Contest to reward Peanuts look-alikes
Kristin Chenoweth, left, was chosen as a celebrity look-alike for Sally Brown, right.
Is your child a ringer for Linus, with or without security blanket? If your son or daughter has the look of a “Peanuts” comic strip character, you can submit photos at www.peanutsphotocontest.com.
Entries can be submitted through Nov. 3, and the grand prize is an all-expense-paid trip for four to Cedar Fair amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, home of Planet Snoopy.
Jill Schulz, daughter of “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz, will join judge Jo Frost (“Supernanny”) and two Oklahomans — Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood — in selecting finalists. The public vote begins Nov. 11.
Q&A with Jill Schulz about Peanuts 60th anniversary and more
Jill Schulz
Jill Schulz, daughter of Charles Schulz, talked to The Oklahoman about the Peanuts comic strip and the plans for the 60th anniversary.
Matt Price: What do you think accounts for the enduring popularity of the Charlie Brown characters?
Jill Schulz: My Dad was a great observer of people throughout his entire life and I know he had great empathy for children and how cruel they can be to each other on the playgrounds and neighborhoods. I know my Dad had a great understanding and very clear memories of what it is like learning to fit in and negotiate social interaction even as a child, which is something we all go through whether we were a very shy child or the leader of the group. In the comic strip we are always seeing the challenges between the characters, their personalities ,and situations which are so familiar to us all, it gives us a chance to relate and say “oh, yeah, my sister is crabby” or “yes, I feel alone at lunch time,” … and of course who doesn’t experience the Little Red Haired girl or some other kind of rejection in their lifetime. These are issues that have been and will always be there for everyone ,which I believe is why Peanuts has become such a timeless strip for all of our generations.
High Moon takes Harvey Award
Congratulations to former Oklahoma resident David Gallaher, whose “High Moon” was named Best Online Comics Work at this weekend’s Harvey Awards in Baltimore.
Check out the comic for yourself at http://www.zudacomics.com/high_moon or in the recent print collection.
The Beat has the full list of winners.
- Matt Price
Related posts:
Oklahoma among inspirations for High Moon series.
State native Larry Latham moves from cartoons to Web comic Lovecraft is Missing
A page from "Lovecraft is Missing."
If you watched cartoons in the 1980s, odds are you were exposed to the work of Tulsa’s Larry Latham. The 1975 University of Oklahoma graduate is an Emmy nominee, working on shows including “DuckTales,” “Smurfs,” “TaleSpin” and “Super Friends.”
Larry Latham
“I worked on a wide diversity of stuff,” Latham said. “When I started at Hanna Barbera, the first show I worked on was the Godzilla Power Hour, with Doug Wildey, one of the greats of comic books, and Dave Stevens of ‘The Rocketeer.’”
Now returned to Oklahoma from Los Angeles, Latham creates the Web comic “Lovecraft is Missing.”
Latham says he’s always been a fan of author H.P. Lovecraft, and was even part of the group helped raise money to provide a grave marker for the author. He’s turning that love into a mystery comic that takes the premise: What if Lovecraft’s stories were real?
New “Lovecraft is Missing” pages go up every Friday at lovecraftismissing.com.
While Lovecraft’s Chthulu tales are horror classics, Lovecraft has a science fictional basis, Latham said.
“One of his key precepts is that this stuff isn’t supernatural, it’s alien,” Latham said. “It’s so advanced it appears to be magic.”
Latham first developed “Lovecraft is Missing” as a CD-ROM game back in 1994. But after the crash of the CD-ROM market, the concept went back on the shelf. It was under development as an animated series in the late 1990s by Film Roman, but after some creative differences, the rights reverted back to Latham.
After first pitching the project as a graphic novel, Latham in 2008 began working to bring his story to the Internet as a Web comic. Eric Lee, co-creator of the web comic Boodachitaville, helped Latham learn some of the tricks of the Web comic trade.
Latham’s comic fandom goes way back, as he was a founding member of the Oklahoma Alliance of Fans, a pioneering comic fan club that began in the late 1960s.
“We moved a lot when I was a kid. About every 18 months, my dad just had to move. And yet we stayed within Oklahoma City, Tulsa, once we moved down to a little town called Wewoka,” Latham said. “But pretty much every year I was going to a new school. And I got real comfortable, made good friends, but I didn’t keep friends because we didn’t stay around. And comic books were, they were my friends. I read a lot, I loved reading, and wanted to be a comic book artist.”
And now, Latham has achieved that childhood dream.
From Tuesday’s The Oklahoman
By Matthew Price
Oklahoma among inspirations for High Moon series
Former Oklahoma resident David Gallaher and collaborator Steve Ellis won the online Zuda Comics competition in 2007. Now, his winning submission comes to print this October. “High Moon” is the horror-Western hybrid that was recently nominated for two Harvey Awards.
“High Moon” takes Western tropes and mixes them with supernatural and science fictional elements, said Gallaher, the writer of the series.
“The original story was going to be a retelling and re-imagining of the American Civil War with vampires and werewolves,” Gallaher said. “As I started to dig deeper and deeper into the research, ‘High Moon’ sort of grew from there – with elements of ‘Gunsmoke,’ Jim Bowie, Tom Waits, and Celtic mythology thrown in for good measure.”
The story begins with Matthew MacGregor investigating unusual happenings the Old West town of Blest, Texas. But the detective MacGregor has his own lycanthropic secret to keep.
“The theme of ‘an unchanging man in a changing time’ sort of stuck with me, and the story came out of that,” Gallaher said. “With few exceptions, I hate Westerns … and with this project I was able to write a Western that I enjoyed creating and enjoyed reading.”
“High Moon” is rich in Oklahoma connections, particularly in the comic’s second “season.” Seasons 1-3 will be collected in the print edition. The second season deals with a series of murders in Ragged Rock, OK.
“I spent my quite some time living in Norman, Oklahoma,” Gallaher said. “I was in this wicked class called ‘Monsters, Aliens, and Cyborgs’ that totally stuck with me. I was also enrolled in a Cherokee language course that really made an impression on me.”
These Oklahoma experiences became part of the genesis of High Moon’s second stanza.
“When it came to developing the second season, I wanted to do something that felt authentic to me,” Gallaher said. “The first thing that came to mind were my experiences in Oklahoma. I thought about the geography, the Arbuckle Mountain Range, all-black towns – like Langston – and everything developed from there.”
Creating for the Web first offers many advantages, Gallaher said.
“From a creative standpoint, it’s pretty similar. We have to keep the story fun, fast, engaging, and compelling,” Gallaher said. “But, in terms of distribution, the web offers an incredible place to bring your ideas to market, without the financial burden and liability that comes with print.”
- By Matthew Price
From Friday’s The Oklahoman
Ridiculously good week for comics
If you can’t find a comic book this week, you’re not trying hard enough.
It’s simply a great week to buy comics. Let’s look at some of the highlights.
Like classic comic strips? New collections of “Little Orphan Annie” and “Dick Tracy” hit stores today.
Like well-written, literary comics? There’s a new “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” by Alan Moore.
Best value of the week? The first issue of “The Unwritten” by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. It’s just $1 for 48 pages! This was probably my favorite Vertigo first issue since “Y: The Last Man” #1. If you like intelligent comics, there’s no reason you shouldn’t at least try it out for $1. Like I said after reading a preview copy at the ComicsPRO meeting in Memphis: “The Unwritten” looks to be a must for Harry Potter fans over the age of 17.
In the mood for a big superhero crossover? “Fusion” features the Avengers, the Thunderbolts, Cyberforce and Hunter/Killer.
Want a mystery? Mark Waid’s new “Unknown” is said to be in the vein of his award-winning mystery series “Ruse.”
How about a thriller? The third “un” title of the week is Mark Sable’s “Unthinkable” about a writer tasked to come up with doomsday scenarios for the government — that later end up coming true.
Want a collection of one of the most brilliant comics of the modern era? Fantagraphics has released a collection of Gilbert Hernandez’s “Luba.”
Want an action-packed superhero adventure? Check out “Superman: New Krypton” (partially written by OU graduate Sterling Gates)!
Want a jumping-on point for a popular Marvel hero? Marvel’s provided just that in “Wolverine” #73. (Just don’t ask about #72. It’s complicated. It’ll be here eventually.)
Want to read one of the most ridiculous crossovers in human history? Check out the omnibus to “Secret Wars II.”
Looking for a new comic written by Ivan Brandon, writer of the buzz book “Viking”? His “Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape” hits this week.
How about a nostalgic trip to the 1980s? Archie is reprinting its first “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” issues.
Seriously. Go to your comic-book store this week. It’s a great week for comics.
– Matt Price
Dwight Howard Dunk Contest meeting
Garbage Time All-Stars has a humorous take on a meeting in which Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic try to work out this year’s attempt for the Slam Dunk Contest. This follows up on Howard’s winning “Superman” dunk from last year. This comic strip will work best for you if you get both comics-related and NBA-related jokes. (I thought it was pretty hilarious.)
– Matt Price
Rip Kirby to be reprinted by IDW
Announced at The Beat, IDW is adding Alex Raymond’s “Rip Kirby” to its Library of American Comics series. The five-volume archival hardcover series will contain every daily from the strip’s inception in 1946 through Alex Raymond’s tragic death in 1956.
More info from the release, from the blog of Chris Ryall, editor in chief and publisher of IDW:
Rip Kirby was the first hip and cool detective in newspaper comics. Created by Alex Raymond when he was deactivated from the Marines after World War II, it was a fresh approach to the genre, a departure from the prevailing hard-boiled style of detective fiction. Rip Kirby was urbane and cerebral, and used scientific methods as often as he used his fists when solving crimes and mysteries. But there was still plenty of action — Kirby was an All-American athlete and decorated war hero.
Co-written with Ward Greene, Rip Kirby often addressed contemporary issues, including trafficking in black market babies and the attempt to limit the proliferation of atomic and biological weapons. The supporting cast was comprised of Rip’s valet and assistant, Desmond, and plenty of breathtaking women, particularly Rip’s girlfriend, Honey Dorian, and the raven-haired and aptly-named Pagan Lee. Highly conscious of the fashions of the day, Raymond brought post-war and early-50s chic and fashion to the comics page, dressing his female characters in ultra-chic clothes obviously inspired by Dior’s “New Look.”
Dave Sim has been pontificating on Alex Raymond quite a bit in his series “Glamourpuss,” and “Rip Kirby” has seemed to be one of the big remaining comic-strip reprint projects that no one had taken on. Dean Mullaney, formerly of Eclipse, and IDW have done a great job bringing classic strips to the fore, including recent reprint projects “Little Orphan Annie,” “Dick Tracy” and “Terry and the Pirates.”
– Matt Price
Relive classic newspaper strips with collected editions
WORD BALLOONS
Comic strip fans had much to choose from in 2008. Several classic strips have been reprinted in new formats, many for the first time. While all the news for the future of the newspaper comic strip isn’t good – comic strip space in newspapers continued to be at a premium, and several editorial cartoonists were laid off in 2008 – the year did provide a window into the past with several top-notch collections.
Two of the reprint projects have Oklahoma connections – IDW continued its comprehensive “The Complete Dick Tracy” reprints, and Fantagraphics reprinted almost all of Bill Mauldin’s “Willie and Joe” panels.
Willie and Joe: The World War II Years collects 600 cartoons, many never-before reprinted, of Bill Mauldin’s cartoons from the front lines. Bill Mauldin’s early cartoons were published in The Oklahoman. Mauldin served with the 45th Infantry Division, and more than 200 of his cartoons are collected at the 45th Infantry Division Museum, 2145 N.E. 36th Street.
“The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy” volumes 4 and 5 were released in 2008. Volume 4 contains comic strips from July 1936 through January 1938. Storylines in volume 5 include “Chief Shellberry,” “Karpse,” “Scardol” and “Whip Chute,” which ran January 1938 through July 1939. Gould was born in Pawnee, and his hard-bitten police detective Dick Tracy is one of the world’s best-known comic-strip characters.
If you want a broader overview of the history of the comic-strip, “The Comics: The Complete Collection,” a Borders-exclusive book from Brian Walker, will do just that. The book is a compilation of his two previous books, “The Comics: Before 1945″ and “The Comics: Since 1945.” This book is lushly illustrated. Early color Sunday comic strips like “Flash Gordon” receive full-page reprints; the oversized trim of “The Complete Collection” gives readers a feel for what these comic strips looked like to readers of the time. Covering “The Yellow Kid” to “Zits,” Walker’s book is an excellent primer to learn what’s been great about comic strips through the years.
By Matthew Price
From the Dec. 19 edition of The Oklahoman
Dick Tracy sticking around, syndicate says
NewsOK’s Extremely Graphic blog points out this Daily Cartoonist post in which Tribune Media Services says it has no plans to end “Dick Tracy.”
– Matt Price
