Peanuts by the numbers

My focus is, and always will be, on Peanuts as a work of art. I draw interest and amusement from how that work of art is presented commercially.

But it’s also a matter of business, and not a small business at that. So images like this one being distributed by the new purchaser of much of the Peanuts rights is an interesting reminder of that other end of things… the end that in many ways makes the ongoing presentation of the art possible, but seems so removed from the heart of it. I flinch a bit when 2/3s of the images shown are from the recent Peanuts movie, rather than things drawn by Schulz (and I say that with much respect for the careful effort the moviemakers did indeed put it.)

But none of this gets in the way of the fact that the strip continues to be available to be read, and that interesting things inspired from it continue to be produced.

Click to enlarge.
Schulz/Peanuts news
Teen Peanuts characters in teen hands

Performed entertainment depicting the Peanuts characters aged up is a genre all its own. While there have been movies like (insert name of indy film that I just stumbled upon a few years back and now can neither recall the name of nor find any reference to), it’s been more …

Schulz/Peanuts news
25 years

Today is 25 years since Charles Schulz passed away. Tomorrow is 25 years since the final Peanuts strip ran. And yet, Peanuts is far from gone. The material is more available than it was when the strip was actually being created, with the entire run collected into books and available …

New releases
A different kind of coffee table book

If you have a coffee table, you should have a “coffee table book”, a large, heavily illustrated color volume that your guests can easily and casually flip through, (Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects is a good choice, of course.) But you …