I had the best idea (even though I do say so myself) recently - to buy all of The Complete Peanuts volumes, one every two months. My father, in a shock move, actually agreed to this, and one upped me by saying we'd get one every month. Second month of the year, and my god, I am so pleased with the man!
Two things - one, Schulz is a genius. Two, each book has an introduction written by some eminent, generally creative personality who has been influenced in some way by the comic; and each one of these introductions resonate with me, giving me this rush of happiness - I can't help but think how great and great and great Peanuts is, and how I am so, so lucky to have been brought up reading it, and look at these people who are doing things that I might want to do and they know how I feel!
Peanuts is a comic for all ages, unlike the ones you get nowadays that are so centred around things happening now - based on fads, trends and memes; they're good, and funny, but they're not ageless. Schulz somehow managed to make his comic ageless, something I wish I could do. He influences me in some ways - I see traces of Peanuts in the somewhat odder ideas I have, and I see it in my subtle and absurd humour. Maybe only I see it, I don't know, I haven't asked anybody.
You may draw comics for yourself, but a large part of being a cartoonist is writing and drawing things that people enjoy. Now, life moves fast - everything is changing, constantly moving, new jokes, new humour, new ideas, new everything. There's been so much change in the last decade or so, and people are trying to keep up, and maybe that's why the comics now are they way they are. A superb example would be to compare Luann from before, and the ones that were made more recently. I prefer the old Luann, but the new Luann is... how things actually are.
I still prefer the older strips.
No comments:
Post a Comment