Category: Cartooning

It’s the post-Christmas blahs, Charlie Brown!

  • Another Christmas, another 2-volume box set of Fantagraphics’ “The Complete Peanuts”. With the release of the strips from 1977 and ’78, the series now covers the time from when my parents got married, through the first full calendar year after I graduated from college.

  • Time Magazine has an interview with Lee Mendelson, the producer of the “Peanuts” cartoons.

    http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2039669,00.html

  • With Monte Schulz’s new book, “The Last Rose of Summer”, being published soon, here’s something of interest that Monte co-wrote with his dad — the TV movie, “It’s the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown”, from 1988, starring Monte’s kid sister Jill.

Mistah Magloo returns

Last year I posted an unauthorized YouTube copy of Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, the first of the classic 60’s animated Christmas specials. That copy has been pulled, but this year Hulu has it.

I wanted to watch Magoo on regular TV, and thanks to my friend tastewar, who had an Amazon video-on-demand $5 promotional credit to spare, I got it for free. However, mere minutes later, the same program was available for purchase for only three dollars.

I know there’s a lot of dynamic pricing based on cookie scanning, but I’ve never seen it happen so abruptly. I wonder if I’d not purchased it on first viewing, and gone back to the listing a second time to buy it, would I have seen the lower price, leaving me with a couple of extra bucks to rent something else?

They’re just trying to be friendly

BoingBoing’s Mean Monkey Mondays series ends today. I think the “Man’s Life” covers are the best, although this one doesn’t have any monkeys.

Denro asks, “Hey, is the brave guy trying to save the girl from the crazed turtles (snappers I assume!) or are the brave turtles trying to save the girl from the crazed guy with a knife?!?!?!?” What I’m wondering is if San Antonio is still the Texas home of love-happy girls. And if the woman on this other cover was torn apart by monkeys, how did she live to tell the tale? Maybe the parent who didn’t want her marrying the American with the knife had the monkeys attack her.

You’ll find some more “Man’s Life” covers, equally tasteful and informative, at this link. Some of the covers were painted by Norman Saunders, whose work I first saw in the 1966 Batman bubblegum card series that he did with Bob Powell.

Previously, Saunders and Powell were responsible for the infamous “Mars Attacks!” series, which was based on work by Wally Wood.

It’s a man’s life in the Army

There were two magazines that started in the 1950’s that became nothing less than social forces in the 60’s — Mad and Playboy. They held equal fascination for boys, but Playboy had an age limit, and for some boys even Mad wasn’t allowed in the house. The lucky ones had friends who bought Mad, with older brothers who could get Playboy.

Playboy’s cultural impact was pervasive in the Sixties, particularly in the James Bond films. Even the comics weren’t immune from its influence. Mort Walker has been accused of treating women as sex objects in Beetle Bailey, and I would cite this strip, from June 6, 1965, as an example of how Walker pushed the limit of syndicated comic strip censorship. I’m surprised the characters do more than just walk on the beach, because as depicted the scenario borders on being akin to a Playboy cartoon.


© King Features Syndicate