I got a close-up look at a few pairs of the Peanuts shoes from Vanns that I posted about earlier. For a moment there, I thought Franklin was recoiling in surprise because Sally was moving in for a kiss. Then I realized that that pink dot wasn’t a highlight circle, …

Today is the 47th anniversary of the first appearance of Franklin in Peanuts, and they’re making a big thing of it! You can see coverage of National Franklin Day in newspapers, it was the reason for yesterday’s material on The View. Harriet Glickman, the woman who suggested the addition of the …

You’ve seen me talking before about Harriet Glickman, the woman whose letter to Schulz inspired him to create Franklin in the 1960s – the letter itself is included as a pull-out item in my book The Peanuts Collection. Since then, she’s been getting ongoing attention, which hit a high point over …

This weekend’s radio show “Off-Ramp”, on the acclaimed Southern California public radio station KPCC, has a piece where they talk to Harriet Glickman, the woman inspired Schulz to add racially integrate the strip, along with Ken Kelly, who helped her on the campaign. But don’t hop in the car now …

Mashable has up an article on the creation of Franklin, including a video of a Schulz Museum interview with the woman whose urging convinced Schulz it was time to integrate the strip.

I’ve been going through the filmstrips that I received this weekend, checking some of the details (turns out I’m missing one filmstrip that I have a teacher’s guide for, and have doubles of another strip), and digging into one of them. Well, I cheated on that a bit; I haven’t dug …

I just got my author’s copies of issue 16 of the Peanuts comic book, published by Kaboom! My contribution is a mere three pager, but I am quite happy with what Robert Pope did with the art (and Lisa Moore’s colors are quite kickin’!) This should be landing in your …

To celebrate the 45th anniversary of the first appearance of Franklin, Hogan’s Alley magazine has put online the article I wrote for them a couple years back about the creation of Franklin. Go read!

In email exchanges with some folks, I’ve noted how Franklin, who up until now hadn’t gotten on the front cover of any books unless there were a fair number of other characters, is suddenly getting solo treatment. He’s on the cover of the newest Complete Peanuts volume: And he’s on …

The cover to the upcoming Complete Peanuts Volume 17: 1983-1984, shipping in April: