Tonight’s Comic> Peanuts #0

Snoopy must have one strong back.

Peanuts #0

Kaboom! (November, 2011)

To be honest, just the fact that this exists confuses me. Granted, it’s been over 11 years since Schultz’s death, but I had thought nobody was going to continue the comic. Peanuts wasn’t just another comic. Like Bil Keane‘s Family Circus, it gets a lot for the author’s childhood, but unlike Family Circus, none of the family seemed to have been involved to continue it. (Keane passed away this week, but his son Jeff, inspiration for Jeffy, will supposedly be continuing it, I assume taking the same inspiration from his own family.)

This is a preview issue, with two short stories, a few classic Sunday strips (Schultz doing the coloring here, I assume), and a preview for the graphic novel adaptation of Happiness Is A Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, the first animated story made without the creator or the cartoon’s usual producers involved. So how well does the comic hold up compared to the original?

The first is “Carnival of the Animals”. Ron Zorman is credited as “adaptation & art”, but I don’t know what he’s adapting. Charlie Brown and Violet are watching Snoopy playing as different animals, and Violet calls Charlie out for making fun of him. Charlie’s response (what, I can’t write his full name every time) makes me wonder if Violet is a bigger pain than Lucy, at least to our hero.

“Woodstock’s New Nest” actually seems to continue from one of the classic strips, as Snoopy tries to help Woodstock find a new nest. Vicki Scott is the writer and penciler, with Paige Braddock on inks. It’s a fun tale, but I wonder why Snoopy is so silent (which is more like the cartoon than the strip, where the readers at least were privy to Snoopy’s thoughts)?

Overall, it’s not bad. I can’t connect with it as well, knowing what I know about the strip’s background, but I found it a good, if not short (it IS a $1 preview) read. It’s at least worth looking into.

Related articles

• Preview – Peanuts #0 (graphicpolicy.com)
• ‘Family Circus’ Creator Keane Dies (online.wsj.com)