Posted by Guest Author on Nov 15, 2010 in Comic Books
Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz by Beverly Gherman
Most Americans should have heard of the Charlie Brown character or even if they don’t know the comic, should know of Snoopy. He is quite a well known beagle, merchandised and branded in many other countries. The story of Charlie Brown inspired a musical, cartoon, and tons of merchandises. Still this entry is not about the merchandises or products that are available. I still bet a lot of people would be interested in reading about the creator behind the famous Peanuts comic strip. His name is Charlie Schulz, or as friends and family referred to him as Sparky. Read more…
The amazing thing about Peanuts is that it represented the life’s work of Charles Schulz, and as such the character designs changed over time. As a side note while his character designs were very graphic, they’re incredible hard to draw — Schulz’s draftsmanship was brilliant. Next year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the comic strip and to celebrate Dark Horse will be releasing Peanuts Then and Now Figure Sets showing the characters as they first looked in 1950 and then as they looked later in the series. Here’s good old Charlie Brown as he appeared in 1950: Read more…
The thing that makes this commercial for me is seeing Sally from the Peanuts gang scratching records — and of course having Snoopy, Marcy, Peppermint Patty and Lucy back up J-pop star Kaela Kimur (木村カエラ) singing her Hot Pepper song pushes this advert to the next level. And so what is Hot Pepper? It seems to be some sort of food website which is sponsored by Recruit which is a job placement service. Read more…
Looking back at it I think Snoopy is one of the few places in pop culture where World War I was a regular running theme. Having spent a childhood growing up on World War II films and TV shows it was odd to see Snoopy make reference to the oddly named Sopwith Camel aircraft which was so oddly named that it made me run to the library. Shown above (and in the video below) is a Flying Ace Snoopy USB Hub from Japan which will entertain you with beagle feats of bravery. Read more…
The ATMs at the Javits Center charge a whopping $3 fee — however this may not be a bad thing as the New York Comic Con could empty your wallet rather quickly. The showroom floor is so packed with goodies it’s as if the Mall of America were run by fanboys — every inch is crammed with everything from arty urban toys to rare collectables. I’m also always blown away with the wide variety of trinkets, there’s something for everyone from anime hats to punk rock stickers.
