Comic Book Resources

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up

Little Nothings Vol. 3

• NBM announced over the weekend they will release a third volume in Lewis Trondheim's autobiographical Little Nothings series. You can read samples of the work on the company's blog.

• The University Press of Mississippi will be publishing My Life With Charlie Brown in April. It's a collection of essays, lectures and articles by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. If April seems to far away for you, this book is coming out next month.

• Fantagraphics unveils the covers for their next Krazy and Ignatz book (designed by Chris Ware), as well as the second volume of Prison Pit.

• Van Jensen gives readers the scoop on the upcoming book tour for Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and announces plans for a sequel in winter of next year.

• Speaking of SLG, they will be releasing an omnibus collection of Gene Yang's early work, entitled Animal Crackers, in January.

• The Kingdom of New York is a new book featuring essays and articles from the New York Observer magazine. It also sports a spiffy cover and interior art by Drew Friedman. And apparently Fantagraphics will be releasing a collection of Friedman's celebrity portraits in summer of 2010.

• I don't know if we caught this on the blog yet, but apparently Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz are forming a publishing company devoted to historical comics.

• Dash Shaw, who has redesigned his Web site, apparently completely reworked his 2006 book the Mother's Mouth, cutting out pages and changing colors. The alternations are only for the French and Spanish editions, however, which seems a shame.

Send Us Your Shelf Porn!

Is it time for Shelf Porn once again? You bet your sweet bippy it is! And we've got a heck of a collection to share with you this week, from Caren Pilgrim, who runs the Peanuts Collectibles Web site. As you might imagine, she has quite the Peanuts-inspired collection herself.

Upon coming across her Web site, I emailed Caren and asked if she would be willing to share some photos of her collection with Robot 6 readers. Here's what she sent in ...

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Charles Schulz gives 'em the ax

The ax

While Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was certainly known as a all-around wonderful, decent guy, there's no doubt he had a mischievous, smart-aleck side to him as well. Consider for instance this letter, recently donated to the Library of Congress.

In the letter, written in 1954, Schulz addresses a Ms. Elizabeth Swaim, who had recently written the cartoonist to express her distaste for the then new Charlotte Braun character, a loudmouth Charlie Brown lookalike that Swaim was not alone in disliking.

Schulz tells Swaim that he is taking her advice and getting rid of the character, but then reminds her, "Remember that you and your friends will have the death of an innocent child on your conscience! Are you prepared to accept such a responsibility?"

And, in the interest of driving his point home, he draws a picture of Charlotte Braun with an ax in her head. Wonder why that never made it into any of his "Happiness is ..." books?

(via)

Straight for the art | Kelley Jones' Great Pumpkin

Great Pumpkin by Kelley Jones

Zack Smith, who writes for Newsarama and Independent Weekly, sent over this awesome Great Pumpkin art that Kelley Jones drew for him in 2001. Marc McKenzie colored it.

"It was for a humor piece I wrote featuring the by-now-old gag of the Pumpkin being a demon and wreaking havoc," Smith said in an email. "The only gags I recall as semi-entertaining were Linus getting sucked through a time vortex and winding up in 'Army of Linus,' and a bit where the Pumpkin caused horrible things to happen in other comic strips (Dolly in THE FAMILY CIRCUS needs an exorcist to get rid of 'Not Me,' FUNKY WINKERBEAN is...the exact same depressing strip it always is). I was 21. It seemed funny at the time."

Thanks for sending it over, Zack!

Straight for the art | J. Bone's Great Pumpkin-inspired cartoons

The Great Pumpkin, by J. Bone

The talented J. Bone uses the holiday classic It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as the springboard for a couple of hilarious and, of course, well-drawn gags. (Warning: In the second cartoon, Charlie Brown employs off-color language!)

Poor, poor Linus ...

Finally, you no longer need feel ashamed for being round-headed

If that ice sculpture story yesterday didn't grab you, perhaps this will: In honor of Peanuts' upcoming 60th anniversary, the powers that be are holding a lookalike photo contest, with the winners receiving a trip for four to Cedar Point, home of the Planet Snoopy amusement park. Other prizes include DVDs and other Peanuts related merchandise. Daily Cartoonist has the press release:

Peanuts

Peanuts fans of all ages are invited to submit photos of themselves or their children looking like one of these Peanuts characters: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Schroeder, Franklin, Peppermint Patty, Marcie or Pigpen, or one of Snoopy’s classic alter-egos, Joe Cool or the World War I Flying Ace. Submissions will be accepted through November 3.

Finalists, selected by a panel of celebrity judges, will be posted on November 11. The public will then be able to vote for their favorite finalist through November 30. The winners will be announced in December.

The celebrity judges include Jill Schulz, daughter of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz; country music legends Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood; “Supernanny” Jo Frost; “America’s Next Top Model” judge and fashion photographer Nigel Barker; and Victoria Reca~no, co-anchor of KTLA 5 News at 6 and KTLA 5 News at 10.

Proceeds from the contest will benefit the Boys and Girls Club of America. Winners will be announced on Dec. 5. The press release also suggests some celebrity lookalikes which ... Michael Cera as Linus I can see, but Whoopi Goldberg as Woodstock? I .... guess ....

You've become an ice sculpture Charlie Brown!

Not content with dominating the vast world merchandising, the Peanuts empire will now take on the competitive and ever-controversial ice sculpting arena, with a new exhibit that will open on Nov. 20 in Nashville, TN. Entitled ICE!, the exhibit will re-enact scenes from A Charlie Brown Christmas using 2 million pounds of ice carved by artisans from Harbin, China. No, I am not making any of this up.

The promo video is above. You can read the intro from the official press release, which I nicked from Daily Cartoonist, after the jump.

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What are you reading?

The Complete Peanuts: 1973-74

Welcome once again to What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is the esteemed critic and blogger Robert Clough. Rob is probably best known for his contributions to the seemingly now inert Sequart.com, though you can find most of his recent reviews on his blog, High-Low.

To see what Rob and the rest of us are reading, just click on the link below ...

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Straight for the art | O'Brien's Charlie Brown

Charlie Brown by Tim O'Brien

Do not stare too long at Tim O'Brien's portrait of Charlie Brown, lest madness overtake you.  (via Drawn)

40 years ago, Apollo 10, and Snoopy, soared to the moon

On his way to the launch pad, Apollo 10 commander Tom Stafford pats the nose of a stuffed Snoopy. (NASA photo)

Wired magazine's Underwire blog marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 10 moon landing with a look at the association between NASA and Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz.

Schulz sketched special artwork for the mission, which lasted from May 18 to 26, 1969, and sent Snoopy to the moon in a series of strips that appeared two months earlier. The previous year, NASA chose the beagle as an icon that would "emphasize mission success and act as a 'watchdog' for flight safety." And the Apollo 10 astronauts even nicknamed their command and lunar modules Snoopy and Charlie Brown.

The Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, Calif., is celebrating the anniversary, and the Peanuts connection, through July 20 with an exhibit called "To the Moon: Snoopy Soars With NASA."

'That's right, thumbsucker. I see you.'

"Schulz City: That Yellow-Shirted Such-and-Such"

Timothy Lim and Jean Luc Pham imagine Charles Schulz's Peanuts filtered through the mind of Frank Miller in Schulz City: That Yellow-Shirted Such-and-Such. (Part 1, Part 2)

(via Super Punch)