobody in the world else in that position that I can think of.

Michael (52:25):
Bill Mullen.

Paige (52:27):
Well, they're also your sort of friendly competitors, right?
I mean, these are the guys you're vying for space with on the comics page too.
So there's also this sort of like good-natured, you know, competition going on behind the scenes.
I mean, not to say he didn't have close friends who were cartoonists, you know, Ben Johnston, they were close.

(52:48):
Kathy Guyswhite, Patrick MacDonald.
I mean, I don't know.
These are just the folks that I kind of also met there at the end.
But I know he had, he did have close friends in the comics industry.
But in terms of Santa Rosa, it was him in his studio.
It's like cartooning is a lonely job, right?
Just by the nature of it.

(53:09):
Yeah.

Jimmy (53:09):
Yeah.
A lot of time to sit at a desk and think.
February 2nd, 1992.
It's another Sunday.
Snoopy is out hitting the links.
Charlie Brown says, Catty.
Snoopy has just teed off.
Charlie Brown says, I thought I heard a splash.
Snoopy walks to retrieve the ball saying, I wonder where you go to give up the game.

(53:33):
And then there's another gigantic single panel Sunday of Charlie Brown and Snoopy looking for the ball off in the weeds and rushes near the water trap.
And Charlie Brown says to Snoopy, In the second chapter of Exodus, it says that Pharaoh's daughter found the baby Moses lying in a tiny basket by the edge of the river.

(53:57):
And then we see Snoopy looking down at his ball sadly sitting in the water trap.
And Snoopy thinks, I don't think this is Moses.

Paige (54:09):
Sorry, I guess I realized I picked two Moses strips.
Not intentionally, but I was like, you know, when you guys are like, pick five strips.
And I was like, oh, my God, that is such a hard task.
So I just picked things that I had a gut reaction to that came to mind like top of mind.
And this one, it was not as much about the Moses dog gag again, but which is very funny.

(54:37):
It's also about he was such an avid golfer and he did the best golf jokes.
My brother who's a golfer really appreciated all his golf jokes.
But I think as a cartoonist, I picked this one because this big panel with all the reads, that was just something he didn't do that often.
It's such a beautiful drawing.

(54:58):
And the characters are sort of small in this landscape he creates.
So, I mean, this one I really picked for the big art panel.
It's the main body of the comic.

Harold (55:08):
It's like he anticipated the adult coloring book by.

Paige (55:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was ahead of his time for that one.

Jimmy (55:16):
Yeah.
He didn't sketch much outside of this trip, did he?

Paige (55:21):
No, I never, no, not really.

Jimmy (55:24):
Because it really feels like when we were looking towards the end of these, we just finished up reading all of them, and it felt like towards the end, there was more observed drawing.
Like this feels like it was the reads and the rushes by wherever he golfed or something like that.
Do you think he was towards the end trying to flex his drawing muscles more, maybe for some reason?

Paige (55:52):
I mean, I don't know, but as a cartoonist, I can imagine that after doing it for so long, you would be looking for ways to utilize the space you're given, the canvas you're given in a different way, right?
Yeah.
Some people don't like the stuff in the 90s as much as his early work, but I see it and I think, oh, this is a guy who's just more, he's more contemplative and he's paying more attention to the small details of life in a way that he wasn't before.

(56:25):
It feels different, right?
He's like at a different stage in his life as an artist, and this might be part of that.
It's just conjecture on my part, but.

Jimmy (56:35):
Yeah, no, I definitely understand what you're saying.
I'm a big fan of the 90s strips, and I was excited for us to get to them.
I love once he gets in his groove with rerun.

Paige (56:47):
Yes, very funny.

Jimmy (56:48):
Yeah, it's like a whole new strip again.
It's amazing.
Amazing.

Paige (56:52):
I wonder if that was because of his of having grandkids.
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't know.

Jimmy (56:59):
That one, that was her guess, too.

Paige (57:01):
Yeah, that would be my guess.

Harold (57:02):
But.

Jimmy (57:04):
March 3rd, 1974, Snoopy is hanging out at the bus stop waiting for the bus and panel one and panel two.
He looks off panel and says, at last, the bus has arrived.
And then we see him sitting very stately in his seat on the bus.
He takes it somewhere where he gets off the bus in the next panel.

(57:25):
And then we see two glorious panels of him chasing cars.
Arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf.
He looks wild and menacing.
Then he very calmly gets back on the bus, rides back home.
And then as he gets off the bus, we hear him think, that's the trouble with living in a quiet neighborhood.
And then atop the doghouse, he concludes, I have to take a bus all the way downtown when I want to chase cars.

Paige (57:52):
Hilarious.

Michael (57:53):
I just heard a story, like last week, about a real dog who every morning goes down, the bus driver knows him, the dog gets on the bus, gets off at the park, runs around and plays, and then gets back on the bus.

Jimmy (58:09):
Oh my gosh.

Paige (58:11):
That's crazy.

Jimmy (58:15):
There's some beautiful cartooning in this, huh?

Paige (58:17):
Oh my gosh.
I love that, you know, he's going to town because he's facing one way, and then he's facing the other way going home.
Like, he's like, it's hilarious cartoon logic that, you know.
I love it when...
This is the great thing about Snoopy as a character.
He is, he's all the things that he is, and he's also a dog.

(58:42):
And I love it when he, like, he snaps into dog mode.
Like, he flexes that canine muscle or whatever.
The way Sparky drew him, like, with teeth, barking and running, it's like, oh, those are some of my favorite drawings.

Jimmy (58:58):
So good.

Paige (58:59):
This is his, he's a dog.
This is his job to go to town, his cars, and come home, right?

Jimmy (59:06):
Yeah, like he's clocking in.

Paige (59:07):
That's right.
Yeah, clocked in, clocked out.

Harold (59:11):
Did Schulz have a dog when you first got to work with him?

Paige (59:15):
No.
A favorite dog of his named Andy had just passed away, a few years before I started working there.
Weirdly, I don't think I really knew about Andy, or maybe I had heard it and it was in my subconscious, but I, when I started working there, had a dog named Andy, which was really strange.

(59:36):
And so, oh yeah, it's kind of a funny story.
Well, the first couple of weeks I was there, Andy was a wiener dog and I left him at home and he kept digging out of the fence because he didn't want to be there by himself.
And he didn't know where he was because it was a new place.
And so Sparky's like, bring him to work.
And I was like, really?

Harold (59:54):
Are you sure?

Paige (59:56):
Dachshunds are notoriously badly behaved dogs, right?
So I was a little worried about it.
Andy was no exception.
So you guys have been to Sparky's office, right?
He had that drawing table and he had that big leather couch.
And he had a table next to his drawing table where he would put his comics out to dry after he eat them.
And there was a chair next to that table.

(01:00:18):
He would set the comics to dry.
That sometimes, you know, I would sit and we would chat.
So anyway, first day of bringing Andy to office.
And I opened the door.
Now the dog has never been there before.
He doesn't even know Sparky.
He doesn't know where Sparky's office is.
But the second he hits the door, he runs, makes a beeline for Sparky's office before I can catch him.

(01:00:39):
He goes upstairs to the second level in that room.
He jumps on that chair, slides across that shiny desk.
Now Sparky is sitting there reading the paper.
He slides across that desk.
He turns around, he jumps on the chair again, jumps down, and then he goes along the couch and he knocks every single cushion and stuffed animal onto the floor.

(01:00:59):
Then he just rolls around and will stretch out on the couch.
I'm thinking, I'm fired.
Holy shit, I'm fired.

Michael (01:01:07):
That's it.

Paige (01:01:08):
It was a great gig for two weeks.
Now I'm out of here.
Sparky was sitting there reading his paper and all he did, super understated, super funny, is he slid the paper over slightly, looked down at Andy and said, man, he's a jumper.

Michael (01:01:22):
That was it.

Paige (01:01:29):
After that, he would carry dog biscuits in his pocket and Andy would just sit and wait for him.

Jimmy (01:01:33):
You know, this is amazing.
Well, it sounds like he was a pretty good boss.

Paige (01:01:38):
Yeah, he was the best boss I've ever had, definitely.

Jimmy (01:01:42):
That is absolutely amazing.
Well, we are doing right now a whole season on Snoopy, where we're trying to figure out what it is that makes him so special and probably the greatest cartoon character of all time.
Do you have an era of Snoopy that is your favorite?
Because he changes so much.

Paige (01:02:01):
I think definitely the 70s, but I'm not sure if that's because I was a kid and that's when I discovered Peanuts.
So there's like nostalgia for me.
But also, I think it's when Snoopy really becomes Snoopy, right?
He, I don't know.
Yeah, I would think the 70s are probably my favorite for Snoopy.

(01:02:22):
Maybe some in the late 60s, but.

Harold (01:02:25):
Well, it's fascinating that the one you picked, we see kind of that little Peanut head when he's chasing the cars.
Then you see the Snoopy that I think somebody from the 90s would absolutely immediately recognize.
It's kind of both in the same strip.

Paige (01:02:41):
Yeah.

Jimmy (01:02:43):
Do you think, I mean, this is probably the leading part.
Do you think he knew the changes Snoopy was going through?
But how aware was he, do you think on a day-to-day basis that it had changed over time?
Or did he ever say like, wow, we can't show those old Snoopys because they don't look the same anymore?

Paige (01:03:01):
Yeah, he was very aware.
I remember when I first started working there, the licensing team in New York was only allowed to lift source art from whatever the previous five years of the strip were.
Because he felt that every five years, there was enough of a visible change in character design that he didn't want those pieces out there.

(01:03:22):
Because when I started there, I was like, I was like, really?
You don't want any of this stuff from the 60s.
It's so good.
He's like, no, no.
And I was like, dang.
I mean, you know, so yeah, so he was very aware of that.
And I'm not sure why he didn't like the earlier stuff as much or he just wanted, you know, product that was in the market to match what was in the paper.

(01:03:45):
You know, I'm not sure what the reason was for that exactly.
But I mean, every artist looks back at their old stuff and goes, ah, it sucked.
You know what I mean?
But to us, Sparky never sucked.
So I don't know what is...
I don't know why he didn't like it.
But I've been in this big cleanup mode lately in finding old sketchbooks.
And I was like, oh, my God, this stuff from the 90s.

(01:04:07):
Oh, I don't like to look at it.

Jimmy (01:04:09):
Well, can you tell us, Jane's World has been collected.
Where can people find those strips?
Where can they order those books?
Where can they just, you know, find your work in general?

Paige (01:04:20):
The Syndicate Universal in Kansas City, which I think is GoComics.
Yeah, it's called GoComics.
They're running the classic strip.
They're rerunning some funny stories right now.
And the book I point people to is the anthology called Love Letters to Jane's World, which was originally published by Lionforge.

(01:04:45):
Yeah, and now it's with Oni, I think.
I think they got bought out by Oni.
But that to me is sort of like the greatest hits of Jane's World.
So it's more of a curated collection, but it has all my favorites.
And if people wanted to sort of check out the strip, that would be a good place to start.

Harold (01:05:03):
That's great.
I think I helped print your very...
I don't know if it was your very first Jane's World book.
It was from 2001 for Plan 9 Publishing.
I was there.
Oh my gosh.
At the time.

Paige (01:05:18):
Are you kidding me?
That's amazing.
I still have some of those books.

Harold (01:05:21):
Are the covers still on them?
They were notoriously...
The covers would pop off of those old school offset printing.

Paige (01:05:30):
But that was in the early days of Photoshop, so I did this weird transparency thing on the cover with the color.
I was like, why did I do that?
That looks so bad.
Do you know what I mean?
Live and learn.

Harold (01:05:43):
I think you had one of the most unique covers that stood out from the Plan 9 books that I was working on.

Michael (01:05:50):
I remember.

Harold (01:05:51):
I remember the yellow and...

Michael (01:05:53):
Yeah.

Paige (01:05:53):
I was like, if you have to get people's attention.
Yeah.
I know.
You learn a lot about self-publishing is what I did after that.
You learn a lot about covers when you go into a comic shop and you see what you're up against.
It's crazy.

Harold (01:06:08):
Yeah.

Paige (01:06:09):
Yeah.
I remember the first couple of issues.
I did these, I think, I thought beautiful watercolor drawings, kind of complex.
And then I go to the comic shop and not thinking that on the shelf, on the big wall of monthly comics, Jane's World, Jay is right next to Justice.
Nobody's looking at Jane's World with Justice right there with all the spandex and everything going on.

(01:06:33):
I was like, oh my God, I got to do something different with covers.
That's when I started working with Brian Miller on covers.
He's really, really talented colorist.
So yeah, live and learn.

Jimmy (01:06:44):
Well, everybody needs to go out and check that book out and check out Paige's work because she's a brilliant cartoonist.

Paige (01:06:51):
Can I say one other thing?
Absolutely.

Jimmy (01:06:53):
You could say as many other things as you'd like.

Paige (01:06:56):
Well, I was going to say, because I talk a lot about Jane's World and she's still a fan favorite, but I have this kid series that's out right now that I just wanted to mention.
It's called Peanut, Butter, & Crackers.
Now, I'm sure it's about two dogs and a cat.
I'm sure there's some Snoopy influence in there.
I'm not going to lie.
When I look at the character design of the smallest character, Peanut, every now and then I'm like, oh my gosh, he looks like Snoopy.

(01:07:20):
But he's a wiener dog.
Like he's not a beagle.
But yeah, it's called Peanut, Butter, & Crackers.
And I just am now doing the color.
My color, she's working on the color for the fifth book.
So there's five books.
But anyway, it was after Jane's World, I wanted to do something totally different.
And so it's these long form graphic novels for young readers.

(01:07:43):
I think they're sweet and they're about friendship and, I don't know, finding your place in the world and helping each other out.

Liz (01:07:51):
I'll put links in the show notes for people.

Jimmy (01:07:54):
Absolutely.

Liz (01:07:55):
Okay.

Paige (01:07:56):
Thank you.

Liz (01:07:56):
My pleasure.

Jimmy (01:07:57):
Well, thank you.
And thank you for sharing that.
I have pampered there.
Wow, it says here, you got six books out.

Liz (01:08:04):
Okay.
Maybe I have six books out.

Jimmy (01:08:08):
All right.
Well, I'll be reading those.

Paige (01:08:11):
Yeah.
Those are with Penguin and then with this other great, really great publisher in the UK called Nosy Crow.
Really, those great publishers to work with, so.
Awesome.

Jimmy (01:08:21):
Well, Paige, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Paige (01:08:25):
All right.
All right.
Thank you.

Jimmy (01:08:28):
Well, that was fun.

Michael (01:08:29):
Yeah.

Jimmy (01:08:30):
Really.
She was definitely on my must get list of guests for the show, so I'm so happy that Paige made it here to chat with us today.
I hope all you folks out there go check out her comics because she's quite a good cartoonist herself.

Michael (01:08:50):
Now we got the whole Schulz story from beginning to end.

Jimmy (01:08:53):
Beginning to end, baby.
We did it.

Michael (01:08:55):
There's no more to be told.

Jimmy (01:08:58):
I like Michael's idea that there's nothing left to say and yet we're going to be back in two weeks.
I think that should be our new motto going forward.
There's nothing left to say and we'll see you next episode.

Michael (01:09:11):
We'll see it anyway.

Jimmy (01:09:13):
So for Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

Liz (01:09:19):
Yes, be of good cheer.
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.

(01:09:40):
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day, and thanks for listening.

Paige (01:09:51):
Dude, it was so random.