INTERVIEWS
§ The LA Times talks to Jill Schulz, daughter of Charles, about the 60th anniversary of Peanuts.
SK: Is there any country where “Peanuts” isn’t known?
JS: It is pretty much “Peanuts” and Coca Cola in every country you could possibly think of. Asia is one of our biggest markets for the Snoopy licensed products.
§ At The Walrus, the cartoonist Seth talks about how he thinks about covers:
So, it really varies. If I am totally stuck on something I will go up the embankment next to my house and walk around on the railroad tracks until an idea comes together. That always works. Something about walking frees the mind to think deeply. I am genuinely amazed how the brain and the feet will do the work for you — it’s like magic. The problem gets solved.
In the case of these covers I approached the idea quite mechanically. Since it was a straightforward theme, “summer reading,” it did not take a genius to recognize that the two images I should focus on were “summer” and “reading.” From there I jotted down any image of summer that might pop into my head (ice cream trucks, swimming pools, etc.). I flipped through old magazines and books to spark any other summer images (old general interest photo magazines are excellent for this process). Then, when I had a sufficient list of rather typical summer locations/activities, I simply started doodling up any “clever” combination of summer and books.
§ Whitney Matheson interviews Jim Davis who reveals that he has an unfriendly cat.
One cat — Pooky. Does not like people, but will occasionally allow me and my wife to pet him.
Davis also talks about relaunching U.S ACRES, a short-lived comic strip, as a webcomic as garfield.com, but please note, we do not recommend clicking on that link, as it will take you to a ghastly looking site filled with automatic music that sounds like a parody of a website from 1998, and can’t be turned off. There is also lots of Flash and the overall mood is one of very poor taste indeed. But then….it IS Garfield.com.
FEATURES
§ Colleen Doran’s collected VERY BAD PUBLISHERS! The Complete Saga
§ Paul Gravett on the history of Jews in British comics.
§ Ty Templeton’s best comics of editor Joan Hilty .
§ Colleen Doran on Hilty.
REVIEWS
§ Matt Seneca on Frank King and Frank Quitely and what they can both teach us about comics.
§ Like most people, Steve Bunche really, really, really liked SITA SINGS THE BLUES, and he explains why it is now one of his favorite cartoons.
FANDOM
§ Will here be a dry eye in the house after an opening paragraph like this?
Jose Alaniz spent about a week sorting and packing each comic book — carefully, lovingly. There were 12 boxes of them, comics he’d collected since his mother bought him his first one at age 6.
MYSTERIES
Captain America Grabbing His Crotch
§ John K. discovers that Hanna-Barbera characters love to watch each other bathe.
My silver-lining hopeful thought about Joan Hilty’s unfortunately loss of job at Vertigo is that perhaps she’ll return to creating comics. The world needs more Luna Legion!
Funny comic on the Peanuts’ 60th anniversary http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=435