A Personal Statement Why I'm Happy that BOOM! Studios is Publishing Tribute to Charles M. Schulz

Charles M. Schulz's PEANUTS comic strip has long been a cornerstone of American Pop Culture. The glimpses into the lives of Charlie Brown and friends have resonated with audiences for decades and now BOOM! Studios is publishing a celebration of the comic strip for the 65th anniversary of its publication. The contributing artists are being leaked out to the press slowly but surely.

I have two deep connections with PEANUTS. The first is an undying love of Snoopy, especially in his WWI Ace persona. Snoopy's battles against the Red Baron entertained me throughout my childhood. As odd as it might sound, I think I became interested in War Games featuring battles between Sopwith Camels and Fokker Dr. 1 aircraft because of the battles I imagined. If someone published a Snoopy vs. the Red Baron set for Wings of War, I'd rush out to buy it.

My second connection, is my wife Jody Lindke. Jody has a passion for illustration and cartooning. She has been a cartoonist for longer than I've known her, and she was my favorite cartoonist in the school paper long before we met. I loved her NICNUP cartoon strip in our college paper, a strip that merged BLOOM COUNTY with PEANUTS to wonderful effect. Like PEANUTS, there was an underlying sadness to many of Jody's jokes. Her Bambi strip hits the same ironic sweet spot for me as Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown.

My wife is a generally cheerful person, though her humor can run sorrowful, but there are three occasions when I've seen Jody's joy light up an entire room. The most recent was when we were able to bring our twin daughters home from the hospital. She glowed the entire trip home. Then there's our wedding day, when we received just enough rain for it to be lucky, saw small birds being born, and witnessed a double rainbow. I'm not kidding. We saw a double rainbow. This is not a reference to the meme.

I'm happy to have been partly responsible for these moments where I got to see her filled with love and joy. But the most vivid combination of happiness and pride I've ever seen from Jody was when she was receiving the Charles M. Schulz college cartooning award. Jody was the first woman to receive the award. It was an accomplishment that was solely her own. As is often the case, I felt lucky to be in the same room with Jody. After years of hard work and meeting deadlines. After years of using the meager payments from the school paper and local papers to pay her rent and food bills, her work was being acknowledged by people she admired. Snoopy sparked my imagination when I read his adventures in print, but Snoopy handed Jody her award and that was something truly magical to behold.

Because of these two deep emotional connections, I'll be rushing out to buy the book this September.

Image Copyright Jody Lindke

Addendum: Jody is not a part of the Tribute, but we are very excited for everyone who is. There are some great artists participating who have been announced so far.

There Can Be No Halloween Season Without Vincent Price

I'll let my wife's Nicnup cartoon give us the break down of how important Vincent Price (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was and will always be to the Halloween season.

Being a Parent Can Be Heartbreaking

Last night I spent a wonderful evening with my lovely 4 year old daughters History and Mystery.  They had spent part of the day coloring with Jody and had shifted from one creative activity to another, namely dancing.  Both of the girls had turned on their electric keyboards to play pre-recorded songs, neither in sync with the other, and had begun dancing with the free and unselfconscious joy that only young children can truly manage.

It was a beautiful scene to watch, and was one of those glowing moments when as a parent you feel on top of the world.  That natural high was about to take a severe drop...as you might have guessed from the title of the post.

As happens every night, and too quickly every night, the clock ticked past seven and thus initiated parenting subroutine 8.(e).D.7.1.(m).3.  That's right, it was bedtime.  It was time to take a quick bath, brush teeth, read stories, and sing a bed time song.  None of this was out of the ordinary.  There was also what appeared to be the typical groaning about how either History or Mystery had yet to finish some entertaining task, which usually amounts to "but Dad...Ironman needs to go defend the castle" or some similar activity.  This evening though, History was upset that she hadn't been able to finish coloring the pictures she had been working on earlier in the day.  Jody and I assured her that there would be plenty of time to color them tomorrow, maybe even when mom was working on some drawings of her own.

That's when it happened.  Mystery looked right at Jody and then at me and asked, "Why am I not an artist like mom?  I want to be an artist like mom."  I immediately felt as if, Mola Ram had reached into my chest, pulled out my heart, and left it burning in his hands laughing maniacally.  I was stunned for a moment as I tried to find a way to tell a 4 year old that:

1) Yes you can be an artist like mom.  You can be anything you want to be.
2) That some things take time to learn, and show her how she was more comfortable drawing and coloring now than she was a year ago.
        a) I'm not one to tell History or Mystery that they are now "better" at a task like drawing and       
            coloring at an age when they should be experimenting and feeling free. 

The books on parenting provide wonderful advice, but they don't do anything for the sinking feeling one feels in ones chest when a child expresses disillusionment at a perceived limitation.

Ugh.

[Cinerati Cartoons] -- Nicnup: Exciting Employment Opportunity

Jody uploaded this strip today. Though she did it years ago, it still seems topical.

[Cinerati Cartoons] -- Nicnup: Gesundheit

My wife Jody has a wonderful and visual sense of humor. In this Nicnup strip, she manages to capture how I have felt almost every time I've had a loud sneeze. They do sometimes feel earth shattering.

Gaming*Mirth [Cartoon] -- GAMR GRLZ #2 "The Quests Begin"

This week, we have the second offering in my wife Jody's experiment with a gaming themed cartoon strip entitled GAMR GRLZ. She's still refining who the characters are, and what challenges they will face, but she is having a wonderful time discovering the young girls who will be featured in the comic. For those of you not familiar with Jody's work, she was the first woman to win the prestigious Charles M. Schulz cartooning award -- which she won for her fantastic Nicnup cartoon strip.

As usual, blogger being blogger and not a webpage optimized for cartoon syndication, if you click on the cartoon you will get a larger and easier to read image.