Ho-Ho-Hogan (with some Peanuts on top), Take 2
Hogan's Alley
and fixed some links that were proving problematic. Hopefully the
website will be more responsive now.)
READ THIS NEWSLETTER ON THE WEB:
http://groups.google.com/group/hogans-alley-newsletter?lnk=srg
Dear fellow comics fan:
HO-HO-HOGAN! We are very excited to tell you that Hogan's Alley #18
has shipped! We'll be preparing the subscriber mailing in the coming
days. If you want to receive a copy of #18 as a subscriber, please
subscribe immediately at http://www.cagle.com/2007/11/subscribe/. We
want to note that this issue features a career-spanning interview
with the recently retired "Cathy" creator Cathy Guisewite, and Ms.
Guisewite has generously supplied a number of autographed syndicate
proof sheets that will be randomly inserted into subscribers' copies.
So give yourself a chance to win this unique item and subscribe!
We've also put up our Web Extras, the online supplement to the print
edition. This issue, the Web Extras are as follows (please note that
some of these pages have many graphics and take some time to load, so
please be patient):
--Dudley Fisher’s "Right Around Home":
http://www.cagle.com/2011/12/web-extras-dudley-fishers-right-around-home/
--Russell Stamm's "Invisible Scarlet O’Neil":
http://www.cagle.com/2011/12/web-extra-invisible-scarlet-oneil/
--Harry Haenigsen's "Penny": http://www.cagle.com/2011/12/web-extra-harry-haenigsens-penny/
--And for good measure, a comic-themed restaurant menu:
http://www.cagle.com/2011/12/web-extra-eat-more-comics/
We hope those Extras whet your appetite to own the print edition of
Hogan's Alley, which contains so much beyond those items. Merely
gazing upon the cover should get you salivating:
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z370/hoganmag/HAcover/HA18coverpr....
THE BLOCKHEAD COMETH: We recently had the opportunity to talk to
Alexis Fajardo, managing editor behind the new Peanuts series of comic
books and graphic novel compilations coming out as a result of a
collaboration between Creative Associates and BOOM! Studios. He gave
us some of the inside scoop on the endeavor, and we're pleased to
present it here:
HA: How did the idea for new Peanuts comic books come about?
AF: Several of us at the studio are cartoonists and fans ourselves, so
the idea of doing Peanuts in comic book form is something we've batted
around for awhile. We were familiar with the Gold Key and Dell comics
of the '50s and thought the idea of Peanuts in comic book form was
really appealing and a way to reach a younger audience that newspapers
didn't reach anymore.
Early on we experimented by taking Schulz's original comic strips and
tried to format them into comic book form; we played around with daily
strips, stringing storylines together or would try and reformat
Sundays to fit a 6-by-9 or digest size. We got mixed results and saw
that the tinkering with the comic strip only did it a disservice. At
this time, we were still very much in the mindset that we would be
using original Schulz art, because we didn't want or feel comfortable
with other artists aping his style. Ultimately these early experiments
were just that, and we decided that it was better to leave the comic
strips alone instead of Frankensteining them into something they
weren't.
It was only during the early production of the animated special
"Happiness Is A Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown" that our creative
director, Paige Braddock, saw an opportunity to try something
different and wanted to create a companion graphic novel with the
special. Her idea was that since this book would be linked to the
animated special--a format that invited experimentation--it would give
us the leeway to try a different kind of storytelling, something that
wasn't beholden to the four-panel rhythm of a daily strip, but that
could incorporate large splash pages, innovative page design and
really embrace the idea of a graphic novel, Peanuts-style.
Strangely enough, BOOM! Studios came calling and pitched us the idea
of doing a monthly series, unaware that the graphic novel was in the
works. They had brought us the old Dell comics and wanted to do
something with them. It was a really fun day when I showed Ross Richie
and Matt Gagnon--BOOM's publisher and editor-in-chief, respectively--
the penciled pages of "Blanket," and their jaws dropped--we were all
on the same page!
It was the success of the graphic novel and our great luck in finding
terrific artists like Vicki and Bob Scott as well as partnering with a
company like BOOM! Studios, who wanted to take a chance on the project
that really helped us break ground on doing a new comic book series.
(See the first issue cover here:
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z370/hoganmag/New_Peanuts/Peanuts_1_CVR.jpg)
HA: What are the plans for the new Peanuts comic book content?
AF: We're approaching this first run of books as an anthology. So the
majority of stories are six to eight pages long, with several stories
per issue along with a few classic Sunday strips by Schulz.
Thankfully, we've got over 17,000 of Schulz's original strips to look
to for inspiration, and this is where we always go first. We'll read
through strips for ideas and storylines and combine several to create
a longer narrative that will work for a comic book. We try and play
off some of the themes that he mined so well: baseball, the kite-
eating tree, Charlie Brown's unrequited love, Snoopy as the Flying Ace
and others. In some cases, we're using the original Dell comic as
springboards for stories; we'll comb through the material find a story
that has a nugget of a good idea and then adapt and update it for this
series.
HA: What are the planned format and frequency?
AF: The first issue drops in January of 2012, with four issues through
April. We'll collect those into trade form for the summer and be back
in the fall for another four issues to round out volume one of the
series. There will be eight issues the first year, less than most
monthly comics, but we're more concerned with quality than frequency.
We are also planning to do an original graphic novel per year too,
similar to "Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown."
HA: As difficult as it would be to duplicate Schulz's artwork, I would
think it's an even bigger challenge to capture his writing style and
world view, which are utterly unique. What are the challenges in
capturing the "feel" of a Peanuts story?
AF: That's a great question and, above all, communicating the tone and
feel of what Schulz created is what we're striving for in all these
stories. When it comes to scripts, we're pulling directly from the
source material; in some cases we'll take a sequence of strips and
stitch them together to create a longer narrative, so the beats and
dialogue come right from Schulz. Fans who are familiar with the strip
should recognize some of the stories and gags that pop up in the
series.
In the case of adapting the Dell stories, there's a little more
involved, since many of those original stories are fairly generic and
were done before Schulz really established the tone and personality
that we've come to recognize as Peanuts. What we try to do there is re-
jigger the story so motivations are driven by character rather than
plot. Vicki Scott’s "Music Goes Round" is a perfect example, where the
original Dell story was used as a springboard and adapted to better
suit the characters. Lucy gets a song stuck in her head and tries to
pawn it off on the other characters. In the original Dell story the
song is the Al Jolson tune "Carolina in the Morning"--which anyone
younger than 65 would be hard pressed to know—it was changed to "Take
Me Out to the Ballgame," a classic tune that everyone knows and is
especially appealing to Charlie Brown. From there, the story became a
more natural fit for the Peanuts universe.
(See pencil art here: http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z370/hoganmag/New_Peanuts/Music_Pencils_02.jpg
and finished art here: http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z370/hoganmag/New_Peanuts/MusicColorsRnd4-1.jpg),
and the original inspiration from the Dell story here:
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z370/hoganmag/New_Peanuts/DELL_ORIGINAL.jpg)
Thankfully, all of us working on these books are, first and foremost,
fans. We've been reading the strip since we were kids--and it was
probably the reason we got into cartooning to begin with--so Lucy's
tirades, Snoopy's escapades, and Linus' quiet observations, among all
the other characters' foibles, are moments we're trying to get right.
HA: How much stylistic leeway will contributors have in interpreting
the characters? Is there a style guide or bible, or are contributors
bringing their own takes?
AF: We're making a concerted effort to find artists who can emulate
Schulz's style--specifically, his work from the mid-to-late '60s, when
it was arguably the most dynamic and appealing. That's also the time
period when the strip really came into its own and the era most people
recall when they think about Peanuts.
Schulz's style, though seemingly simple, is deceptively hard to
emulate properly. We set out to find artists who were deliberate and
sensitive to its nuances. Vicki Scott, for instance, has a terrific
eye for drawing the characters; Vicki's stories are being inked by
Paige Braddock, who worked with Schulz and is even using his original
Easterbrook pen nibs! Our other in-house cartoonist, Bob Scott--also
an animator--is penciling and inking stories and his work is as
appealing as Vicki's. BOOM brought us the team of Matt Whitlock and
Shane Houghton--Matt on art, Shane on writing. Like the Scotts, Matt
has a great eye for Schulz's characters and is a true fan of Peanuts;
he's making every effort to get the characters on-model and doing a
terrific job. Shane has also done a great job capturing the tone and
voice for Peanuts stories.
HA: How much updating will the characters' milieu have? Will they
inhabit the world that Schulz depicted, or will there be more modern
trappings?
AF: These are Schulz's characters and they live in his world. No
cellphones, computers, or video games will be shown or referenced. The
kids will continue to sit in front of big-box television sets and use
rotary phones because Schulz drew them that way…and it's just
funnier.
HA: Do you foresee appearances by any of the characters Schulz created
but stopped using? Will we see, for example, Violet or Shermy?
AF: Violet made an appearance in the preview issue, "Carnival of the
Animals." Patty and Shermy make appearances in subsequent stories.
We'll also see Frieda and her cat, Faron, and others like 3, 4 and 5,
Eudora, Franklin, etc. We're trying to hit the sweet spot in the
strip's cycle, where many of the original cast members were around and
Schulz was also developing new, stronger ones. Peppermint Patty and
Marcie will definitely get some screen time among the other core
characters.
(See an appearance by Frieda here:
http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z370/hoganmag/New_Peanuts/Peanuts_1_INTERIORS-9.jpg)
HOGAN IS TWITTERING: If you'd like to receive cartooning news and the
occasional cartooning-related observation from Hogan's Alley, we’re
HOGANMAG on Twitter. We recently began sending Twitter followers a
"Today in Comics History" fact a day that has been fascinating. (We
promise not to pepper you with inanities about what we're having for
lunch, etc.)
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We at Hogan's Alley wish you and yours the best during the holiday
season and in the coming year!