Whee! Three Kings are coming

This is an interesting stage for someone who has a small part in Peanuts history. Tennis great Billie Jean King was a friend of Schulz’s, and they worked on each other’s books (Schulz did a lot of good illustrations for Tennis Love.) And now she’s in a curious position for a real, still-alive person: there are apparently three films being made about her. Well, about her and one odd competition she got into, which was publicized as a major part of the battle for women’s equality yet seemed quite silly to me at the time… but actually oddly seemed to have an impact, despite of the very manufactured nature of it. I don’t know how I’d feel if that was being done about me. (Then again, if Emma Stone played me, I’d be fine with that, as unlikely as that casting may seem. Because Emma Stone.)

 

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Something hatted, something hated

I’d been wondering about this for a while, so I decided to finally check the dates to see which was the inspiration and which the copy. Meanwhile, to bring us into the present moment…. artificial “intelligence”, how I hate you. Share the news!

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On the four panel status

For more than the first three decades of Peanuts, the daily strip was always four panels… well, no, that’s not quite 100% true, as I think of the August 31, 1954 daily strip of Patty jumping rope, but even that had panel breaks at the quarter, half, and three-quarter marks …

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The 75th Anniversary

I sat down to write a nice, long something on the 75th anniversary of Peanuts, because it’s a 75th anniversary, because this is the official marking of Peanuts being a cultural presence after the end of the strip for half as long as the strip was being made, and because …