Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts. We are starting a whole new year today. It's 1987. I'm your host for the proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, 7 good reasons not to grow up, the Dumbest Idea ever. And my new comic, Tanner Rocks, is serialized for free at gvillecomics substack.com starting tomorrow. So be there.
Joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts, and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band complicated people, as well as for this very podcast. He's the co creator of the original Comic Book Price Guide, the original editor of Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips is Strange Attractors, Tangled River and A Gathering of Spells. It's Michael Cohen.
Michael: Ciao. All right. All right. I'll explain. I've been saying for the last couple years, my little, my little greetings was say hey.
Jimmy: Oh, no. Yeah, I see.
Michael: And, you know, if you don't know that Willie Mays, my favorite baseball player growing up, was called the say hey kid. That was his, that was his shtick saying, say hey. And, so I think I'll retire.
Jimmy: That it's being retired in honor of Willie, who we should say passed away the day after we announced happy birthday to him.
Michael: Yeah. So I'm, hanging it up, putting it in the hall of fame of, of say wow.
Jimmy: Retiring to say hey. Well, you know what? Willie. Willie deserves it.
Michael: Yeah, he sure did. And so I'll come up with something better, probably like face front or something like that.
Jimmy: Excelsior.
And he's the executive producer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts. It's Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Hello.
Jimmy: You're sticking with hello?
Harold: I, Come on.
Jimmy: All right.
Michael: It's a classic that goes in the hall of fame of greetings.
Jimmy: That is true. That is the best.
Harold: Yeah. I mean, I would have been something like uba duba and come on.
Jimmy: Oh, man. Well, we are in 1987. It is really sad that Willie passed away just a few days after, we announced his birthday on our show, but he's still alive here in 1987, where we are. which I. Where were you guys in the, in 1987? Where, where were you? Take me back to the, to the Michael and Harold of 87 yesterday, or, boy, let's see.
Michael: I was in Bellingham, Washington. Liz had moved to Bellingham, Washington.
Liz: Not yet.
Liz: We met in 87.
Michael: We met in 1987.
Jimmy: Oh, very exciting.
Harold: Wow.
Michael: We had a band called Lip service.
Harold: So where'd you guys meet?
Michael: We met at a rehearsal for a band.
Harold: Okay.
Michael: And, I hadn't started seriously drawing comics yet. I wasn't even really thinking about it. Yeah, I was buying comics, but I hadn't yet realized that you could, self publish. And so I hadn't probably hadn't drawn a comic in, like, 15 years at that point.
Harold: Wow. Well, I was in college. I was a junior in college at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. I was just thinking about it as I was trying to place myself in 1987. Interesting that you would ask that. And what about you, Jimmy? Where were you?
Jimmy: Well, if you want to find out where I was in 1987, you can buy The Dumbest Idea ever from Scholastic books. This is the year I started drawing comics, was, when I started drawing my first.
Harold: Oh, yeah. There's no more appropriate thing than for you to go and read the Dumbest Idea Ever. It is a fantastic autobiographical comic that was put out by Scholastic books, and it will tell you a lot about Jimmy. If you want to kind of flesh out the Jimmy that you hear now, that, is just an amazing piece of storytelling. It is super entertaining, and it tells how he got into comics. It's just a really neat thing. I definitely want to give that a plug and encourage readers and listeners, excuse me, who've gotten to know, Jimmy. And there's. That's totally worth, seeking out and getting.
Jimmy: But, well, first off, thank you for all that, but what if our listenership spikes, you know what I'm saying? Then they read the book, and it just plummets, you know, that would be it. They're like, oh, we know who he is now.
Harold: We figured out the mystery.
Jimmy: We figured it out. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about, so. Hey, Harold, do you have any info about Mister Schulz in 1987?
Harold: Yeah, I was trying to get some context, because reading through the strips, we're obviously in new territory here, but also very familiar territory. This is the what, the 38th year that this strip has published. That's a long, long legacy of strips. And, you know, you think about in 1987, you don't know how much longer this is going.
Schulz is 64 years old when we begin the year, and that's very close to retirement age for a lot of people, and nobody exactly knew how long we were going to have Peanuts. And here's what's going on in the world of cartooning and in the world of Schulz in 1987.
So, in 1987, Charles Schulz is inducted into the Museum of Cartoon Arts Hall of Fame at the National Cartoonist Society's annual Reuben dinner in New York City. Now, imagine that. So this is a lifetime achievement award, right? And that's where Schulz is right now. And Schulz was there, and he, he said that he was very touched and honored to become part of a group that includes many of, the cartoonists he admired when growing up. So imagine you being inducted into this kind of lifetime space that includes not your peers, but your heroes, your forebears. That's kind of where Schulz is placed right now in the world of comic strips. And I find that really interesting. in fact, Schulz was one of only two out of 24 members who was still living at the time he got that award. And the other one was, Milt Caniff who did Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon. So can you imagine? You are winning an award. He's won awards before, at a younger age when it was, this is for the work you're doing this year. And now he's being honored for a lifetime, and he's in the pantheon of those who came before him. So that's a different space to be in as a creator who's trying very hard to be relevant and continue being a part and being on the top of comics. As we always said, Schulz is a very competitive guy. But here's what else is going on at that Reuben awards. The outstanding national cartoonist Society cartoonist, of the year is
Jimmy: Calvin and Hobbes.
Harold: Right. Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes. He's been syndicated for only 18 months. That's pretty unheard of to get an award. And he didn't win, like, best strip of the year. That went to, Hagar the Horrible, Dik Brown, this is. And which had been around, I think, since this, since the seventies. So it's very unusual to get, to get strip of the year, let alone cartoonist of the year, from your peers, when you've only been on the scene for about 18 months. And he's in, I think Bill Watterson is in about 300 newspapers and growing fast around this time. Schulz is in about 2400 newspapers. So it's pretty crazy to see this new up and comer just zooming up the popularity charts.
And already I was mentioning these newspaper reader polls. The Sacramento Bee in the same issue of editor publisher, which I'm pulling some of this news from. Sacramento Bee had 9004 people respond to their comics readers poll, which shows pretty great interest in the comic strips. Right. That 9000. Yeah, that's a lot of, are taking the time to, you know, vote. And we. This is not the Internet.
Jimmy: Right. Right.
Harold: Someone has to, like, mail in a response. And, what's interesting is the Sacramento Bee being in its own little area. We were mentioning that many newspapers, often when you do a reader's poll, it might be a more minor paper, and they don't have access to all the strips they want. But Sacramento is pretty much its own region. So they could pick any strip they wanted and put it in the paper. They were the 800 pound gorilla in their location. So the results are really interesting. Calvin and Hobbes is in the Sacramento Bee. I don't know how long it's been in. And what they did is they asked, what is your number one favorite comic strip in the paper? 26% respond Calvin and Hobbes, 13% respond. The far side, 8% say, for better or for worse by Lynn Johnson. 6% say Kathy. And, and 5% say Peanuts.
Jimmy: Wow.
Liz: Ouch.
Harold: So that gives you a sense of where Schulz is. And Schulz is the kind of guy who's a, probably aware of these things. He's probably getting this editor and publisher, he's getting this feedback.
Liz: And Sacramento isn't that far from Santa Rosa.
Harold: Yeah, right. And, you know, to be in the top five for most people would be an absolute honor. Schulz has been at the top of the culture for a couple decades now. Right?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: And, I just thought that was a really interesting snapshot to give us a sense of, of where he is as he continues to create the strips that we're going to be going over today.
Now, there was one more minor poll that came out that is one of those strips. This was in the suburbs of New York City, and so this is not as fair. I don't think Peanuts was in this mix because it was probably in one of the major New York City newspapers. But the, where I live in Westchester County, New York, and also Rockland County, Gannett did their poll, and, they snagged Calvin and Hobbes. And it was number one as well. Number two was Bloom county. Number three was Doonesbury. Number four was the Lockhorns by Bill Hoest. Okay, you guys remember that?
Jimmy: of course I do.
Harold: Basically a bickering couple panel, strip. And, on the Sunday side, it was really interesting to, to me that the number one Sunday that was for dailies was Rose is Rose by Pat Brady, which was also kind of an up and coming strip that was.
Jimmy: I didn't realize that was that old. Yeah, I thought that was much later. Wow.
Harold: It was. It was pretty new at that time. And I think it also was having an impact in the strips in a more subtle way than Calvin and Hobbes, but it was very beautifully drawn and very, very sweet. Strip number two surprised me, but maybe won't surprise you guys. Number two Sunday, as voted by the readers, was Prince Valiant by John Cullen.
Jimmy: Oh, my gosh. Michael and I were just talking about Prince Valiant. I find that extremely surprising.
Harold: And number three is Bloom County for the Sundays. Number four, Doonesbury. And number five is Calvin and Hobbes. Isn't interesting that Calvin and Hobbes for Sundays. We think about Calvin and Hobbes Sundays, especially later. Some of the more epic strips, back when he had the ability to really take over the full space and not have to break it up in all those different ways we always talk about. He could do these beautiful, like, almost single panel dinosaur, Sundays. He's not there at this point. And it's possible that the Sundays had just added, because often what would happen is you'd try it out on the dailies, and then if people liked it and you liked it, then maybe your strip would go into the Sundays. So I don't know what was going on at that time. But in any case, that's a really interesting picture of where the comic strips are. They're still very popular in the culture, but, there is this uneasy feeling in the newspaper strips because they are getting smaller and smaller.
In fact, I want to share one last thing here, and this was Watterson in a very famous speech that he made, because he's famously kind of reclusive. But he did get invited to an Ohio State university event. I believe this is in 1989, not too long after this. And, he gave this really fascinating speech telling the people at the 75th anniversary of Pogo, creator Walt Kelly's birth. So I encourage you to complain to your newspaper about the amount of space it devotes to comics. Newspapers are in the business of serving. You make them do it. He, was saying that he thought it was a mistake. One of the great ironies of the business is that the papers are saving space and cutting costs by reducing comics, the one truly visual part of the newspaper that television cannot imitate. So tv is supposedly the thing that is really competing with newspapers at this point. And he says, the effect on comics has been disastrous. They have fewer panels, fewer words, simpler drawings than ever before. White space attracts the eye. And when 20 comics are printed down two rows of one newspaper page, the comic with the least there is is the most attractive. I thought that was interesting. He said most comics today are vapid and lifeless, and he was just trying to get people to give some space back.
Jimmy: Now, is he a recluse, or did people just stop inviting him to parties? These are vapid. These are terrible. These are the worst things ever. And I thank you for this award.
Harold: Well, he said, without a radical change in the size situation, the future of cartooning will lie in some other form of publication. Well, that's where we live today. And Watterson’s, also critical of the merchandising of some comics, which is definitely tying us back to Peanuts here, stating, I think the comic strip world is much more fragile than most people realize, and that wonderful, lifelike characters are easily corrupted and cheapened by having them appear on every shelf and rack. Several fine strips have turned themselves into shameless advertisements for products. And he doesn't name names about, when it comes to speaking about that. But he does say, as I grew up, my two favorite comics were Peanuts and Pogo, one of the most beautifully lush strips ever drawn, which was what they were celebrating and why he came out, was to celebrate Pogo. So that's really interesting from the guy who's at the top of the game right now. He's, in a veiled way, saying some very scathing things about what he thinks has happened to one of his favorite strips.
Michael: Well, I, actually, agree with a lot of what he's saying. You know, someone's got to say it on this show because we're the show that tells it like it is.
Jimmy: That's what we're known for. We tell it like it is.
Michael: Yeah, we are the ones. So if we don't do it, who will? Yeah, I'm finding Peanuts rather tired and was sort of wanting, no, I was not reading these at the time. I was actually, you know, I glanced at a paper now and then, so I didn't have a subscription. So I wasn't up on any of this stuff, really. But, yeah, I was just thinking the other day while reading 1987 that, yeah, this definitely would not be my favorite. And I wouldn't seek it out either. It's kind of, like, very mild.
Harold: It is mild. And I know, I mean, this is just a fact that as a junior in college, I, wasn't seeking out the comic strips in general, very much. I was, and I wasn't. I was subscribing to this Editor and Publisher magazine because I wanted to become an syndicated cartoonist. So I was absolutely following this. I was following it on this kind of more meta level than necessarily making sure. I subscribed to the newspaper and was reading it every day. But I would definitely check out the comics when they were around and available. But I do remember that Peanuts was something that I absolutely loved. And this was a huge part of my life.
I think I've mentioned this before really early on, and just, this is a personal aside. In college, I became a Christian. I think my, you know, it was a very personal thing for me my freshman year. And here we are. This is just about exactly two years after that. And I had gone to, I think the previous year, I had gone to this, Aspen Film Festival, and I was in a used bookstore, and I found the Gospel According to Peanuts, which I had been aware of, which was written by Robert Short and was not written by Schulz. And I don't know that Schulz necessarily agreed with everything that's in there, but I, picked up the book at this used bookstore, and I was reading through it. I was realizing the impact that Schulz had made on me. That kind of helped take me to where I was going in my own life and the deep, deep respect I had for Schulz for having such an impact and being able to do it in these four little panels every day in a strip. And yet, at the same time, I wasn't reading the Peanuts of that time very much, either. I didn't dislike it, I didn't disrespect it, but, you know, if I were to go back to Peanuts, if I had a chance to engage with Peanuts, I would be picking up some old paperbacks and reading strips from probably the mid 1960s.
Michael: Well, I have a question for Jimmy.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Okay. When we started this podcast, like, was three years ago, I was very excited about, you know, going over and rereading all the strips up to the point where I stopped, you know, which was roughly 1970. And Jimmy was encouraging me, you know, we got to read them all. We have to go to the very end. And so he kind of warned me, and, your warning was, the seventies are pretty good. I remember you saying the eighties were terrible, but then the nineties get really good again. what did you mean by the eighties were terrible?
Jimmy: I think what I feel like, and, I don't mean they're terrible to the world. I think they would be-- I think I meant they would be terrible for you. I don't think you would like them as much, and I don't like them as much either, if I'm being honest. It's, And I feel like what it is is casting about for a direction. What I see for a long time, it is he's going back and he's hitting the old things, and that's kind of cool. And then he'll try to, like, branch out a little bit and do stuff, but it never really latches on until he hooks, into this idea of developing Rerun. And they really do that. You know, it may have been a shtick at the beginning, but Schulz is my favorite character in this, so I am just as invested now in reading 1987 as I was reading 1967, you know, when we were doing that. I'm much more invested in it now than I was in 1987 when I was reading it.
Harold: And, I would agree up with that. I feel the same way. I think you introducing the concept of Schulz as a character in the strip has really colored the way I look at these. Definitely looking at it with that. That perspective that Schulz is in these strips. And that's why it's such a special strip, is you just feel his presence, unlike most other work.
Jimmy: Yeah. yeah. Oh, absolutely. And the thing here, too, like, you're saying it's 37 years. It's getting. I mean, 37 years. Who wouldn't be tired? I did ten years of a comic book, which is nothing like a daily strip, and I was exhausted by the end of it. Yeah, but what's wild is, like, he's still looking for that Rerun, and he's gonna find it, and he's gonna, And there's no reason for someone with that level of success to still be hunting around and trying to find the new thing that will take a strip that is, has now been. Now, he's an ascended master, right? Like you said, he's. He's in this. This group with people who are all mostly dead and who were his legend, his heroes, rather. I don't know how you handle that, and. But, I don't think many people would do it by thinking, well, I got to keep working harder. I got to keep finding new things. That blows me away. And why. And why I like this period well, why I'm enjoying reading this period now is because I know that it's coming. It's gonna come back into focus in the nineties, and yet it's gonna be the nineties. Strip, he's gonna have an even greater tremor. He's going to be older, he's going to be struggling more, but it becomes more poignant, funnier to me. Some of it, a lot of the edge comes back. And I felt like this period, particularly right now, like this period, the mid eighties, was the most unfocused and the most. The feeling of, I gotta get. I gotta get a strip done today.
Michael: No, I feel now that I know, how you're feeling about the nineties. Yeah. I feel like it's slowly grinding to a halt creatively. And so it seems like this year, of what I've read this year so far, it seems like it's. It's out of gas, you know, I'm not fighting the punchline. It's particularly funny. most of the characters aren't doing anything radically different, but maybe he need to. He needed to just put on the brakes and. And then restart it.
Jimmy: Yeah. It's tough for, you know, it's. It's. It's strange. There is a, REM, as we know, one of my favorite bands was inducted into the Songwriters hall of Fame, and they promised they would never, ever, ever, ever reunite. But at the hall of fame thing, they played Losing My Religion, and it was great and it was wonderful, and everybody loved it. And they did an interview with CBS and would you ever do it again? No, it'll never be as good. And then, Michael Stipes telling this story about, you know, his favorite band was the Velvet Underground. And in 1983, he was invited to see the Velvet Underground when they re-formed. And he didn't do it because he didn't want to see them when they were old. And you could watch as he's giving this interview, it dawned on him. And he goes, although now that I think about it, I really wish I did go see them.
Jimmy: Why didn't I? And, that's, me, you know, I want more of it. You know what I mean? Okay, maybe it's not as good, but not as good doesn't matter, because the good, great stuff will. Is eternal and will always be there. And now this is just a different thing.
Harold: Yeah, yeah, I'm totally with you. I mean, I don't want to. I don't want to say, hey, you should just. Just go off into the pasture. You're done.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: No I mean...
Harold: That stuff is behind you.
Michael: Yeah. You lower your expectations. That's how you deal with it. I mean, Jimmy buys every McCartney album.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Whereas I bought the first McCartney album and went okay.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Not the Beatles. Forget it. yeah. You lower your expectations, and you find what's good about it, and you realize that he's not in the hall of fame for 1987 strips.
Jimmy: Right. Yeah. And, you know, and I think that that's another reason, though, why, I love that we're doing all the strips, and I love that we're doing these strips in kind of even greater detail, because we'll find the ones that are kind of gold, and they're the ones that people haven't talked about for 40 years, which is really cool.
Harold: Yeah. And when I look at these strips, I am looking at them. I can't help but look at them through the lens of everything that's come before. But when I look at them, I just look at this, say, this first strip that is part of our just regular going through the year. I'm delighted by it, and the characters are amazing, and it is incredibly special. And if I'm just taking it on its own terms, and then this strip hadn't existed. I'd never seen it until this strip. I would be saying, this is amazing. I really would.
Jimmy: Right. That is the other thing. Competing against yourself is a very difficult thing, especially when yourself is the greatest of all time. All right, so with all of that preamble out of the way, how about we actually talk about these strips?
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: So if you want to follow along, there's a couple things you got to do. The first thing you got to do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the great Peanuts reread, and that'll get you an email once a month telling you what strips we're going to cover. then all you got to do is go over to gocomics.com, type in Peanuts and the dates that, are in that email or as I announce them, and, you can follow along with us. And that's what we would love for you to do. So you guys get that set up, and away we'll go.
January 2. Snoopy approaches Woodstock, who's sitting up in his, little nest. And at the bottom of the tree is a wastebasket. And we can see something has been thrown out. And Snoopy is very shocked by this. And he says, you threw away the calendar I gave you. It has pictures of beagles on every page. Beagles jumping over fences, beagles running across fields, beagles winning best in show as Snoopy looks at the calendar. Then he looks up at Woodstock and asks, how could you do such a thing. Woodstock chirps something in reply. And then Snoopy says he wanted to try out his new wastebasket.
Harold: Yeah. This one is only the second strip of the year. And when we're reading through these, you know, chronologically, and we're trying to pick what we want to talk about. When something strikes you in the second strip of the year, like, is this really going to make the cut? You know, as I read on, am I going to like, oh, why did I pick that one so early? But this one, I I don't know what it was. There's so many things about this strip that I really, really love.
Given, again, where Schulz is right now, number one, it's a gorgeous looking strip. I think Schulz, in this year, one thing I was really admiring is he was dealing with the tremor. He was dealing with changing up his style to have that looser line that he can't help but have. But he is really mixing up his line work and, and the little background elements. I love the tree, the little birch type tree, that spindly thing that Woodstock has a nest on top of. I love the little flowery trash can. It looks like it's from the seventies. I love the shadow of Snoopy in the grass, and I love the grass behind him. It's kind of floating in the background that kind of shows some three dimensionality. I love everything about the look of this strip. I think it actually looks gorgeous. And Snoopy looks really, really fun, throughout this, every, every version of that, and Woodstock always looks great. So the look of this strip, I think, is amazing, given what we were just talking about, about licensing and all of this. I can't help but read in a little bit that, you know, it's a beagle calendar, and Schulz is making tons of calendars with, with Snoopy all over it. And here, Woodstock is trashing his calendar. I couldn't help but just kind of make that little connection that this may have in some maybe slight way. Maybe this kind of represents the world of Peanuts and licensing somehow subtly mentioned in here.
Jimmy: You know, there was a version of this joke 37 years ago, in the fifties. I think it's. Boy, I mean, I could be wrong, but I think it's like Charlie Brown and Violet. And it's something about buying a new wastebasket and then using the wastebasket to throw the paper that the wastebasket was wrapped away in or something like that to try it out. Okay.
Harold: Yeah, but these, these characters, again, are great characters. If I had never seen this strip before, oh, God, I'd never seen Snoopy. I'd never seen Woodstock. I'd say these are amazing characters. These are very full characters and they're gorgeously drawn. They're adorable. So I, you know, that's the weirdness of. Yeah. Comparing it to the past and then just saying, wait a second, just try to be arrested by the new. And maybe it's because I hadn't read Peanuts for like a week or two, you know, here I am, the second strip, and I'm just once again hit by amazing how amazing these characters are, you know?
Jimmy: And here's the other thing, as like a cartoonist, why he is the ascended master. And the others at the time were just working cartoonists. None of the people on those lists of, favorite strips came up with anything as good as those little chirp marks for Woodstock. As a pure cartoonist, none of them came up with as good an idea as the spindly little tree with the nest in it. I mean, just as a pure cartooning icon, everything he does is great.
Hey, Michael, what do you think about Snoopy changing? Has he settled finally into like a final form, do you think? Have you noticed much change?
Michael: Yeah, well, yeah, but when I saw this, I thought, this is now Snoopy, and has almost no relationship to, old Snoopy.
Jimmy: It's, well, it has zero relationship to original Snoopy, for sure. You know what I mean?
Michael: No, but even, I mean, later on in this year, we'll come to a vulture strip, which, you know, is always my favorite. And Snoopy just can't do the vulture anymore. He doesn't have the plasticity in his face because his face is, it looks very much like a stuffed animal.
Jimmy: I mean, it's, well, he's getting older.
Michael: You know, but I mean, he's a little more expressive here.
Michael: yeah. And then there's that weird.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Double, triple. Yeah.
Harold: oh, I love that drawing, that drawing of Snoopy. I'm like, I'm feeling for him. Yeah, he really looks like, oh, how could you do such a thing better?
Michael: Those eyebrow eyelashes. Eyebrows?
Harold: I think it's a furrow, like a double furrowed brow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jimmy: I like that.
January 6, Sally is sitting at her table and she's writing something. She writes, dear grandma and grandpa, they say that grandparents like to spoil their grandchildren. Then in panel three, Sally thinks about it for a second, and then she writes, I'm ready when you are.
Michael: Now, Sally, to me, is the funniest character this year, as she was last year. We gave her the most valuable peanut last year. It's not like she's changing. It's just. She's very consistently representing how selfish kids are.
Jimmy: Do you think there is something inherently more modern about Sally? Modern meaning, in our context of 1987, than the earlier characters? Or do you think it's just that he's just vibing with Sally right now?
Michael: It seems like he's finding ideas for her more than the other characters. It's not like she's changing. She's always been this way. Yeah, but it just solidifies her character. She's often somebody who initiates, the action now.
Jimmy: And here she is on
January 11. It's a Sunday, and Sally's in her beanbag chair watching some tv. She says, oh, no, I can't stand it. We now see she must be watching some sort of sporting event, because the tv announces 10 seconds on the clock. And Sally looks very, invested. Charlie Brown comes in and says, what are you watching? Sally says, sh. It's a football game and a weather report. Charlie Brown asks a weather report. Sally, who's now fully invested, says, they said, if he misses this field, go. It's going to be a long summer.
Jimmy: And this would have ran right during the playoffs. the NFL playoffs.
Michael: So it's sort of a comment on Groundhog day and the playoffs.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: What do you think of her little hand as she's shushing Charlie Brown?
Jimmy: It's cute. it's a little awkward. That's a hard thing to do, actually. That, with your hand. Oh, speaking of weird hands, guess what I did the other day. I watched, I watched Cathy. There was a Cathy animated special from the eighties, which I did not know existed. And it's crazy how they duplicate her style. I mean, it is. It's more than anything I think I've ever seen. It is exactly like the comic strip. I mean, and really, that is shallow. But I actually thought it was kind of hip. It's like lo fi. I liked it, actually. I'll come right on rec and say I thought it was kind of neat, but weird hands. They nailed it. You know, those really weird hands she draws? They do those. The animators, it must have drove them crazy to draw something that wrong to get it right.
Harold: Yeah, well, they think the Sacramento Bee, you know, she's got. She's one, one slot ahead of Charles Schulz, in the Sacramento bee. So, Cathy was definitely reaching an audience.
Jimmy: All right, so listen, since we had such a long preamble, how about we, take a little break now, come back, check the mail, do some more strips?
Michael: Sounds good.
Harold: Cool.
Jimmy: All right, you guys get, a snack and meet us on the flip side.
BREAK
VO: Hi, everyone. We all love listening to Jimmy describe what's going on in a Peanuts strip. But did you know that comics are actually a visual medium? That's right. You can see them anytime you want at, gocomics.com or in your very own copy of the complete Peanuts available from Fantagraphics. Plus, if you sign up for our monthly newsletter, you'll know in advance which strips we're talking about each week. Learn more about the great Peanuts reread@unpackingpeanuts.com.
Jimmy: And we're back. I'm hanging out in the mailbox. Liz, have we got anything?
Harold: We do.
Liz: We got a lot this week.
Michael: Oh, wow.
Harold: Exciting.
Liz: Sarah Wilson writes, and this is sort of related to our previous discussion about the merchandise, and she says hi again. I've been trying to figure out how to share the sheer ubiquity of Peanuts merchandise in Japan, all very sentimental and as opposite as possible from the bleak cartoons I messaged about last time, and she sent us a bunch of pictures, and I will put them on social media. She adds, I'm not sure what's weirder, Peanuts on sofa cushions in a luxury furniture store or Peanuts on soy sauce bottles.
Harold: Wow. Yeah. The stuff in Japan that I've seen is really beautifully designed. It seems like they're a couple of notches above a lot of the American licensing. I don't know if that's because it's just in the culture to make things, particularly small things, that are just incredibly crisp and beautiful, and Peanuts really benefits from that. But it's also fascinating that what people select in a different country to represent the strip is slightly different. Right, right. So, I mean, the sentimentality is definitely in the, in the us stuff as well. And we see it when you see Facebook groups and stuff, the things people choose to post are really interesting. You know, what is it about Peanuts that you want to represent when you. When you put it out there? But, yeah, it's. It's. It's interesting that that's what people latch onto. If there's something that you're going to have in your home, that's the version of Peanuts you want have, right?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Liz: And, Layla Sadiq writes again, and she says, I had to write another email because I heard people apparently don't like Snoopy's siblings. I disagree. Me and my family love Snoopy’s siblings. They're adorable. I was shocked to hear you guys don't like Spike, because he's too depressed. What about Charlie Brown? Spike is such an interesting character because he suffers from such loneliness in the desert. I see his letter writing as a form of journaling, reporting on the tediousness of life. And she says, I see parallels with myself here. And he plays a harmonica.
Jimmy: Well, you can't beat that playing a harmonica. That's true.
Liz: Really.
Jimmy: Well, no, first off, love that.
Harold: Yeah. I've been trying to kind of grapple with who Spike is. And actually, you guys writing in is really helpful to me to kind of see it through your eyes. the people who really appreciate it. Because obviously he was important to Schulz.
Jimmy: Here's what I'll say about, about Snoopy's siblings. I love Olaf because there is one Olaf strip that made me. I remember where I was when I read it. And it made me laugh so hard. And I'm totally overselling it because when we get there, it won't matter to anybody else. But just for that one strip, I think all the Snoopy siblings are worth it. Plus, I generally like decadent period things, which I don't even. That's a phrase I picked up from Michael because he said to me once, he's like, well, what was your first Kirby comic book? And I was like, ah, Command D number 34. And he said, ah, the decadent period. So I realized most of my life is, like, looking around for interesting things in the decadent period of people's careers.
Liz: And Fernando Ruiz wrote a comment on YouTube. And he says, in the March 16, 1957 strip, Snoopy refers to Charlie Brown by name. By at least the seventies or eighties. There's a running gag that Snoopy, despite being Charlie Brown's dog, is unaware of Charlie Brown's name. And regularly refers to him as that roundheaded kid. I wonder when that started. I always found that to be a funny, if somewhat sad, recurring joke.
Michael: Have we run into that yet?
Jimmy: Well, I'm sure there must be an episode where we said, is this the first time?
Harold: Well, it's good that he knew it for one strip, anyway. You know, it came back.
Jimmy: I actually saw a thing years ago. Someone said you should always introduce yourself to your pet when you get a pet and tell them your name. Because a lot of people never tell the pets their name. So how would the pet know?
Harold: Now that's interesting. The full name, including your middle name?
Jimmy: yeah. And in my case, confirmation name. Hey.
Harold: What?
Jimmy: I don't know your guys middle names. I don't think. What's everybody's middle name?
Michael: NMN
Liz: That means Michael has no middle name.
Jimmy: Okay. I thought he said Newman. I'm like, all right.
Michael: My parents, didn't have the energy to come up with something.
Jimmy: All you need is two. The third one's overrated anyway. Liz, how about you?
Liz: well, I'm the most obvious middle name after Elizabeth.
Jimmy: Mary.
Liz: No. When have you ever met somebody named Elizabeth Mary?
Jimmy: I don't know. I have a daughter named Stella Mary and a daughter named Anna Elizabeth.
Liz: Okay, well, I'm the opposite. I'm Elizabeth Anne.
Jimmy: Oh, there you go. That's perfect. That's a good one.
Harold: Okay. Yeah, yeah. mine is, Russell. I'm named after my two grandfathers.
Jimmy: Oh, that's a good one.
Liz: Both of your grandfathers were named Russell?
Jimmy: It would be amazing. I'm Joseph.
Harold: Did you ever have to play Joseph in a play or something?
Jimmy: No, I only got the third wise man ever. It was. And then.
Harold: Narrator.
Jimmy: Yeah. Ah, I long.
Harold: I always get to be this. Have to be the shepherd.
Jimmy: What else we got? Anything else?
Liz: Yeah. Finally, our, pal Bernie Attema writes a correction. He says, just a quick correction to the 1985 part three show. Jimmy commented about blowing into the device after heart surgery. The device is a Spirometer, and it is used to measure lung capacity and hopefully retain it. The device is used by inhaling through the device, not exhaling.
Harold: Oh, really?
Jimmy: Oh, man. I was wrong.
Liz: It's not pleasant or easy, but it is effective.
Harold: So that's the one that has the little plastic bubbles that…
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: I thought that was one you blew into, but that I might mixing that up. So maybe it's for two different purposes. I don't know.
Jimmy: All right. I trust Bernie.
Liz: Yeah.
Jimmy: Well, anyway, Bernie knows. Either way, you should check out those drawings on the Schulz timeline. It's really cool. All right. Should we get back to the strips or do we got more?
Liz: Nope, that's it.
Jimmy: All right. But if you want to reach out to the hotline, you could always call us. You can leave a message or a voicemail or a text. And that number is.
Bernie: Hi, this is Bernie Attema. That phone number is 717-219-4162.
Jimmy: and of course, you can shoot us an email. We're unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com dot. We love to hear from you. Anything that we get wrong or anything that you, you like, that we don't like. Or anything that we love, that you love too. We just like to hear from you. Cause when I don't hear, I worry. All right. Let's get back to the old strips.
January 26. Linus comes up, to the little school bench out at lunchtime, and Lila is sitting on it, and he says, hi. I was thinking about you last night. Remember how you used to tell me I was too old for you? Lyna says, it's the sort of thing we kind of look back on and laugh about, isn't it? Do you mind if I sit down? And then Lila says to him, who are you?
Michael: That's like, the ultimate put down, but it's not a put down. She's actually. Why would she remember this guy? He's older than. He's an old man.
Jimmy: Well, yeah. Now, is she utterly clueless, or is she perfectly playing him? She's playing the long con here.
Harold: Oh, my gosh. This is, this is so classic that Schulz kind of captures this. we've all been in the situation where somebody made some offhanded comment, and we stew about it for, you know, seven years, and then you finally come to terms, and you're like. You remember, like, what are you talking about?
Michael: Here's my anecdote. When I was living in Bellingham, there was a girl who played guitar. I moved to this town from Los Angeles, you know, this small town, and, I met somebody who, like, finger picked guitar. And so I got to be friends with her, and it seemed like it was an important thing to me. Like, well, I have a friend, and, you know, I taught her some things. She taught me some things, and I bought my Martin guitar from her boyfriend. Anyway, it was like, wow. And then she went-- Eventually, her husband got famous, and so she…
Liz: Famous by. Writing the theme song to the.
Michael: Ken Burns civil war documentary. Anyway, I saw them performing at a folk festival years later, and I went up, and they went like, hi, Molly, do you remember me? Like, yeah, no. And I went like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we. You taught me about western swing, and I taught you some, like, finger picking. Like, I'm sorry, I don't remember. I went like, oh, and I bought my Martin guitar off your boyfriend. Like, I'm sorry, I don't remember.
Harold: Oh, man. Yeah, I could. I can feel Linus’s awkwardness here.
February 8. Sally's at that old kitchen table again, doing some work, and she. She looks just completely distraught, and she's saying, apples, oranges, pears, who cares? Then she walks away from the table carrying, the sheets of paper, and she looks very irritated beyond belief. She comes up to Charlie Brown, who's sitting in his chair, reading. And she says, hey, big brother, if you'll help me with my homework, I'll be eternally grateful. Charlie Brown says, fair enough. I've never had someone be eternally grateful to me before. So, m then they sit down at the little kitchen table, and Charlie Brown helps Sally. He says, so all you do is subtract four from ten, and that tells you how many apples the farmer had left. To which Sally is baffled, and she goes, you mean that's it? I have to be eternally grateful for that? And then she yells, I was robbed. I can't be eternally grateful for this. It was too easy. So Charlie Brown walks away saying, well, whatever you think is fair. And Sally says to him, how about if I just say, thanks, bro. So Charlie Brown walks outside and meets Linus, and they're going somewhere. And Linus says to him, where have you been, Charlie Brown? Charlie Brown answers, helping my sister with her homework. Linus asks, did she appreciate it? And Charlie Brown says, at, greatly reduced prices.
Harold: Good old Charlie Brown.
Jimmy: I like that.
Michael: I have a cartoonist question for you cartoonists.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Panel two. Is there a name for that thing?
Jimmy: You know, I bet Mort Walker has one.
Harold: Mort Walker has one for every one of those little.
Michael: What is that?
Jimmy: I don't know what it is.
Michael: It means you're mumbling curse words under your breath. It's just a bunch of squiggly lines.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Like.
Jimmy: Yeah. Just absolute frustration. It means to me. Right.
Harold: Yeah, I know. There's got to be one. There's got to be a. What does he call them? Grawlixes. That's a string of, like, the typographical symbols of somebody swearing. but, yeah, he's got a word for everything. I thought that was really funny. That was one of the. One of the cool things Mort Walker added. Oh, let's. Let's give a name to each one.
Jimmy: Of these for all of these things. Yeah.
Harold: Standard little symbols in comics.
February 9. Charlie Brown has the old kite out, and Sally sees him with this, and she says, you're going outside with that kite. There's a tree out there that's just waiting for your kite. You don't have a chance. She continues ranting at him and says, but you're going out there anyway, aren't you? Why? Why? And Charlie Brown just walks out with his kite and says, a man has to do what he has to do.
Michael: Yep.
Harold: Charlie Brown's the man.
Michael: That's the. He's a medieval knight.
Jimmy: Going out to battle.
Michael: Slay the dragon. Sally sees the world the way it is. That's why I like her. She knows.
Jimmy: She really does.
Michael: This is insane. She's not saying “you can do it.”
Harold: Sometimes she sees the world. Sometimes she does not at all see the world the way it is. It's. She's a fascinating combination of living in her own flights of fancy.
Jimmy: But that is an interesting thing. Yes.
Harold: And just being incredibly down to earth. This is the way it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy: Because what she gets, she gets. And, She has that real, like, matter of fact, down to earth quality about it. But, yeah, there are other things where she has no Idea what's going on. Like, clearly, like, simple subtraction. She's a cool character. I love Sally.
This is an interesting looking strip coming up here.
February 26. Linus and Lucy are sitting on a, little couch in their living room. And Lucy says she's reading a book. And she says, a baby eagle is called an eaglet. She continues, a kangaroo is a joey. A codfish is a codling. Linus says, what do they call a baby brother? And Lucy says, pathetic.
Harold: Oh,
Michael: ouch.
Jimmy: that's a classic Lucy zinger.
Harold: Yeah, that's pretty harsh.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's really harsh.
Michael: yeah, these, These blacks. These angular blacks that don't quite come to the edge of the line make it give me a really, like, a jangly feel to this strip.
Harold: Yeah, I like it.
Jimmy: Oh, what kind of feel?
Michael: Jangly.
Jimmy: Jangly. Define that to me. That's an interesting way to put it.
Michael: Jangly is when blacks do not come to the edge of the line.
Jimmy: Mort Walker came up with that. Right.
Harold: Although I do see an inconsistency. Do you guys see, you know, one of those, What's missing from this picture kind of things? There's something odd going on that I see here.
Jimmy: Are you talking about the, Lucy's shoes?
Harold: Yeah, the second panel. Every panel, he's got straight, parallel lines to shade the shoes, except for Lucy's shoes in panel two, and they're. They're fully lit up. Wow.
Jimmy: that is strange. I like this. So, okay, so do we like jangly blacks? Because here's another example of giant jangly blacks. Going way up to the top would be like a, January 11, where we see.
Michael: Yeah.
Jimmy: that.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: The tv and stuff.
Michael: I almost mentioned that, because I.
Jimmy: Don't like it on the tv.
Michael: Well, look at January 6, dangling blacks on the chair. But there's, On the panel two, there should be some black, highlighting her arm. That's part of the chair. And there's no black there, so there you go.
Harold: Yeah. The thing, I guess, that I don't like when it comes to shading is when the artist is using such pure, usually brushstrokes that they look like brushstrokes to me more than they look like the thing they're representing. They pull me out of the art. And that is like the tv that you were mentioning. You see those lines, and as a cartoonist, anyway, I see the tool, and I don't want to see the tool. I just want to experience the strip. You know, I've mentioned this before. Joe Kubert sometimes did that with some of his looser stuff. Kirby even does it sometimes where it's just so incredibly quick and bold that all I see are his brushstrokes, and I don't see what he's trying.
Michael: Well, here's something I learned, because we talked about spotting blacks earlier. If you do it too much now we're looking at. Back looking at February 26, I started doing it too much. And if there's a lot of small blacks and a lot of small whites. It doesn't have the right effect. It makes it. It's like a nervous blotchy.
Harold: It's checkerboardy.
Michael: Yeah. So I would say those first two panels don't work because I think. I think maybe it was Jaime Hernandez who said it somewhere. I don't know. But anyway, it's like you don't want 50 50 black and white.
Jimmy: Yes. Right.
Michael: and those panels are kind of half and half, whereas the last panel.
Jimmy: The last two. Yep.
Michael: Work.
Jimmy: Yep.
Harold: Interesting. Yeah.
Jimmy: Now, do you think he should just get rid of those splotches behind them? He's into this for the last few years, trying to do those harsh shadows indicating, like, at night. But I think if you just got rid of those, that would be a huge step in the right direction.
Michael: I definitely don't understand Lucy's shadow in the first one, because what is the little rooster thing? in her shadow?
Jimmy: You know, they're the shadow that bothers me the most in pop culture. And I do have one. The bone logo from Jeff Smith's bone. The odd. The shadow of the O is pointed. I don't understand it at all. Anyway, interesting.
Michael: Let's give it a name, too.
Harold: Well, you got that off your chest now.
Jimmy: And finally that. And Bill Watterson. This is like a real come to Jesus episode for me.
March 20, Charlie Brown is out raking a sand trap, and we see some, zipatone on the. On the grass. And he says, I did it. I raked every sand trap on the golf course. I can't believe I did it. I've never worked so hard in all my life. And in panel three, Snoopy leading the Beagle scouts in their foreign legion attire, trot right through the sand trap. Snoopy says, there it is, men. Fort Zinderneuf. Charlie Brown screams at the sight of them ruining his little sand trap. And then Snoopy says, we're the relief column from Tokotu. Aren't you glad to see us?
Michael: I just don't understand. Why would you care if there was footprints in the sand trap?
Jimmy: you're supposed to rake it. I don't know why you're supposed to.
Harold: I guess that's the thing. If golfers could tell us, right? Maybe because you're not supposed to have, an unfair effect on your fellow players. If the little. Your little footprint could actually make the ball go a different way.
Michael: It's in the sand trap, and it's not getting out of the sand trap. I don't understand golf. This is like mystery to me.
Harold: I do like to use the zipitone here.
Jimmy: I do, too. I think this looks real nice.
Harold: Yeah, this is a long sequence. And Charlie Brown gets sucked into having to clean up after his dog on this golf, course, because he's. Of all these little footprints.
Michael: Not the way you think.
Harold: no, not thankfully.
Jimmy: That would be a terrible comic strip. One of the in, I think. I don't know if it was in the Gary Groth interview, but some point, Schulz said towards the end of his career he was so happy he never did Snoopy in conjunction with a hydrant in any way. There was never that joke.
Harold: Yeah, right.
Jimmy: We could all be happy about it.
Harold: Again, the Charlie Brown, like we've seen here with some of the stuff with Sally. This Charlie Brown is. He's a very responsible kid now, and he's often seen sitting in his chair, just living his life, doing his own thing. And then somebody comes in and is asking for help or needs help, and he just dutifully goes and does it. And it's this admirable Charlie Brown that is not quite as angsty. Just about everything. He seems to be a little more, peace with himself.
Michael: Well, we're gonna--
Harold: Even though he has a terrible experience with Snoopy here, he's going, I don't.
Michael: Know if this is a shift in the character, but we're gonna see something very shocking coming soon with Charlie Brown. The old Charlie Brown would never do this. in this case, yeah, he's please the good citizen. But he's gonna be trying to pick up a girl.
Jimmy: All right, well, we have to get there.
Michael: Yeah.
April 2, it's vulture Snoopy atop a great looking little cartoon tree. And he thinks to himself, here's the fierce vulture perched high in a tree. And in the next panel, Woodstock lands on his head. And then in the next panel, another little bird comes in and lands on his back. And then by the last panel, we see five little birdies all on top of the tree and also perched on Snoopy's vulturized back. And Snoopy says, it doesn't take much these days to attract the crowd.
Michael: But he can't pull off the vulture.
Harold: The shape just doesn't work for you.
Michael: Doesn't have the snout for it.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Cause his neck's too thick, or what do you think it is about?
Michael: Well, his snout used to be really long, and it could bend more. But also, the eye isn't working right. He just doesn't have the. He doesn't have the vulture chops anymore.
Jimmy: But I wonder why he doesn't alter the design of Snoopy. Like, he. We've talked so often about, like, he lies down in the doghouse, and it's a different design. particularly, I think, here with the width of the neck. I think that's the thing. that, yeah, he could adjust easily without it looking like he's going back to an older model. Snoopy.
Harold: I think the other thing about the vulture is we've talked about line of action in animation, where you see this kind of flow from the tip of the character to the other end, and it's in this arc, and the vulture is all about that arc. And yet, Schulz dealing with the tremor, he's got these incredibly shaky, ears, even though they kind of are in an arc. The very fact that they're these crumpled looking ears, I don't think works for the streamlined look of the.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting, too.
Jimmy: Yeah, I think you're right.
April 12. Oh. It's picture day at Marcie and Peppermint Patty's school. So Marcie takes a nice little photo and comes back out and says, you're next. And Pepper and Patty says to Marcie, how do I look, Marcie? You look fine, sir. I've never posed for a class picture before. Wonder why. But okay, just act natural, says Marcie. And, they're walking towards wherever the photos are being taken. Pepper and Patty says, natural. Marcie says, just do what everybody does when a camera is pointed at them and Marcie, because Pepper and Patty really needs help on this getting her photo taken thing. Says, he's ready, sir. The camera's pointed right at you. To which Patty jumps up, points her finger skywise and yells, we're number one. They walk out. Pepper and Patty looks deflated. And Marcie says, I think it's called media conditioning, sir.
Jimmy: Schulz hated the weird number one thing he talked about. Yeah. And I'm reading into it probably because it was a. It was a print interview and it was the Gary Groth thing again. And he's like, he hates it when he would see people in the stands conflating themselves with the team. We're number one. We won.
Michael: Oh, yeah. I hate that. Boo.
Jimmy: He said, they are not number one. They are nothing. And I thought, ok. Oh, wow.
Harold: Yeah. There's a, Dave, David Mitchell, who's a british comedian. there was a show called That Mitchell and Webb Look, and they have this amazing sketch where this one guy, very smug, is talking about we and we and we. And the other guy is just tearing him apart. Oh, I see. When did you carry that rugby ball? And it's just. He just eviscerates this guy for being smug. Oh, I'm the guy.
Michael: That's one of my pet peeves, by the way, that. That shocking Charlie Brown strip I mentioned earlier. Nobody picked any of those. so I gotta explain. There's a sequence. He's sitting in class and some, for some reason, the little redhead girl’s in the same class. And he's. He's trying to get her attention. He's winking at her.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: I cannot see Charlie Brown doing that.
Harold: Well, I feel like Schulz. You know what? little I know of his personal life, I see Schulz becoming more and more in his own community. At least, you know, he's a public figure. And I've seen, like, the 1960s version of Schulz. He kind of looks, like a, you know, nerdy guy like I do. But then by the seventies, the late seventies or mid seventies, he looks really suave. And he's got this great hairstyle and these really cool glasses. And he's. You see him playing hockey and it all of a sudden he looks like this kind of man about town. Yeah. It's almost like, you know,
Liz: Jeannie
Jimmy: Yes. That is exactly what it all is. I think that's. This is the Jeannie thing. Liz is totally right. I think that's also why Peanuts become so active in the seventies. Right. You know, it's all. It's people flying planes and they're, you know, playing tennis and all that stuff. And all that stuff really reflects, I think, just his changing life, like you're saying, and Jeannie's influence, for sure.
Harold: And to the extent that Charlie Brown is Charlie Schulz and all that, there. Yeah, there does seem to be a little bit of a connection, there.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. That is a really. The one thing about that sequence is I've never particularly liked it very much. I think I feel like, okay, whatever. I don't know. But I remember it like, that's one of the sequences I remembered from my previous readings from this, when a lot of it I didn't, so I'm not sure why.
Harold: Yeah. Remember the strip where he's practicing giving a valentine?
Jimmy: Right, right.
Harold: And he tries every different way, and he's. He's looking all suave. And another one, he's looking kind of rakish and.
Jimmy: Right, right.
Harold: That is a very memorable strip because it's. It's Charlie Brown acting out something that we normally don't see. It really pops, you know?
Jimmy: Yeah. All right, we got one more strip for this episode, and it's a good one, I think.
April 19, it's a Sunday, and we see Sally dressed in, basically a tattered rag in, outside, a cave in the himalayas, meditating, because, of course you do. and then we cut to the panel two, where Sally is actually in her room reading a book. So in the next panel, Charlie Brown sees Sally is reading her book, but she walks right past him in her little nightgown. And beddies on, and Charlie Brown says, what are you doing? And Sally says, I'm looking for enlightenment. And Charlie Brown, this really gets his attention. He goes, really well, I'm proud of you. And at your age, too. He follows her around, and then he says to her, I've never heard of anyone age who is interested in any kind of serious thought. Would you say this is kind of an intellectual pursuit, or is it more of a spiritual quest? To which Sally replies, the bulb in my lamp went out. I, am looking for enlightenment.
Jimmy: Maybe it's just me, but I love that. I think that's really funny. Now, what do you think about the brushstrokes on that panel? One rock in the front. That must be exactly what you're talking about, Harold.
Harold: Yeah. That, to me, looks like a speedball D three or D two, pinpoint. And, that's a perfect example of what kind of pulls me out. Although I will say when I was reading the strips. It didn't jump out of me until we were looking at it again here. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's exactly what I don't like, because it just looks like the tool to me, and maybe to somebody who's not an artist and doesn't know what's behind these tools, it doesn't matter at all. But for me, you know, it just seems. Yeah, it just seems, like, distracting now.
Jimmy: It's, it's a little bit of an evolution, though, of his focusing. You, you know, where he's doing the focusing your eye, where he's doing a little bit of the rougher stuff along the edges to try to focus on the clean Sally, I think. But it's partly, I think maybe it's such a big section with huge brush strokes, you know?
Harold: Yeah. And he could have just chosen a really dark color. He's a Sunday strip to move your eye backward into Sally, but instead, he chose to bake it into the strokes of his.
Jimmy: I would like to see this in color. I'd like to see that first panel in color anyway.
Harold: And, when I see this strip, it makes me think of the relationship between Charles Schulz and his daughter Amy. And he often said, and she said as well, that, you know, of all the Schulz family, the two that were most interested in kind of these religious things were the two of them. And even though they kind of were coming down in different areas of faith, they had this common interest, and they would talk with one another, about it. And I just kind of get that vibe from Sally sometimes. I see some Amy in Sally.
Jimmy: Well, we really picked a Sally heavy, intro to this year, so we'll see if that continues for next episode.
Guys, I had just a great time talking to you. This is, as I always say, my favorite day of the week. I love talking to my pals about my favorite thing, and I love that you guys are listening and, talking back with us. So please do that. Continue to write in, continue to listen. we'll be back next week with 1987 part two. so if you want to shoot us an email between now and then, you can go to unpackingpeanuts.com and sign, up for that Peanuts reread. Email us unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com. or you can follow us on social media. We're on Instagram, and Threads and unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, blue sky, and YouTube. Remember, my new comic comes out tomorrow. Gvillecomics dot substack.com. you can have it for free. Until next week, though. From Michael, Harold, and Liz this is jimmy saying be of good cheer.
Harold: Yes.
Liz: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen and Harold Buchholz; 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. For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com. Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Michael: Jangly.
Comments