FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS TO PUBLISH THE COMPLETE PEANUTS BY CHARLES M. SCHULZ
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Seattle, WA, 10/13/03 - 50 years of art. 25 books. Two books per year for 12 1/2 years. Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the most eagerly- awaited and ambitious publishing project in the history of the American comic strip: the complete reprinting of CHARLES M. SCHULZ's classic, PEANUTS. Considered to be one of the most popular comic strips in the history of the world, PEANUTS will be, for the first time, collected in its entirety and published, beginning in April 1, 2004. Fantagraphics will launch THE COMPLETE PEANUTS in a series designed by the cartoonist SETH (Palookaville, It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken) and produced in full cooperation with United Media, Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates, and Mr. Schulz's widow, Jean Schulz.
Fantagraphics Books co-publisher Gary Groth said that publishing THE COMPLETE PEANUTS represented the apex of the company's 27-year commitment to publishing the best cartooning in the world. "PEANUTS is a towering achievement in the history of comics," said Groth. "I can't think of a better way to honor Schulz's artistic legacy than to make his oeuvre available to the public in a beautifully designed format that reflects the integrity of the work itself."
The genesis of the project began in 1997 when Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth approached Charles Schulz with the proposition of publishing PEANUTS in its entirety. After Schulz's death in January, 2000, Groth continued discussing the project with Schulz's widow, Jean Schulz. "It's safe to say that this project wouldn't have happened if Jean Schulz weren't as enthusiastic and supportive as she's been," said Groth. Added Jean Schulz: "This seemed like an impossible project, considering all the 'lost' strips, but Gary's determination never flagged, and we are so happy with the aesthetic sensibility of the Fantagraphics team."
"It's a genuine honor to be designing these Schulz collections," said Seth, who went on to describe the premise underlying his design for the series: "I want to emphasize the sophistication of Schulz's work by creating a package that is both austere and direct. I would like to try to reflect the quiet and melancholy of the strip in a package that hopefully, shows the proper amount of respect for Mr. Schulz. Undoubtedly, PEANUTS is a great newspaper strip and I am humbled and gratified to help steward this complete strip compilation into the world."
Each volume in the series will run approximately 320 pages in a 8 1/2" x 7" hardcover format, presenting two years of strips along with supplementary material. The series will present the entire run in chronological order, dailies and Sundays. Since the strip began in late 1950, the first volume will include all the strips from 1950, 1951, and 1952, but subsequent volumes will each comprise exactly two years. Dailies will run three to a page, while Sunday strips will each take up a full page and be printed in black-and-white.
This first volume, covering the first two and a quarter years of the strip, will be of particular fascination to PEANUTS aficionados worldwide: Although there have been literally hundreds of PEANUTS books published, many of the strips from the series' first two or three years have never been collected before - in large part because they showed a young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip and include some characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast we're all familiar with. (Among other things, three major cast members - Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus - initially show up as infants and only "grow" into their final "mature" selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy debuts as a puppy!) Thus THE COMPLETE PEANUTS offers a unique chance to see a master of the artform refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.
PEANUTS is one of the most successful comic strips in the history of the medium as well as one of the most acclaimed strips ever published. (In 1999, a jury of comics scholars and critics voted it the 2nd greatest comic strip of the 20th century - second only to George Herriman's Krazy Kat, a verdict Schulz himself cheerfully endorsed.) Charles Schulz's characters - Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and so many more - have become American icons. A poll in 2002 found Peanuts to be one of the most recognizable cartoon properties in the world, recognized by 94 percent of the total U.S. consumer market and a close second only to Mickey Mouse (96 percent), and higher than other familiar cartoon properties like Spider-Man (75 percent) or the Simpsons (87 percent). In T.V. Guide's "Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All-Time" list, Charlie Brown and Snoopy ranked #8.
THE COMPLETE PEANUTS will be supported with an ambitious advertising and promotional campaign, including public appearances by Jean Schulz to support the series.
PUBLICATION DATE: APRIL 1, 2004 Hardcover Comic Strips/Humor 320 pages, 8 1/2" x 7" $28.95 ISBN 1-56097-589-X
PUBLICITY CONTACT: Eric Reynolds (206) 524-1967 x218 tel. (206) 524-2104 fax reyno...@fantagraphics.com Press kit available upon request.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS has been the leading proponent of comics and cartooning as legitimate forms of art and literature since it began publishing the critical trade magazine The Comics Journal in 1976. Since then, the company has been at the forefront of the burgeoning movement to establish comics as a medium as eloquent and expressive as the more established popular arts of film, literature, poetry, et al. As we begin the 21st Century, comics are finally cemented as a legitimate form of expression, even though this was largely unheard of when Fantagraphics began publishing the works of Daniel Clowes, Joe Sacco, Chris Ware, R. Crumb, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Jim Woodring, Jules Feiffer, and so many others; perhaps that's one reason Fantagraphics was named one of the top five most influential publishers in the history of comics in a recent poll by an industry trade newspaper. The company was the only independent publisher on the list, and the only contemporary publisher named alongside corporate behemoths Marvel and DC.
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Seth has been regarded as one of North America's finest cartoonists for over 10 years. His comic book series Palookaville and graphic novel It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken are regarded as modern classics of the form. Born Gregory Gallant on September 16th, 1962 in Clinton, a small town in south Ontario, Seth is an emotional observer, deeply moved by the forgotten details of everyday life. A fan of PEANUTS since childhood, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto in the early 1980s. While at school he discovered the provocative work of the underground comix generation and the cool, wry wit of the great mid-century New Yorker cartoonists. Drawing deeply from this disparate group of inspirations Seth has distilled one of the most distinctive and recognizable illustrating styles of the past decade and his sophisticated style has been sought by The Washington Post, Details, National Post, Spin, The New York Times, Saturday Night, and the New Yorker. His books have been translated and published in German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Italian. Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario with five cats, a huge collection of vintage records, comic books, 20th Century Canadiana, and a very patient wife indeed.
ABOUT UNITED MEDIA
PEANUTS is licensed and syndicated by United Media. United Media (UM) is a worldwide licensing and syndication company that focuses on building brand equity around a wide range of creative content. The company recently partnered with Marc Brown Studios to represent the award winning PBS series Arthur. It also collaborated with fellow E.W., Scripps Company, the Food Network, to build an all-new licensing programming featuring the popular cable channel. UM Licenses and/or syndicates other properties, including Precious Moments, Dilbert, the Copyrights at United Media portfolio (The World of Beatrix Potter, Paddington Bear, etc.) Raggedy Ann & Andy, Dilbert, 2GRRRLS, Nancy and Sluggo, MIFFY, and Rainbow Fish. United Media is an E.W. Scripps Company.
ABOUT CHARLES M. SCHULZ CREATIVE ASSOCIATES
Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates was established by Charles M. Schulz to oversee the creative and business management of Peanuts worldwide licensing programs, in conjunction with United Feature Syndicate. Creative Associates provides creative art direction to over 900 Peanuts worldwide licensees and processes over 24,000 product approvals each year. Creative Associates is located in Santa Rosa, where Charles M. Schulz maintained his studio, the Redwood Empire Ice Arena ("Snoopy's Home Ice"), and Snoopy's Gallery and Gift Shop. In August, the new Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center celebrated its one-year anniversary.
On the front page of the Fantagraphics web site (http://www.fantagraphics.com/) is the cover to The Complete Peanuts, Volume 1, designed by Seth. And Volume 1 will also have a reproduction of the follwing essay from the Schulz Museum website by David Michaelis, author of an upcoming biography of Schulz (and the author of a Time magazine essay on the cartoonist follwing his death):
The Complete Peanuts, Volume 1 will have an additional introduction by author Garrison Keillor (there are plans for each volume to have introductions by noted Peanuts fans).
> THE COMPLETE PEANUTS will be supported with an ambitious advertising and > promotional campaign, including public appearances by Jean Schulz to > support the series.
Including cross-posted, off-topic spam.
Good move. It always helps to piss off your core constituency.
(It was a reasonable heads-up 40 minutes ago when a fragment of this was posted by someone known to the group, who half-apologized for doing it.)
>> THE COMPLETE PEANUTS will be supported with an ambitious advertising and >> promotional campaign, including public appearances by Jean Schulz to >> support the series.
"Mike Peterson" <peter...@nelliebly.org> writes: >Including cross-posted, off-topic spam. >Good move. It always helps to piss off your core constituency.
I'm glad you posted that here. Posting a ten page ad everytime you reprint zippy-the-pinhead might be unwelcome, but as for this event: It's news.
> "Eric Reynolds" <reyno...@fantagraphics.com> wrote in message
> > THE COMPLETE PEANUTS will be supported with an ambitious advertising and > > promotional campaign, including public appearances by Jean Schulz to > > support the series.
> Including cross-posted, off-topic spam.
What are you, nuts? This is news, not an ad, and it's arguably on-topic for misc (due to the industry aspects of the scope of the project) and definitely appropriate for strips.
-- Johanna Draper Carlson Reviews of Comics Worth Reading -- http://www.comicsworthreading.com Newly updated: Finder, Daydream Lullabies, This Modern World
In article <johannaNOSPAM-BBA81C.18351614102...@news.fu-berlin.de>, Johanna Draper Carlson <johannaNOS...@comicsworthreading.com> wrote:
> "Mike Peterson" <peter...@nelliebly.org> wrote: >> "Eric Reynolds" <reyno...@fantagraphics.com> wrote in message
>> > THE COMPLETE PEANUTS will be supported with an ambitious advertising and >> > promotional campaign, including public appearances by Jean Schulz to >> > support the series.
>> Including cross-posted, off-topic spam.
>What are you, nuts? This is news, not an ad, and it's arguably on-topic >for misc (due to the industry aspects of the scope of the project) and >definitely appropriate for strips.
Idiot'll probably never read this (irony, anyone?).
And this person IS an idiot IMAO, given that this is most certainly on-topic for strips and is most likely on topic for misc, given Fantagraphics' status as a publisher. -- - -Roger Tang, gwang...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre - Editor, Asian American Theatre Revue [NEW URL][Yes, it IS new] - http://www.aatrevue.com
> > > THE COMPLETE PEANUTS > This is news, not an ad
Agreed wholeheartedly. I check here more often than the Fantagraphics page. r.a.c.m. provided me this (most welcome) news and I thank the original poster.
In article <I4Tib.772207$uu5.134067@sccrnsc04>, Eric Reynolds <reyno...@fantagraphics.com> wrote:
>many of the strips from the series' first two or three years >have never been collected before - in large part because they showed a >young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip and include some >characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast >we're all familiar with. (Among other things, three major cast members - >Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus - initially show up as infants and only >"grow" into their final "mature" selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy >debuts as a puppy!)
I know I've seen a collection that had strips with Schroeder as an infant, including the one where he first starts playing his trademark toy piano.
(Some strips, such as _Calvin and Hobbes_ or _The Family Circus_, are timeless; Calvin will always be 6. Some strips move in real time, such as _For Better or for Worse_. In _Peanuts_, many of the main characters began as infants, grew more or less normally until they reached the age of about eight, and then *froze*. Very strange.)
-- David Goldfarb <*>| "Life is a simile." goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu | goldf...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Terry Carr
David Goldfarb <goldf...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote: >such as _For Better or for Worse_. In _Peanuts_, many of the main >characters began as infants, grew more or less normally until they >reached the age of about eight, and then *froze*. Very strange.)
Well, just imagine what hitting puberty would've been like for boys in the Peanutsverse:
"This time, I'm going to WAWAWAWAWA football. Yep, WAWAWAWAWA do it this WAWAWAWAWA!"
On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 13:44:08 GMT, Eric Reynolds <reyno...@fantagraphics.com> wrote, in part:
>(Among other things, three major cast members - >Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus - initially show up as infants and only >"grow" into their final "mature" selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy >debuts as a puppy!)
At least some of the Peanuts strips with _those_ characteristics _were_ reprinted in the early sets of Peanuts reprints that later became the abridged Fawcett paperbacks. These continued on, and the younger cast only occupied the first few volumes of these reprints.
I have no doubt that some of the *very* earliest Peanuts strips may not have been reprinted much, but strips with Linus as a toddler are not really in that period.
Because so much of Peanuts _has_ been reprinted, of course, and the reprints are still rather common, I'm worried this project won't do as well as, say, the reprints of Prince Valiant.
David Goldfarb (goldf...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU) writes:
| (Some strips, such as _Calvin and Hobbes_ or _The Family Circus_, are | timeless; Calvin will always be 6. Some strips move in real time, | such as _For Better or for Worse_. In _Peanuts_, many of the main | characters began as infants, grew more or less normally until they | reached the age of about eight, and then *froze*. Very strange.)
Even stranger: the kids didn't stay the same age in relation to one another, either. When Lucy first entered the strip, she was younger than Charlie Brown and the other kids. Linus was introduced as a baby; we even saw the very first time he stood up by himself.
Years later, Linus was in Charlie Brown's class at school. That had to mean that Lucy was now older than Charlie Brown!
<<Some strips, such as _Calvin and Hobbes_ or _The Family Circus_, are timeless; Calvin will always be 6. Some strips move in real time, such as _For Better or for Worse_.>>
You're forgetting the "granddaddy" of "real time" strips _Gasoline Alley_, which is still running (though some characters have slowed down to a crawl).
In the previous article, Mike Peterson <peter...@nelliebly.org> wrote:
> > THE COMPLETE PEANUTS will be supported with an ambitious advertising > > and promotional campaign, including public appearances by Jean > > Schulz to support the series.
> Including cross-posted, off-topic spam.
Huh? Two groups' worth of cross-posting? And for which of the two groups was this off-topic? "Peanuts," despite its many "dilutions" into other media (TV specials, greeting cards, Dolly Madison cakes, etc.) was first and foremost a comic strip, so you can't be complain- ing about "strips," leaving only "misc," which is supposed to be short for "miscellaneous," so you can't really be complaining about that.
And it wasn't remotely spam in any sense of the word. Not every article posted in which the originator might have any kind of financial interest is "spam."
> (It was a reasonable heads-up 40 minutes ago when a fragment of this > was posted by someone known to the group, who half-apologized for > doing it.)
I didn't read every word of the article, but I read more than what was in the "fragment," and I found it quite interesting. And I missed the "apolog[y]" part of that post, too. -- _+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I _|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also \ / bald...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer ***~~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
In article <20031015100127.08885.00000...@mb-m11.aol.com>,
DomDawes <domda...@aol.comnostuff> wrote: >Someone wrote... ><<Some strips, such as _Calvin and Hobbes_ or _The Family Circus_, are >timeless; Calvin will always be 6. >Some strips move in real time, such as _For Better or for Worse_.>>
>You're forgetting the "granddaddy" of "real time" strips _Gasoline Alley_, >which is still running (though some characters have slowed down to a crawl).
Well, no, I didn't forget it, I just chose not to mention it because doing so would have thrown off the rhythm of my sentence.
-- David Goldfarb <*>| "LUM-ber. *heh!* *heh!*" goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu | goldf...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Scott McCloud, "Some Words Albert Likes"
<Some strips, such as _Calvin and Hobbes_ or _The Family Circus_, are timeless; Calvin will always be 6. Some strips move in real time, such as _For Better or for Worse_.>>
DomDawes sez...
>You're forgetting the "granddaddy" of "real time" strips _Gasoline Alley_,
which is still running (though some characters have slowed down to a crawl).<
>Well, no, I didn't forget it, I just chose not to mention it because doing so
would have thrown off the rhythm of my sentence.<
Sorry, didn't know you were doing haiku.
Considering many comics fans consider strips from only a few years ago to be "classic" (in the historical time-line sense), it looked like you were one of those who didn't realize that our comic strip history spans over a century, not just the past decade.
