Anytime is a good time for more Charles Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of Charles Schulz’s gang of pals from Peanuts. Running continuously for 50 years, Schulz has the record for the longest story ever told by a single person. That’s 17,897 strips in 2,600 Sunday and daily newspapers in 75 countries. And if you were a kid (or kid at heart) in the 1960s and 1970s, the only thing better than the day’s new comic strip was grabbing at a newsstand, grocery store check-out, or library one of the several paperback collections of the strips to gobble up at once. Titan Comics has been reprinted facsimile editions of the entire library of these books and the latest, It’s a Dog’s Life, Charlie Brown, arrives this month. You can pre-order it now here at Amazon, or choose from all the past re-issues here.
Take a look at some strips from this book, courtesy of Titan Comics: Continue reading →
One of the failings of many creators for kids is talking down to them. If you treat children from the very beginning like adults, they will step up to the task and embrace acting like adults. Kids know when adults are speaking down to them. They also will be excited when you give them the straight dope. So if you’re creating anything for an audience that includes kids, whether they are seven to seventeen, don’t hold too much back. And that applies double for relationships–kids are smarter than you think and they listen to everything and absorb everything. One of the best parts of Troop Zero is that you can’t tell if its a coming of age movie for adults or kids. And that’s a great thing.
Troop Zero is a new Amazon Studios direct-to-streaming release, and a great movie to watch while sitting at home with your family this weekend. We love coming of age movies (scroll through several we’ve discussed over the decade here at borg), and Troop Zero easily makes our top 20. This is the more nostalgic, sweet, genuine brand of coming of age film (the best kind), part The Bad News Bears, part Paper Moon, and it’s obviously a little bit Moonrise Kingdom and maybe even enters Shirley Temple territory like in The Little Princess. It also ties into one of our favorite NASA accomplishments, the Voyager space probes and golden records prepared by Carl Sagan with voices and music from Earth (also add the PBS documentary The Farthest–Voyager in Spaceto your must-watch list, reviewed here).
The movie stars the then-12-year-old actress McKenna Grace, who performs like someone with 20 years of experience. This girl has done everything, from playing young Sabrina in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, to young Captain Marvel in last year’s hit film, young Tonya Harding in I, Tonya, and she’s the star of the coming summer release (we hope), Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Plus Independence Day: Resurgence, Ready Player One, and a regular on The Haunting of Hill House (the list goes on!). In Troop Zero she plays Christmas Flint, a girl with that same awkward but adorable appeal as Tatum O’Neal in her Oscar-winning performance in Paper Moon. Christmas has the reputation at school for still wetting the bed, she wears red galoshes so no one notices one leg is longer than the other, and no matter how much bad is thrown at her she responds with this incredible positivity. She also loves space, and thinks her dead mother is looking back at her from the stars. When she learns a member of NASA is in town to select a girl to voice the greeting on the Voyager space record, she assembles a ragtag team of girls (and one boy) to join the local scouts, and earn the minimum merit badge each to qualify to go to Jamboree where the troop with the best performance routine will have their voices recorded.
Super7, the toy company known for its wide variety of action figure licenses and its retro Kenner style carded, 3.75-inch action figures, greatly surpassed its delivery at last year’s Toy Fair (shown here and here) by bring hundreds of prototype figures, card back mock-ups, and final versions to New York Toy Fair 2020 this past weekend. More than the typical sneak peek, Super7 previewed a huge variety of action figure cards for its ReAction line, with pre-ordering forecasted for later this year and some items available now here at Amazon.
New action figure licenses at the show include Army of Darkness, An American Werewolf in London, Aliens,Andre the Giant, Back to the Future II, Knight Rider, The Munsters, Archie, Red Dawn, Beavis and Butt-Head, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Son of Frankenstein, Spongebob Squarepants, Halloween II, and a new line of NBA All Stars. Bands with new figures seen for the first time in the Super7 line include RUN DMC, Notorious B.I.G., and Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
Plus past figure lines will see more additions this year. Those include Universal Studios Monsters, Peanuts, several Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Nightmare Before Christmas, lots of Transformers, Toxic Crusader, Thundercats, Ghost, Misfits, Mars Attacks, Alien, Chucky, and Robocop, and Super7 displayed several final figures this weekend that were previewed last year here at borg, includingThey Live, Teen Wolf,Major League Baseball All Stars, MLB Mascots, and characters from the Rocky movie series.
Take a look at close-up views of just a sampling of the action figures on display at this year’s event:
“Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law.”
From Metropolis to Rocky IV, and The Worst to Universal Monsters, Robotech, Shogun, Slayer, Street Fighter II, Lucha, and more, one of the most eagerly awaited has been figures for RoboCop. Although we’ve seen RoboCop as action figures by the likes of toy companies like NECA and other companies over the past 30 years, the new line previewed at New York Toy Fair 2019 from Super7 also pulls in that throwback toy design fans of Super7’s ReAction action figure line flock toward. Super7 has now released its final figure and packaging designs for RoboCop, and they look great (except that sculpt for the toxic slug guy looks a lot like Super7’s sculpt for John Matuszak’s character Sloth from The Goonies).
But of any action figure previewed at New York Toy Fair in February and released this year, is there any single figure with more potential for collectors than Super 7’s Jackie Robinson? It has that trading card quality, with its cardboard backing and its vintage photograph design, plus it’s as American as apple pie as a toy/collectible, crossing over in the collector market between ReAction retro figure fans and baseball fans. And the entire Classic All-Stars line is superb. The other figures in the first group available measure up with Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Juan Marichal, Carlton Fisk, and Orlando Cepeda–plus the first of the mascots in the toy series, from the Philadelphia Phillies. You can pre-order any or all now at Entertainment Earth (links embedded in names above). And if Super7 doesn’t get to your favorite player, these will be easy to paint and modify for your team–just like you may have painted the classic electric football player pieces of years ago.
The other line of figures with potential is the classic Peanuts characters in the ReAction format, featuring two Charlie Browns, Linus, Lucy, Sally, Schroeder, and, of course, Snoopy. These are based on Charles Schulz′s original strips, and have a look that bridges the Funko Pop! and the classic Kenner retro figure sizing and packaging.
Here are images of these three lines and first phases of designs released:
On Halloween night the Great Pumpkin rises out of his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys for all the children.
Sally was Lucy. Kathy was Sally. Chris was Charlie. Peter was Linus. And Bill was Snoopy.
For fifty years Charles M. Schulz’s Linus Van Pelt has been trying to convince us all to believe in The Great Pumpkin in The Peanuts holiday special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Following on the success of the Peanuts Christmas special, Schulz was tapped to pick a holiday and subject and went with Halloween over Thanksgiving and the Great Pumpkin was destined for the small screen in October 1966.
It’s the one time Charlie Brown wasn’t the only ostracized kid in the neighborhood (although he’s the one who gets rocks every year and we never learn why). Remember when all the little kids dressed up in the same costumes? Here the costumes of choice were ghosts and witches. And a World War I flying ace–Snoopy took his first flight on the screen in his Sopwith Camel in The Great Pumpkin.
Chris Shea voiced Linus, Kathy Steinberg voiced Sally, Peter Robbins was Charlie Brown, and Lucy was voiced by Sally Dryer. And Bill Melendez was the voice of Snoopy.
Who knew Sally was such a little lawyer? You don’t remember that? Watch it again and see. And who saves the day? Big sister Lucy.
If you missed the annual television viewing of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!, don’t fret, you can watch the entire show here:
It’s something that fans of Charlie Brown and Snoopy have been waiting for, for several reasons. The Peanuts Movie hit theaters late last year, but it was lost in the movie season among the spectacle that was Star Wars released just weeks later. Yet if you saw it in the theater, you realize this movie was a keeper. The Peanuts Movie is what all family movies strive for: classic characters, good-natured humor, something to enjoy for every moviegoer. The very young will love Snoopy and understand the relationship of the Peanuts kids that we older folks have known and loved for years, in newspaper funnies, in paperback editions, and the many Peanuts specials. The Peanuts Movie does something else–it provides the best version of Charlie Brown and friends we’ve seen since the original 1965 favorite A Charlie Brown Christmas.
The Peanuts Movie gets it right from the beginning, in its pedigree. It’s written by Craig Schulz, Charles M. Schulz’s son and a writer on the Community comedy series, and Charles’ grandson, Bryan. So, unlike the onslaught of lackluster adaptations that have plagued the Dr. Seuss properties after his death, the same heart and soul of Charles’ creation is as powerful as ever. The writers have turned to the source material for many interactions in the film, like Lucy’s converted lemonade stand/psychiatry office and the famous wall where Charlie and Linus ponder the worlds’ problems, and yet they have updated the story in subtle and important ways that are both loyal to the original and still give loyalists a satisfying pay-off. And don’t worry, the updating ends with the inclusion of standardized tests–you won’t find any cell phones, smart phones or texting issues for the kids in this movie.
The story centers around Charlie Brown’s attraction to the little red-haired girl who moves in across the street and the lengths he will go to to try to impress her. This love affair was the core of many original Peanuts comic strips, based on Charles Schulz’s real-life attraction from afar with a red-haired girl. Snoopy’s parallel exploits in this movie mirror this love affair, as he pursues his own love story on paper, revealed to us as a story of a dog trying to win over air pilot Fifi in his World War I Sopwith Camel fighter plane on a mission in France, also taking on the famous Red Baron.
The Peanuts Movie hails from Blue Sky Studios, who brought us the Ice Age franchise. Even without a 3D television the depth of field here is spectacular, and with the 3D effect director Steve Martino does not shell out standard 3D gimmicks, but lets the characters simply float off the comic strip and into their own full-color, beautiful “real” world. The backgrounds look like the homes and backyards of any American town cul de sac. And if you look close enough you’ll see Snoopy finally has fur.
With all the focus on teen and adult readers, you might not know that several popular comic book and comic strip characters are still going strong, and available each week for kids of all ages in your local comic book store. With the annual re-airing of the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, why not see what the Peanuts gang is up to today? BOOM! Studios’ KaBOOM! line has several series catering to the demographic that may not be ready for Revival and Rachel Rising.
This week KaBOOM! is releasing new issues of Garfield, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and yes, Peanuts. And for a slightly older set of readers, BOOM! Studios’ BOOM!Box is releasing the next issue of the 2014 breakout hit series Lumberjanes.
After the break, check out previews for all these titles, courtesy of BOOM! Studios. All these issues hit comic book stores tomorrow.
First up is that lasagna-loving cat Garfield in the trade paperback edition of Garfield, Volume 5. Whether you’ve read the prior books or not, it’s a cinch to get caught up on Garfield, Jon, and Odie.
We first started talking about the new Peanuts movie here at borg.com back in March with the release of the first teaser trailer. With all the throwaway animation for kids out there these days why not give us a trailer showcasing our old pals an entire year prior to its release? And lighting up poor Woodstock aside, why not give us a Christmas scene to ponder over?
Which raises the question: Will the Blue Sky Studios/20th Century Fox update to Charles Schulz’s classic short films and theatrical releases, filmed in Real D 3D and Digital 3D, give us any remakes of classic scenes from past Peanuts films? Like the Christmas pageant or the Great Pumpkin watch?
After the break, check out the new trailer for Peanuts, featuring Snoopy as a World War I flying ace and his own doggy version of the Sopwith Camel flying over Paris, a scene we have seen many times before:
What better way to bring in Spring than news of a new Peanuts movie. Don’t you hope they get this right?
It’s Charles Schulz’s Peanuts characters in 3D, called simply Peanuts. The franchise that gave us each of the best holiday specials of all time–A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), It’s the Great Pumpkin (1966), Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973), and Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975)–is back, more than 30 years after four prior big-screen efforts that didn’t quite live up to the TV shows: A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969), Snoopy Come Home (1972), Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977), and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (1980).
And the first teaser trailer is here. The voice of Chuck seems right and the overall look is pretty good, despite being so different from the classic four-color comic strip feel of the TV specials from the 1960s to 1970s. But the key ingredient–if they can deliver what they need to deliver– will be the “heart”. Can a new team of creators get it right? Please?
Check it out for yourself:
Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock, Linus, Lucy, Sally, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Franklin, Schroeder, Pig Pen. We’re hoping they all are back again. And maybe, just maybe, Lucy won’t pull the football away this time.
Look for Peanuts in theaters after a long wait–November 6, 2015.
Another Sunday is here, and Easter at that. (Happy Easter!) When you think of laugh-out-loud Sunday funnies from years past you may think of The Far Side, Peanuts, or Calvin and Hobbes. If you were lucky enough you may have read Frank Cho’s original Liberty Meadows strips. If you weren’t so lucky, or if you just want to read them again (and you will), then we have good news: Brandy the animal psychiatrist, Frank the veterinarian, Brandy’s roommate Jen, Evil Brandy from a mirror universe, Frank’s own alias Monkey Boy the chimp, Ralph the ex-circus bear, Frank the ex-frat house mascot pig, Leslie the hypochondriac frog, Truman the bowtie-wearing duck, Oscar the dachshund… all are returning soon to a bookstore near you.
Frank Cho announced on his website that he is releasing a two-volume set of books beginning this summer through Image Comics, reprinting all five years of the original Liberty Meadows Sunday newspaper strips.
A preliminary cover draft by Frank Cho for the new Sunday strip collection.
First, in June, Liberty Meadows Sunday Collection Book 1 will collect year 1, 2 and 3 of the multi-award winning Liberty Meadows Sunday strips. Frank says that half of these Sunday comic strips will be new to most readers since they were never reprinted after their initial newspaper publication.
Then by year end he will release Liberty Meadows Sunday Collection Book 2, collecting year 4 and year 5 of the Liberty Meadows Sunday strips. Both volumes will include new material, too.
A variety of Frank Cho comic strips, including ones the syndicates censored, can be found at Frank's website, http://www.apesandbabes.com.
Not only is Frank Cho’s art from early in his career every bit as superb as his current work, his strips were as funny as any humor you’ve ever read. You will laugh out loud, and if you drink or eat while you read, just be careful, as his humor is abrupt, and comes out of nowhere, and things may involuntary shoot from your nose. Gross, I know, but I also know this from past experience. You’ve been warned. And you must share these strips with others or they may be annoyed, asking you “what are you laughing about?”
At Amazon.comLiberty Meadows Sunday Collection Book 1 appears that it will have a $24.99 release price available in a nice 160-page hardcover edition, however, pre-orders are available now at a significantly reduced price.
Expect some great art by Frank Cho in his new 2013 calendar, with pinups like this drawing the artist created last summer.
Along with several other projects expected this year, like the eagerly awaited Guns & Dinos first previewed here last year at Comic-Con, if you will be attending the San Jose Big Wow Comic Art Fest in May, Frank will be selling a limited supply of a new 2013 Liberty Meadows Pinup Calendar.
But while you are waiting for these new collections, Frank Cho’s original daily comic strips are available in previously released editions, each as hysterically funny as the other:
at a significantly reduced price.
(reprints all the Liberty Meadows series covers)
