With Paige Braddock

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. It is a special day here at Unpacking Peanuts. It always is special 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's Jimmy Gownley. Joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts, and fellow cartoonists, Michael Cohen.

Michael: Say hey.

Jimmy: And Harold Buchholz. 

Harold: Hello. 

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

Liz: Howdy.

Jimmy: 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. Paige, thank you so much for coming and hanging out with Unpacking Peanuts.

Paige Braddock: Thanks so much for having me.

Jimmy: 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.

Paige Braddock: I've heard that rumor.

Jimmy: 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 Braddock: 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 Marcie and Peppermint Patty are under tree, because that would have pretty much been us because she wore glasses and, you know, I was Peppermint Patty, except I couldn't do sports. anyway, and she said we were talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up, and I said to her, I'm gonna work at Charles Schulz's studio. I have. I have no memory of saying that. But that's weird, right?

Jimmy: I mean, that's amazing.

Paige Braddock: How did I even know he had a studio? I mean, I don't even. I don't even know.

Jimmy: That is. So what was it about him that made you think? Yeah, that's. That's my destiny. Do you have what was about that work?

Paige Braddock: Well, I wanted to. I wanted to. I knew that I wanted to be a cartoonist probably from age 7. I was, you know, every. We didn't have. I lived in, like, rural Mississippi at the time. We didn't have comic shops or anything like that. But so I. 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. I really was, drawn to Peanuts, obviously, love to draw Snoopy, and, And Beetle Bailey, oddly, was another favorite when I was a kid. I mean, and. And Popeye. Those. The character design of those three, it's all very different, but, you know, some of the best stuff.

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

Paige Braddock: No. I kept. Even then I kept their worlds separate.

Jimmy: 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 Braddock: You know, probably, like other cartoonists my age, I just decided I'm gonna 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. 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. I was not a professional, quote, unquote, professional cartoonist in, like, probably industry eyes. I. 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: Jane's World.

Paige Braddock: but just kind of entertaining myself with it. And then this sort of nerdy friend of mine at the AJC, the Journal, Constitution, Atlanta, he said, hey, let's build a website. And you could post your comics. And I'd be like, what is a website? It was like, 1995, you know.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: Anyway, so we did this very rudimentary. Basically all it was was you go to the page and you see the comic, you know, that was it.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: And it was. 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. Nobody hardly was doing web comics then. But as you know, then it sort of took off. And then people, you know, the indie comic industry sort of grew after that. but anyway, I feel like I'm rambling, but it was a long. No, it was a long and winding road, as the Beatles say.

Jimmy: Gotta have a Beatles reference. Nice.

Paige Braddock: Yes.

Jimmy: Now. And you did Jane's world for two decades?

Paige Braddock: Yeah, for a long time. 20. 20 years.

Jimmy: 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 Braddock: 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, like, 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, like, 1985 through his editor. Anyway, so I was going to the National Cartoonist Society meetings, just trying to soak up all the mentorship I could from, you know, kind of the old crew who was working in comics. And. And I was lucky. I had some very nice, elder statesmen in comics as mentors in the 70s. Dave Graue, who took over over Alley Oop from BT 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 pin. 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. It was so fun to go to his studio.

Jimmy: Oh, that must have been magical. And how old-- you were in high school?

Paige Braddock: 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 Hillary Price can't remember. I think there was somebody else on the panel, but I can't remember who. And we were supposed to be talking about, why there weren't more women in comics because this was the 90s and the NCS and there's like 500 members and like six of them are women and everybody else are guys. You know, it's that kind of scene. Not. Not at all like it is today. Anyway, and Schulz and his wife Jeannie were sitting on the second row and we did this panel discussion. And after the panel was over, he just walked up and asked me if I wanted a job. That was how I ended up. 

Liz: Oh, my word. 

Jimmy: You're kidding me.

Paige Braddock: 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. Cause I needed some cash to get for something. And, I remember my whole body, I just had like chills all up and down my arms like, whoa, this. Something big is happening, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: Where were you living at the time?

Paige Braddock: Atlanta.

Michael: Oh, wow. So that. Had you thought of moving to California before?

Paige Braddock: 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. 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. You're gonna quit your 12-year journalism career and go work for some guy in California? I mean, they knew who he was, but they're like, you don't even know what you're gonna do. And. And I'm like, I don't care, you know?

Jimmy: Wow.

Paige Braddock: So, it was really a leap of faith.

Jimmy: Wow. did you ever talk to him about that and say, like, oh, yeah, what was that about, man?

Paige Braddock: 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 just. 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 freaking blow up and I'm gonna be living in my parents attic if I'm not careful. Right?

Jimmy: right.

Paige Braddock: And so I would say to him, I'd say, you know, you could have picked somebody a lot better as an art. I mean, I, I went to the University of Tennessee. It's not some high minded, you know, Ivy League school. I, I didn't go to an art college. I didn't even major in comics. I majored in illustration. I mean, you know, there was like, there's smarter, more educated people than me that could be doing this job. And he was like, he, he said he hired me because he knew I wouldn't be afraid to say no. So really random. I didn't know what that meant at the time, but you know, obviously over the years you figured that out. But.

Jimmy: 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 Braddock: 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, I show up and I'm like, Mr. Schulz. Hello, Mr. M. Schulz. Hello, Mr. Schulz. You know, and he's like, because, I'm from the south and he's senior, you know, person, 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. How did this happen? You know, 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 didn't, we don't do any of the contract or the legal stuff. It's, it's just all the creative stuff. 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. So it was funny. I could utilize a lot of the skills that I had learned journalism for this new job, even though I didn't totally have licensing experience. But he was great. He would, some. You know, 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. And it would just, it was just sort of fate or something that I was there to help when he needed it most. Because he, I barely got to train with him and then he, he had a stroke and discovery of cancer and all this stuff started happening. But before that, you know, working with him, it would 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 like 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. And 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 a. Syndicates used to send out a printed booklet with all the comics for the week, all the strips that they sold. And so United Features Syndicate would send out all of their strips. Peanuts was one of them, but there was a whole bunch of other ones in there. So we'd sit there and like drink coffee and critique everybody's strips.

Jimmy: 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.

Paige Braddock: The most, 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. It's a character driven comedy ensemble. Not unlike Peanuts. Right, but it doesn't. Yeah, 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, 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, okay, this is. This is it, man. I'm gonna crack the code. I'm here. This is Charles M. Schulz. I'm gonna find out how magic. How the magic happens. So we were at lunch one day, and we were walking around the gift shop, and I was like. I was like, so why does. I was always asking him these character questions, you know? I was like, why does Marcie call Peppermint Patty sir? And he goes, I have no idea. She's very strange. And I'm like. 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. And we're just getting to see it every day.

Jimmy: Yeah. Wow. Well, it must have been amazing to, Were you able to watch him draw the strip ever?

Paige Braddock: No, he. He would go in his office and close the door, and I was. Everybody, I, me included, was very respectful about not interrupting him when he was in the zone, as I call it.

Jimmy: Yeah, I can absolutely imagine. That would be, That would be the one rule, huh? Cause it all falls apart without that.

Paige Braddock: Right.

Jimmy: And so how long were you there before, he had the stroke. And you were there that day, right, when he did have, the stroke?

Paige Braddock: Yeah, he was in my office when he started feeling weird. He leaned up against my door frame, 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, right. 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. We can finish out these few strips that you're having a hard time with because you don't feel well, 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 when he ended up going to the hospital.

Jimmy: yeah, but there was no thought of him retiring before that. Or maybe there was, or.

Paige Braddock: 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.

Jimmy: and.

Paige Braddock: 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. And. And fandom sort of embraces them and does all this stuff with them, and it's just a funny thing, to think about.

Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's. It's. It's. I'm so happy that you're here to tell us about this. This period, because, you know, when you read 17,897 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. That was. That's great.

Paige Braddock: 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.

Jimmy: Oh, absolutely.

Paige Braddock: 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. It's, Yeah, like you said, everything that's in the strip is him. And so when you're a cartoonist and you understand that, that's. It's a unique, creative pursuit, I guess. Comics.

Jimmy: Yes.

Paige Braddock: Yeah.

Jimmy: So, Paige, so we're wondering at the end there, things like the Zipatone and the actual, like, Photoshop at the studio, who was doing that stuff?

Paige Braddock: Well, there was another production artist that worked there that had come over from the ice arena, and sort of 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, and you had this color sheet with numbers signed. You probably, 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. So that was happening and then he started using zipatone. I'm not sure why he started all using. Probably I think, I think there was part of him that just wasn't afraid to experiment a little bit because, you know, he sort of freaked me out when he suggested we start doing some stuff in Photoshop because I was like, really? I don't know, man. I mean, why mess with perfection, right? Like, yeah, Photoshop is this new shiny thing. But I don't know. anyway, and it started because, probably because of the Zipatone, because he would in blue pencil indicate where he wanted shading to be. He would give the original strip to Aaron and then she would add Zipatone to those areas that were shaded. 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 mailing them in. He did this forever. And, 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. 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, yeah, we could scan these. And you know what else we could do? We could do the Zipatone 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. So then we got Aaron, Aaron had a computer, she got Photoshop. You know, we started doing the Zipatone digitally and then he was like, he, I don't know if you, 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 goes into the strip. 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 the patriot during the Revolutionary War and he goes to the shore, but he's just missed Washington crossing the Delaware. And he wanted, he wanted that image in the strip and that. So that was the first one we really did with Photoshop. It was an. 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. It's like, oh, I learned how to do a, I learned how to do a gradient screen. I'm going to do it on everything now. It's horrible.

Jimmy: oh, yeah. Well, that. There was just no way to avoid that in the 90s and early 2000s. That was just. If you buy like. 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: But people in the 90s thought it was really cool.

Jimmy: Yeah, I still secretly think it's really cool.

Paige Braddock: I thought it was cool for about 10 minutes and I'm like, oh, no, what have I done? You know?

Jimmy: 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 Braddock: So, yeah, that was me. That was me.

Jimmy: That was you. It was really good looking.

Paige Braddock: I have a thing for plaid. It's a problem.

Jimmy: 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.

Jimmy: 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.

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Jimmy: 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. so Paige, tell us what, what was your criteria? What made you pick these particular strips?

Paige Braddock: Well, they kind of range in, like, in terms of era.

Paige Braddock: 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: 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. First up, 

January 14th, 1985. Peppermint Patty, is on stage. She has just received, an award. She, looks lovely in her little dress, and she has a kind of nervous, sheepish grin on her face. And she says, she's, at the microphone, which is about 2ft 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, Marcie. And then Marcie comes out, lifts Peppermint Patty up so she could be near the microphone, and Peppermint Patty continues. I want to thank you for this award.

Paige Braddock: Hilarious. It's so funny, and every time I see it, I laugh.

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

Paige Braddock: It's. Okay. It's a. It's multiple things. First, it's Peppermint Patty 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, Schulz does a great job of sort of capturing that awkward nervousness in her simple expression. Right. And then the hilarious where she looks up to the microphone and then calls for her friend Marcie. And then rather than lowering the microphone, Marcie raised perfect Patty. And I just. 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, you know, like, just try to get higher rather than raise the.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: 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? That Marcie's. Marcie's all in. Whatever Peppermint Patty needs, she's there. So it's like. It's. The visual gag is funny, the emotional content, you know, feeling how Peppermint Petty feels, and then this just, like, amazing friendship that the two of them have. I don't know-- that the strip just has it all.

Jimmy: Their relationship is amazing. And I have this theory that Peppermint Patty is, like, the first modern YA cartoon character. you know, like, my. What. 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, 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. 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 Braddock: 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. You can't make it up sometimes. And he, at the time was friends with Billie Jean King. He was friends with, other women in his circle who probably reminded him of or inspired, you know, Peppermint 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. 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. He was, as you said, way ahead of his time in terms of, creating female characters that sort of broke the mold on the comics page.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yes. Certainly. Going back to Lucy, you know, she's shockingly original when you're going through it.

Paige Braddock: Yes. Yeah. Because every. I mean, maybe there are other examples that aren't this way, but I. As a kid, what I remember is like, you know, Blondie, Dagwood, Blondie, and like, you know, all the female characters in Beetle Bailey. Like, I. I, related more to Beetle than I did to, like, the women on the cusp. You know what I mean? Like, there are more. More male characters that I resonated with still 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. They were sort of the straight men. Right. In the comedy scenario, I'm not doing a very good job explaining that. 

I remember when I was in high school and I was working with Dave Graue, 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. It was the era of Clint Eastwood, and my dad loved, you know, westerns and all that stuff. And Dave said, 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 went. 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. 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. You know, it took a long time. well, you.

Jimmy: You know, but you're. 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.

Paige Braddock: Right, right. It is true. Like, if you. I didn't set out to do, like, a gay comic strip or, you know, 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 gay cartoonist, you're a lesbian. 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.

Jimmy: Right, right.

Paige Braddock: You know, people don't know this, but lesbians do have a sense of humor, you know, like.

Jimmy: Oh, my gosh, we're breaking news on this podcast.

Paige Braddock: I always said, you know, I would say, because you had Alison Bechtel 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: That's a huge, A hugely important thing, though, right? I mean, that is a hugely important thing. I think people, I mean, you know, it's not like I've come up with this theory, but obviously representation, 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: Learn something.

Jimmy: you know, it's hugely important. They may learn something. Yeah. and still have fun. It's a.

Paige Braddock: It's a.

Jimmy: It's a magic trick and a gift, really.

Paige Braddock: We're all just people. We have to feed our dogs. We have to go to the grocery store. I mean, it's. It's, you know.

Jimmy: Well, yeah.

Paige Braddock: Glamorous as people make it seem. Right.

Jimmy: 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. 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 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. And he looks at it with just a look of absolute sadness.

Paige Braddock: this one. No words in this comic. It's just visuals. It's an entire story in four panels. It's, it's about, you could almost say, I guess it's about class. It's about, you know, all these different things, that I don't know if you guys probably know Stefan Pastis, who does Pearls Before Swine. 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. if you look at the work before this, in the 50s, Charlie Brown is kind of a prankster. And it's all, this 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 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 and. 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 in. He's thinking, right? Yes. And then in the third. Third panel, he's walking, through this sort of wintry. You know, you sort of feel like this wintry 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.

Jimmy: Yeah. Wow, that's amazing.

Paige Braddock: 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 panel.

Jimmy: You actually feel it.

Paige Braddock: Yeah.

Harold: 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. 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 he could think of is, what. How did the other team feel who lost the game?

Paige Braddock: Yeah. Yeah.

Harold: That. 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 Braddock: Well, and we look at this, and you. We. 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. Yeah, you got him. 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, it was all, like, adventure stories. And,

Jimmy: Yeah, there wasn't. Was Feiffer even around in 54 or just beginning, you know, and so that wasn't a daily.

Paige Braddock: No.

Jimmy: Yeah. Nobody. No.

Paige Braddock: Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy: So anyway, 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. 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. 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 the strip? Was it different than what you saw Schulz do?

Harold: The radio 914 nib? Right.

Paige Braddock: Yeah. I started out using a Sharpie marker on a spiral notebook because it was Webcomics and nobody was gonna see it. Right.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: And, and then when I got to the studio, Schulz, gave me a box of his pen nibs. And I think at the time there was only, like, three boxes left. And so I still have a box in my sock drawer. That's what I tell everybody. If anything happens to me, they're in my sock drawer. But, 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, you know, collecting it into books. And so obviously you can. You need better resolution. You want to see the artwork more refined. Anyway, I. 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, you know, 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. So. 

Harold: Paige, can. Can you talk about that nib that's kind of a mythical nib on our podcast, we talk about a lot. We have a T shirt that has.

Paige Braddock: Oh, that's funny. Mythical nib.

Harold: How do you describe it? What is it? What. How does it feel different than the other tools you've worked with?

Paige Braddock: Well, it's a substantial nib. you know, because it was meant to be an everyday nib for a bank. Right. Like a nib you just write with or sign a check with or whatever. and I think it's the nib that I think I read in interviews that was the nib that Sparky used in Art Instruction School to, like, sign things. Right. So it wasn't supposed to be a drawing nib, but it is. It's a strong nib, and so you can put a lot of pressure on it and you. So he drew on really heavy 3-ply hot press Bristol. 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. Yeah, the newspaper size. Right. So he's putting a lot of pressure on that nib every time he draws down an ink, you know, 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. So you can seriously do an entire drawing with that one nib, which I think is why he liked it. It. You know, every variation of line. And then for. 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. But sometimes you'll see when he does a silhouette, he has switched to a brush, and 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, gives us this really, This energy. Right?

Harold: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: 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 a strip in process, you know, that he hadn't inked yet. 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, sort of script it out. Only his secretary Edna could read his handwriting. I couldn't read it at all when he was lettering. And then. Which is crazy, right? Because when he letters it, it's perfection. It's.

Harold: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: He wasn't lining. He wasn't lining it all.

Jimmy: He saves it up.

Paige Braddock: Yeah. anyway, so all of that to.

Jimmy: Say that, but the fact that he's not lining it off is crazy, right?

Paige Braddock: It's crazy. I said that to him once. Said. I said, I measured this. This is perfect. I don't know how you do this.

Jimmy: You know, that's insane.

Paige Braddock: But he, Because he didn't do underdrawing, 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: Yeah, absolutely.

Harold: Yeah. Paige, 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 Braddock: 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, it seems like. Yeah.

Harold: Like a slightly thicker, line. Easier to get out of whatever he was using possibly.

Paige Braddock: Yeah. When I first started working 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: 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.

Paige Braddock: Yeah.

March 2, 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. 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 while Charlie Brown has the book out. And Sally says to Charlie Brown, can you read that bit again about Moses parting the sea? 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 his dog probably went across first.

Paige Braddock: Great dog joke.

Jimmy: Now, what made you pick this one? Is it the dog joke off at all?

Paige Braddock: It's. 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. That opening, the throwaway panel, the first panel with where he's sitting on the map is like, if you went to. If you grew up in the church, you've seen those maps in the back of your Bible. 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, shape. I don't know what that is. It's like the Dead Sea or something. But anyway, yeah, so I think I just. I just picked this one because, you know, people always, A lot of people read into Schulz's beliefs based on what he put in the strip. Right? 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: there's, like, nothing past Christmas. Yeah, you're right.

Paige Braddock: Yeah. The Old Testament. 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. But then he. He doesn't. If you. If you're not raised in the Christian faith, if you don't, you know, have beliefs, he. He handles the material in such a way that you still laugh at the dog joke. You're not offended in any way that he is making this, biblical reference in a Sunday panel?

Harold: Yeah. in conversation, you said he would talk. He just brings stuff up. What was he like in conversation, talking about these things would. Do you always have questions in his mind that he was mulling over or what was he doing?

Paige Braddock: Well, he had read the Bible through at least once. Maybe more than that. I don't know. And his early years, you know, he was, a member of an evangelical church in the Midwest, you know, 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? 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 maybe it was just.

Jimmy: Because of his celebrity. Like, hey, you know, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Paige Braddock: 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. 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 see it in the strip. He's always trying to work out all those sort of bigger questions.

Jimmy: Yeah. And you feel that he is trying to work them out as opposed to trying to tell us the truth, you know, the huge difference, I think.

Paige Braddock: Yes, it's a big difference. Yeah.

Harold: 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 Braddock: Yeah.

Harold: he didn't know you very long, and all of a sudden, he's now bringing stuff up that’s really deep.

Paige Braddock: My god, 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 hotel. It was 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, 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, so I thought, okay, I'm just gonna 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 so they quit throwing, and he came over and sat down next to me. And Jeannie went on to do something else. 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. Not a very good sketchbook, mind you. 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. 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. Or is it just something that happens? And we. So we had this whole big conversation about evil in the world. So, I mean, like, he was not a guy for small talk, which I really liked. I hate small talk. They just jump right in, right?

Jimmy: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's amazing. That's. Well, he must have felt comfortable or a 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.

Paige Braddock: Maybe,

Jimmy: Was it the sketchbook? You know, there was something about you that made him say, this is someone I want to talk to.

Harold: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: Maybe. You know what's weird is I, I never really, even though I obviously admired him and everything, I never really treated him like a celebrity, which, maybe he appreciated. Like, I don't have any pictures of me and him, like, posing like you do when you meet somebody famous. And I remember even my brother was at that event and we were sitting next to, we were at the buffet, gonna go sit down. My brother was kind of going through a hard time and so I invited him to come for the weekend and, and Sparky said, where are you guys sitting? I'm gonna come sit with you. And I was like, oh, my God, he's gonna eat breakfast with us. This is so weird. So then he came and sat down with us, and my brother kind of on the side was like, let me take your picture. And I was like, nah, don't take it. Everybody always, everybody always does that to him. So I have no pictures, hardly at all of me working together because I just, I just treated him like a person because I felt like there was part of him. Maybe that was. When you're super famous, you know, you gotta be a little bit lonely, right, for people that'll just, be themselves with you.

Jimmy: Well, especially. There is literally no one in his league. Like, I mean, I guess you could say, like Jim Davis and stuff. There are people that had, you know, commercial success that are, that approached it. But the commercial success combined with the artistic success, combined with the fact that everybody knew it was all him. Yeah, there was nobody in the world else in that position that I can think of, you know, 

Michael: Bill Mauldin.

Paige Braddock: Well, they're also, 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, Lynn  Johnston, they were close. Cathy Guisewite, Patrick McDonnell. 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.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. A lot of time to sit at a desk and think.

Paige Braddock: Yeah.

February 2, 1992. It's another Sunday. Snoopy's out, hitting the links at Charlie Brown's Caddy. And, Snoopy has just teed off. And Charlie Brown says, I thought I heard a splash. And Snoopy walks to retrieve the ball, saying, I wonder where you go to give up the game. And then there's another gigantic, single panel Sunday of, Charlie Brown and Snoopy looking, for the ball off in the. 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. 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 Braddock: sorry, I did. 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. And so then I just.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Paige Braddock: So I just picked things that like that. I had a gut reaction to that I remember. You know, 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. It's also about. He was such an avid golfer and he did the best golf jokes. my brother, who's a golfer, really appreciate all his golf jokes, but I think as a cartoonist, I picked this one because this big panel with all the reeds, that was just something he didn't do that often. And it's such a beautiful drawing. 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: It's like he anticipated the adult, coloring book by--

Paige Braddock: Yeah, yeah, he was ahead of his time for that one. Yeah.

Jimmy: He didn't sketch much outside of the strip, did he?

Paige Braddock: No, I never. No, not really.

Jimmy: 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 reeds and the rushes by where he. Wherever he golfed or something like that. do you think he was, he was towards the end trying to flex his drawing muscles more maybe for some reason.

Paige Braddock: 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.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: Some people don't like the stuff in the 90s as much as some of his early work, but I kind of 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, like, in a way that he wasn't before. 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: 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 find he gets in his, groove with Rerun.

Paige Braddock: Yeah, very funny.

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

Paige Braddock: I wonder if that was because of his. Of having grandkids, you know what I mean?

Jimmy: Like, I asked Jeannie that once, and that was her guess, too.

Paige Braddock: Yeah, that would be my guess, but.

March 3, 1974, Snoopy is hanging out at the bus stop, waiting for the bus, in panel one. In panel two, he looks off panel and says. Says at last, because the bus has arrived. And then we see him sitting very stately in his seat on the bus. takes it somewhere where he gets off the bus in the next panel. 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. I hear him think, that's the trouble with living in a quiet neighborhood. And then atop the dog house, he concludes, I have to take a bus all the way downtown when I want to chase cars.

Paige Braddock: Hilarious.

Michael: 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: Oh, my gosh.

Paige Braddock: That's crazy.

Jimmy: There's some beautiful cartooning in this, huh?.

Paige Braddock: Oh, my gosh. I love that, you know, you know, he's going to town because he's facing one way and then just facing the other way going home. Like, he's like. It's like. It's hilarious cartoon logic that, you know, I love it when. This is the great thing about Snoopy's a character. He is. He's all the things that he Is. And he's also a dog. And I love it when he, like, he snaps into dog mode. Like, he flexes that canine muscle or whatever. And the way Sparky drew him, like, with teeth, barking and running, it's like, those are some of my favorite drawings.

Jimmy: So good.

Paige Braddock: This is his. He's a dog. This is his job to go to town, come home. Right?

Jimmy: Yeah. Like, he's clocking in.

Paige Braddock: That's right. Yeah. Clocked in, clocked out.

Harold: So did you meet, Did Schulz have a dog when you. When you met first, got to work with him?

Paige Braddock: No, he. His. His. A, favorite dog of his named Andy had just passed away, like, a few years before I started working there. And 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, I had a dog named Andy, which was really strange. And so. Oh, yeah, it's kind of a funny. It's kind of a funny story. Well, the first couple weeks I was there, I, I had. 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? Are you sure? Dachshunds are notoriously bad, badly behaved dogs. Right. So I was a little worried about it.

Harold: Yeah.

Paige Braddock: Andy was no exception. So you guys have been to Sparky's office, right? He had. That. He had his 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 inked them. and there was a chair next to that. That. That table. He would set the comics to dry that. Sometimes, you know, I would sit and we would chat. So anyway, first day, I bring Andy office, and I open the door. Now, the dog's never been there before. He doesn't even know Sparky. He doesn't know where Sparky office is. But the second he hits the door, he runs. Makes a beeline for Sparky's office. Before I can catch him, he goes upstairs to the second level in that. That room. He jumps on that chair, slides across that shiny desk. Now, Sparky's sitting there reading the paper, 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. And then he just rolls around and stretches out on a couch. And I'm thinking, I'm fired. Holy. That's it. It was a great gig for two weeks, and now I'm out of here. And 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. After that, he would carry dog biscuits in his pocket and Andy would just sit and wait for him, you know. 

Jimmy: That is amazing. Well, it sounds like he was a pretty good boss.

Paige Braddock: Yeah, he was. He was the best boss I've ever had. Definitely.

Jimmy: 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, you know, 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 Braddock: 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. Maybe less, maybe some in the late 60s.

Harold: But it's fascinating that the one you picked, we see kind of that little peanut head when he's chasing the cars, and 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 Braddock: Yeah.

Jimmy: Do you think. I mean, I. This is probably leading, but do you think he knew, the changes Snoopy was going through? But, like, 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 Snoopies because they don't look the same anymore?

Paige Braddock: Oh, 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. 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. And 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 right in the paper. You know, I'm not sure what the. The reason was for that exactly, but, I mean, every artist looks back at their old stuff and goes. You know what I mean? But to us, Sparky never sucks. 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 and finding old sketchbooks, and I was like, oh, my God, this stuff from the 90s is brutal. I don't like to look at it.

Jimmy: Well, can you tell us? Jane's World's 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 Braddock: The, syndicate, Universal in Kansas City, which I think is Go Comics. Yeah, it's called Go Comics. They're running, the classic strip. They're rerunning some funny stories right now. And the. The book I point people to is the anthology called Love Letters to Jane's World, which was originally published, by Lion Forge. Yeah. And now it's with Oni. I think they got. They got bought out by Oni, but, that's. That, to me, is sort of like the greatest hits of Jane's World. So it's more of a curated collection, but has all my favorites. And if you. If people wanted to sort of check out the strip, that would be a good place to start.

Harold: That's great. I think I. 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 the. Oh, I was at the time.

Paige Braddock: Are you kidding me? That's amazing. I still have to do the.

Harold: Are the covers still on them? They were notoriously. They would pop. The covers would pop off of those old Offset printing. 

Paige: No, they're still on there

Paige Braddock: Yeah, but it's like. That was in the early days of Photoshop. So I did this weird transparency thing on the COVID with a color, and I was like, why did I do that? That looks so bad. You know what I mean? Live and Learn.

Harold: I think you had one of the one of the most unique covers, that stood out from the Plan Nine books that I was working on. I remember because they had a lot of. I remember the yellow and.

Paige Braddock: Yeah, I was like, if you have to get people's attention. Yeah, I know you learn a lot about, you know, 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 kind of crazy. Yeah, yeah. I remember the first couple of issues I did these, you know, I think I thought beautiful watercolor drawings, you know, kind of complex. And then I go to the comic shop and not thinking that, like on the shelf on the wall, big wall of, you know, monthly comics. Jane's World, J is right next to Justice League. So nobody, nobody's looking at Jane's World with Justice League right there with all the spandex, everything going on, like, oh, my God, I gotta, I gotta do something different with covers. And that's when I started working with Brian Miller on covers. He's really, really talented colorist. so, yeah, live and learn.

Jimmy: Well, everybody's need needs to go out and check, that book out and check, out Paige's work because she's a brilliant cartoonist.

Paige Braddock: Can I say one other thing?

Jimmy: Absolutely. You could say as many other things as you'd like.

Paige Braddock: Well, I was gonna say because I talk a lot about Jane's World and she's still a fan favorite, but I have this kid’s series that's out right now that I just wanted to mention. it's called Peanut Butter and 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 gonna 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, but he's a wiener dog like he is. So he's not a, he's not a beagle. But, yeah, it's called Peanut Butter and 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. 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: I'll put links in the show notes for people.

Jimmy: Absolutely.

Paige Braddock: Okay. Thank you.

Jimmy: My pleasure. Well, thank you. And thank you for sharing that. Oh, yeah. Wow. It says here you got six books out.

Paige Braddock: Okay, maybe I have six books out.

Jimmy: All right, well, I'll be reading those.

Paige Braddock: Yeah, those are. Those are with Penguin and then with this other great, really great publisher in the UK called Nosy Crow. Really, both great publishers to work with.

Jimmy: Awesome. Well, Paige, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Paige Braddock: All right. All right. Thank you.

Jimmy: Well, that was fun. Yeah, 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. And I hope all you folks out there, go check out her comics.Because she's quite a good cartoonist herself. 

Michael: And now we got the whole Schulz story. From beginning to end. There’s nothing left to say.

Jimmy: Beginning to end, baby. We did it. There's no more to be told. I like Michael's idea that there's nothing left to say. And yet we're going to be back. I think that should be our new motto going forward. There's nothing left to say. And we'll see you next episode. 

Michael: But we'll say it anyway. 

Jimmy: So for Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy, saying, be of good cheer.

MH&L Yes, Be of good cheer.

VO: 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 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.

Paige Braddock: Dude, it was so random.