VO: Welcome to Unpacking Peanuts, the podcast where three cartoonists take an in depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.
Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts, the show where we look deep at the work of Charles M. Schulz, the greatest cartoonist in history. I'm, your host for the proceedings. My name's Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, seven reasons not to grow up, and the Dumbest Idea ever. And you can also read my brand new comic, Tanner Rocks on my substack. You can read it for free even. The substack is gvillecomics dot substack.com, and I'd love to see you there.
But anyway, also joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts, and fellow cartoonists. After that shameless plug. First, he's a playwright and a composer, both for the band complicated people, as well as for this very podcast. He's the co creator of the original comic Book Price Guide, the original editor of Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as strange attractors, a gathering of spells, and tangled River. It's Michael Cohen,
Michael: say hey.
Jimmy: And he's the executive producer and writer of mystery science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beast, Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Hello.
Jimmy: And of course, joining us, as always, is our producer, Liz. Now, guys, we have a very special day today. We, have a guest in the studio. Now, if you've been a longtime listener, you might know this guest, or if you're just hip to the cool comic scene, you also might know him. It's cartoonist Todd Webb, creator of the Poet, which is also serialized on Substack. Now, we invited Todd back for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he's a great guy and a great cartoonist, but we also wanted to get his take on the changes that are going on in Peanuts. Now, Todd is a cartoonist who works in the daily comic format. He primarily uses, like, almost 95% of the time, a four panel layout day in and day out, just like good old Charles Schulz did up until recent years, where, he has switched to changing it up. Sometimes we have three panels, sometimes we have one panel. Who knows? It's the wild west in terms of panels. So we thought we'd have good old Todd come in and, we could maybe look at how that changes a comic strip. Does it change it for the better? Does it change it for the worse? Is it a wash? We'll find out. The other reason we have him is to get the behind the scene dope on the, famous attack of the Nancy fans, which he, wrangled together, which I found totally delightful, if I'm being completely honest. so we're gonna get into all of that. So please help me welcome Todd Webb. Todd, welcome to Unpacking Peanuts.
Todd: Hello. Hello.
Jimmy: So, Todd, how did the whole attack of the Nancy fans start? And you could reveal all at this point.
Todd: Attack of the Nancy fans started. Let's see. when I was talking to you guys two years ago, you asked me if Charles Schulz was the acknowledged greatest cartoonist ever, who was my pick for number two? And I said, Ernie Bushmiller. And then you turned on me. You said I was lying. You said I was lying. And that anybody who said they liked Nancy was lying. And so that's what started it.
Michael: So it was the, gunfight at Nancy Corral.
Harold: Yeah, thems fighting words.
Todd: Yeah. So I had to defend on the spot of why I liked Ernie Bushmiller. And then over the ensuing two years, I would periodically text you Nancy strips, one of which is the one that you actually used as your example in your book report.
Jimmy: Oh, really?
Todd: The one that you broke down is one that I sent you specifically chosen because I, like, I was picking strips. Knowing you like, you can't deny that. These are good.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Todd: and so I feel like it worked since you actually chose that one. But, yeah, so I would just send you stuff, and then you would say that you were gonna come down here and fight me.
Jimmy: Total reasonable reactions.
Todd: Right, right. And then, you know, really getting into it is. It was kind of an inside job because Harold was visiting me, and I was telling him about my upcoming Nancyfest trip. And, was floating ideas of trying to convince, you to reconsider, your position. And, as Harold was leaving, we were joking about what would happen if I just had a bunch of people call the hotline. And then, Dennis Kitchen, who is the unofficial leader of the, secret Ernie Bushmiller society, he'll tell you he's only the second banana.
Harold: Who does he say the first banana is?
Todd: Oh, it's a mystery. Nobody knows.
Harold: Ernie himself?
Todd: Yes. The ghost of Ernie.
Harold: Tom Gammill? No. Who?
Michael: Elong
Todd: So, like, Dennis saw my cause. I posted about the episode back when I did it, and it's, like, pinned up on my instagram. And he was going through Poet stuff because he was writing the foreword for my first big Poet collection. And he said he left a comment on the Instagram about, he said, jimmy Gownley is, against Ernie Bushmiller. What are we going to do? And, so I said, well, I have a plan. I'll tell you. At Nancy Fest, when we all descended on the Billy Ireland, which.
Harold: Could you. Could you tell people what that Billy Ireland is, in case they're not aware?
Todd: Oh, yes. the Billy Ireland is a place that I've been wanting to visit for a very long time. It's a cartoon art museum in Ohio, in Columbus, Ohio, has an amazing collection, and they were hosting a exhibition all about Ernie Bushmiller and decided to do a weekend of programming around it and called it Nancy Fest. So it wasn't actually a convention so much as the opening of the Ernie Bushmiller show that had, you know, two nights of special events around it.
Harold: And it's an amazing museum for anybody who's anywhere near the Columbus, Ohio area. In fact, there was a-- Right when we were starting Unpacking Peanuts, there was the Schulz exhibition, which I think I mentioned briefly on one of the first episodes. It really is a remarkable space, and they have a library. I don't know if you got to go into the library, Todd, but, yeah.
Todd: I'm in the library now. I was. I was able to. To,
Jimmy: You're hiding one of the stacks.
Todd: I'm. I'm podcasting from there right now. no, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to some of the staff and donated, my big Poet collection to the reading library there.
Liz: Oh, cool. Wow.
Harold: Excellent.
Todd: So that. That was a super cool, momentous. Yeah, it's an amazing place, and I wish it was a little bit closer so that I could go more often.
Harold: Yeah, me too.
Todd: But so, once I. Once I got there, I, you know, rendezvoused with Dennis, and he said, what's your plan? And I said, well, I think we should try to get as many people as possible to call into this hotline, especially cartoonists. And we weren't sure how we were going to get it to everybody's attention, because everything was so planned out for the weekend, and it was all on a timeline, but it was something that we felt like if the opportunity presents itself to let everybody know at once, we'll do it. I was with Raina, Raina Telgemeier, probably one of the most famous cartoonists on the planet right now. She did, let's see, Smile and Sisters and Drama and The Babysitters Club. And she's got a new book coming out with our friend Scott McCloud, all through Scholastic, I believe. But Raina was a big proponent of, she said, yeah, you need to make sure everybody knows this plan. And so at one of the events of the weekend, there was a testimonials opportunity for people to talk about how they came to find and love Ernie Bushmiller.
Harold: What Ernie Bushmuller has done for me.
Todd: Right. And so a microphone was going around, and also as an opportunity to ask people on. On this panel questions and stuff at the testimonials, instead of asking other people why they were there or saying why I was there. I just told everybody what you did on the time that I was the guest on your podcast, and that anybody that was there could come up and talk to me throughout the weekend. And, that's basically what happened. So I had everybody call in.
Liz: We released it in an episode called Attack of the Nancy fans, I think. So if you want to hear the story that we're talking about, that's the episode you should go back and listen to.
Harold: And you can hear the call inside.
Todd: Yeah. So a lot of people called in, and, Jimmy was texting me, like, what's happening? This is insane. I think you said you were worried that there was some kind of emergency, because all the phone. The phone calls kept coming from me. And so I was terrible…
Jimmy: I forgot this. I was out doing something, and I came back and I thought, I’ll check the old Peanuts hotline. And they were all called. There were like eleven calls from Todd. And I was like, oh, no, something horrible has happened. He's forgotten his memory. The only thing he knows is the Unpacking Peanuts hotline. And he keeps calling us.
Liz: And that number is
Jimmy: 717-219-4162. Yeah, so it blew my mind. It was so great. I mean, Bill Griffith, creator, of, zippy the pinhead. Raina Telgemeier, Dennis Kitchen, publisher of Kitchen Sink press. And one of the things that was cool about that for me when I was 15 and I did that first issue of Shades of Gray, I sent out. I think I want to say it was like 100, but it couldn't have been that much. It might have been like 50. So now, 50 packages, to people in the industry saying, you know, I'm a kid, I'm trying to do this. Can, you give me any advice? And I only heard from two people, Dave Sim and Dennis Kitchen.
Todd: Nice.
Jimmy: So I am always grateful for them that they took the time to write me for that. And now I'm grateful that he took the time to yell at me about Nancy.
Todd: In terms of closing out the Nancy discussion, I sent along a strip from, October 5, 1951.
Jimmy: Yeah, sure. This is the Todd's coda for the Nancy discussion. This is by Mister Charles Schulz in support of Bushmiller.
Todd: Yeah.
October 5, 1951. Shermie, Patty, and Charlie Brown are at, the druggists, and Shermie says, here they are over here. And in the next panel, we see they come up against the comic book rack, and they all say together, ah, comic books. And in panel three, we see them sitting on the ground reading their comics till their hearts content. Other issues just lying on the floor. And then, in the last panel, Charlie Brown says, if this druggist was any kind of a guy, he'd put in benches.
Michael: This is an actual strip that appeared.
Todd: This is a real Peanuts comic from 1951. You guys actually covered the day before and your 51 episodes. So you did October 4, but this is October 5. And if I could just direct your attention to panel two, the rack of comic books that they're all marveling over. in the bottom right corner, you see TikTok, which Peanuts ended up, in behind Nancy. And next to that is, what comic is that, Jimmy?
Jimmy: Oh, I actually can't read it.
Todd: I'm sorry. What is it? Nancy?
Jimmy: Oh, no, yeah, I said I saw Nancy.
Todd: Nancy.
Jimmy: Yep.
Todd: So, yeah, I just thought that was a nice little nod from Schulz, because by that point, Nancy was. Nancy was probably 20-25 years old by that point.
Jimmy: And, fresh as the day it started.
[Swoosh]
Jimmy: Now, the reason we brought you back as much as we are now absolute Nancy converts, is to discuss, something that I think is really interesting that happened in this season and that you have an interesting perspective on, and that is this season of Unpacking Peanuts. We hit the strips where Charles Schulz switched from religiously following the four panel a day format to switching it up, doing three panels, two panels, even single panels. And you have done the Poet, which is not 100% four panels, but it's got to be like 95% four panels. Right? What am I misunderstanding?
Todd: Yeah, no, it was. It was four panels for the first, like two years, probably. And then periodically, I will do, like, two big panels or three, you know, just to mix it up.
Harold: So you had an opportunity to think about this, this four panel versus.
Todd: And I usually will just change the format if, if I feel like drawing, because the Poet's very minimal. as far as the illustration goes, and sometimes I just want to draw a bunch of trees or something. And so I will think of a joke, that lets me do that, and then I'll have a nice big panel of them walking in the woods or something that lets me go crazy with the, line.
Jimmy: It's very cool. I love reading, the Poet, I have to say. I get two substacks every morning, one from you and one from, Michael there with Tangled River. And I love, I love the daily comic substack format. I get my humor strip and I get my adventure strip delivered right to my email. And it's just so fantastic. has that experience been good for you overall? Publishing directly to substack and reaching those readers that way?
Todd: I think so. I like it because it's people that want to actually see it, that sign up for it. I have thousands of followers on Instagram, but I think only 30 of them actually see it every day. So on substack, they'll get it. You know, they're guaranteed to get it. There's no algorithm that's going to hide it from them or bury.
Harold: Yeah, in a way, you kind of own that list in a way that, too can never have with Facebook or Instagram.
Todd: I, do really love that Idea of it going out every morning, which is, you know, how it's intended to be received.
Harold: Yeah.
Liz: What's your substack address?
Todd: It's toddbot. Dot substack.com. All my social media is just my website. ToddBot.com
Jimmy: Yeah, I love, I love the daily strip Idea. I love that it comes to your email. I think it's really an interesting opportunity for cartoonists because it's cool that graphic novels have become, such a pop culture phenomenon, just a part of our literary scene. That's really great. You know, for, for decades and decades, the, daily comic strip was really like the center of the cartooning universe. And without the newspapers, it seems like they struggled to find a way to make that transition to the modern era. And I think this is cool because, like you say, everyone who gets it to their email, at least, you know, theoretically is interested and signed up for it. So that's, that's awesome.
Liz: I just want to add, though I am married to a cartoonist, I don't read graphic novels all that often. And I love the substack strip, coming to my email every morning. It might be a way to reach new readers.
Jimmy: it absolutely is. I think you're spot on about that. I think it's, you know, I think people will start curating those lists almost because you could have your own daily comics page, which is, which is fantastic and very cool.
Jimmy: But as a cartoonist, having done this for so long, we decided what we wanted to do is give, you an assignment and say, hey, Todd, why don't you take a look at some of the strips that were, three panel numbers that Schulz did, and let's see what they would look like if we expanded them into a four panel format, which Todd did for us. I think what we're going to do is he sent us a document and a PDF. We're going to be able to put that up on the website. I think for, in terms of scholarship and fair use, we could put up on the obscurities page so you guys could go through it. But why don't we look at those strips now and then, see how the three panel version compares with the toddified four panel version. Sound good?
Harold: Cool.
Todd: Sure.
Jimmy: All right.
Liz: I like Toddified.
Todd: I love being a verb.
Jimmy: Okay, so here is what we're going to do. we are looking at these strips.
Jimmy: This is the first one we gave.
Jimmy: You, so you guys can follow along on the good old, website if you want. But this is from
July 4, 1988. Sally is, on the phone and she says, yes. To whom do you wish to speak? And then the second panel, she says, thank you, I'll get him. And then in the third panel, we see Charlie Brown sitting in his beanbag chair. And, Sally approaches him and she says, youm is whom?
Jimmy: So that's the three panel version. Todd, can you give us, your thinking of how you approach turning this into a classic style four panel peanut strip?
Todd: First, I picked these with that knowledge that I was going to try to intervene in them specifically. Cause there were some that I wanted to do that I couldn't figure out a way to expand that would make any difference. So this one I added, a transition panel of just Sally walking silently to find whoever she was going to get off the phone, because I felt like that would add a bit of suspense for what she was going to say or do. And, I just love that punchline, the youm. It made me laugh.
Michael: Yeah, it's weird. It's very subtle what it does, adding that extra panel. It's almost like a piece of music where there's just a little bit of. When the singing stops, there's like, sometimes the instruments play a bar or two. And then I think I would prefer the four panel strip.
Harold: I think I would prefer the three simply because you got to stay connected to whom. And one extra panel is one extra thing for you to forget that whom was in the first, panel. But that's why I. Otherwise, I think it works.
Jimmy: But I think if I were to do it, I might, go from panel two directly to that last panel, which is, connecting those two words, like Harold is saying. And then maybe add, just Charlie Brown in the, in the beanbag alone in the last panel and say something like, I never know what's going on.
Todd: I actually did. I did consider doing that and having him repeat it because that's sometimes like, youm is whom.
Harold: Or just youm?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: You know, something like that. Yeah.
Todd: Yeah.
Jimmy: All right, here is another one. This is from good old
March 16 in 1989. Charlie Brown is atop the mound. He's raring back for one of his famous fastballs, and he says, I must admit I'm nervous knowing our teacher is in her car. A wild pitch. Then he concludes with, maybe she didn't see that. Maybe it only made a small dent in her car.
Jimmy: And then. So let's see. So the toddified version. Take us through that.
Todd: Well, the big difference is I split up the third panel into two. So that there's, I don't know if you want to read it because it, it. They do read.
Jimmy: Right. Here's how we would read, it as the four panel.
So Charlie Brown's top the mound, he's rearing back, and he says, I must admit I'm nervous knowing our teacher is sitting in her car watching our game. In panel two, he says, whoops, a wild pitch. And in panel three, he looks off, into the distance and says, maybe she didn't see that. Then a very upset Charlie Brown. And panel four says, maybe they only made a small dent in her car.
Jimmy: By the way, just as we're doing this, I think if I can criticize Mister Schulz, I think adding some emphasis to the word small would have been helpful.
Harold: Really?
Jimmy: Because maybe it only made a small dent in her car versus maybe only made a small dent in her car.
Harold: You mean, like he would, he would bold it or italicize it, which he so rarely does.
Todd: Yeah, I think it's. I don't know if it needs the bold just because he's upset that it. The thing that adding the extra panel emphasized to me was that first he was, like, embarrassed that he threw a bad ball and he's like, maybe she didn't see it, then it hits her car. And then he says, maybe made a small dent in her car and is traumatized that he was excited this teacher was there to watch the game, is what he thought. And, then he causes property damage.
Michael: You put those extra lines around the eye.
Todd: Yeah.
Michael: Or was that from the previous strip where you saw that? He did that?
Todd: I did that.
Michael: Okay. Yeah. Definitely emphasizes that he's-- The horror is increasing.
Harold: Yeah. I prefer the four panel version here for. For the reasons Todd said. You know, it's two separate thoughts, and he's going to a different place. So having it each in its own panel, I think, does work better.
Todd: This is ramping it up a little bit.
Jimmy: And you get that. Really, in both versions, you get to keep that. Very interesting. Charles Schulz made up punctuation of two periods, two thirds of an ellipse.
Todd: Yeah.
Jimmy: Now, okay, we got two more examples.
September 14, 1988, we got Marcie and Peppermint Patty sitting in the classroom, and Marcie, or Peppermint Patty, passes a paper back to Marcie, and it says. And she says, read what I've written here, will you, Marcie? I'm afraid it may have gotten a little too intellectual. In panel two, we see Marcie reading it, and we're actually kind of, like, in front of Peppermint Patty, my three quarters view. And Peppermint Patty says, do you think maybe I should, in quotes, dumb it down? And Marcie says, no, I think it's dumb enough already. And Peppermint Patty sinks down in her chair and says, maybe I'll move my desk to the other side of the room.
So now, yeah. Okay, so this is interesting because you've switched. Not only did you add the panel, you switched how the perspective works. So talk us through that one.
Todd: Right. So in this one, panel two, I drew Marcie holding the paper as Peppermint Patty turns away from her and is pious and says, I'm afraid I may have gotten a little too intellectual. Like she's proud of her work. Panel three, I got rid of the turned around Peppermint Patty and just have a close up of Marcie reading the paper intently. And Peppermint Patty's off screen, off camera, saying, do you think maybe I should dumb it down? And then panel four is the same, with Marcie handing it back and saying, no, I think it's dumb enough already, and that I was torn on whether to remove Peppermint Patty from the panel of Marcie reading it. But I thought that, it made what Marcie says funnier if she's really intently studying what Peppermint Patty gives her meaning.
Harold: That that's more emphasis on it without Peppermint Patty looking behind her, at Marcie reading it.
Todd: Right, right. Also, it implies, you know, Peppermint Patty stays facing away from her because she's so proud of what she did. So she turns away is like, I'm afraid I may have gotten a little too intellectual. And in panel four, she's still facing away, but she's slumped down in her chair. It just seemed like it's taking the air out of her.
Jimmy: Yeah. I love this version of it. I really like the addition of the second panel to show her mood, I think works really well. I really like that.
Harold: Michael, what do you think of, the off screen dialogue in the third panel as Todd did it with Peppermint patties? Does that work okay for you, or do you feel like that's it stylistically, you should have the character speaking?
Michael: Well, he's established when adults speak, it' off panel. That didn't bother me at all.
Harold: Okay.
Todd: It was a tough call. Like, I I really did debate just leaving her there, but I felt like that emphasis made, I just. I I thought it was funnier when she says, it's dumb enough already. If it was just her serenely reading whatever nonsense.
Jimmy: Yeah. You're privately with Marcie there as she's. She's taking this in. Yeah.
Liz: Does it need Peppermint Pattu's final line?
Todd: I don't think it does. but I didn't want to remove the intended punchline.
Harold: It seems like Schulz often will not let insults to a character just live on their own. That seems to be something about him, that he will show the pain that it caused to the other character often through dialogue, as well as their visual response, which makes him unique in some ways, I think.
Jimmy: Yeah, I really like, this one. I thought this was the most successful of the four of them, and it really does show. But, you know, there is another part of this that it's really hard to quantify, and it's like, because I think you could look at these and go, you know, if he would have kept the four panel thing, maybe it would mean at least to the general population or to, you know, more casual fans, it would maintain, like, the Peanuts quality or, whatever that ineffable thing is. But we're missing the fact that he didn't want to do it anymore. Right, right.
Todd: He'd done it. He felt trapped by it. So I totally see why he would shift. Also, it saves time. It's less drawing, which is crucial.
Harold: I think that's the biggest thing.
Jimmy: As someone who does a daily strip, that's mostly for how much time do you think it would save? Percentage, let's say, like, how much percentage wise?
Todd: I mean, it depends on what's in that extra panel, right? It really does depend on what's in the, you know, if he's drawing both of them again, you know, that's more of, like, that drawing panel two took me longer than drawing panel three of this. Marcie, you know, it's like, yeah, it's tricky, of course, for him at this point. You know, he's barely penciling at all. So I would guess the time save would be negligible for someone who has drawn these characters from memory for so many years.
Harold: But I am guessing that that is the biggest thing, is it was just getting harder for him mixed with, the strips were getting smaller, and it was compromising how much space he was getting on the page in some ways.
Todd: Although the crazy thing to me is I hate lettering so much. I really, really hate lettering. And these three panel strips are so wordy because he's trying to squeeze everything that he wants in there. And Peanuts is a wordy strip. You know, the characters talk a lot, and so is mine. Like, my, I always kick myself in the butt when I have the Poet going off on some stupid tangent about, you know, an acorn or something, and I'm like, why did I write all those words? Now I have to letter all this nonsense.
Harold: I'm surprised you don't like it because you're very good at it, and you have a good consistency, what you do, but you won't turn it into a font or do some little cheat thing like that. You. You're going to do it by hand and.
Todd: Yeah, it's hand. It's hand done. I tried to do a font thing, and I just. I'm never happy with the spacing. Yeah, it's too much. It adds an extra level of work.
Jimmy: Okay. For me, because it adds an extra level of work for me, too. And no one understands that. Maybe you can explain it better, the font?
Todd: Yeah, because it's like, you have to do it. I mean, no matter how you letter, you've got to make sure the letters are where you want them to be, because when you're drawing a panel, you're making space for the word balloons. I always letter first, and, with my strip, there's a lot of repeated settings and stuff. So I kind of, when I write them, I know where the characters are going to be. So it's like I'm never worried about space, but, I do always letter first, and if I was doing it in some outside program, it's like I have to type it and then I have to bring it into whatever I'm using it in and make sure that all the settings are right, and then you have to move it around and it's just a bunch of extra stuff. Whereas, like, I'm drawing the Poet on my iPad, I would. I prefer drawing on paper, for the record. But the ease of doing a daily strip on the iPad, is why I do it specifically because of the lettering, because I can just letter across the panels. And I have, you know, my fake. For people who are curious, how comics are lettered, there's this little device called an Ames guide, and you can rule out the size of the letters that you need on your page with the spaces in between them so that they're all the same. On my iPad, and procreate, I have a separate layer that's just a bunch of pre ruled lines for letters. So I don't have. I don't need to get an Ames guide out and rule the lines. The lines are there and I can just get rid of them, but I'll just letter straight across those, and then I can just cut and drag in a matter of seconds, the letters to be perfectly centered where I want them to be. Whereas if you're doing it on paper, you've got to know in advance where they're going to be, because you pencil them all out first and I don't pencil out my lettering, I just letter.
Jimmy: Yeah, I've just started doing it exactly the way you describe, on the new Tanner comic I'm doing on substack. And, yeah, it's so fantastic. I love lettering digitally on the iPad, even though it's by hand, because I can't type. I hate typing. I don't like doing it. I don't like emailing. I don't like texting. I don't like any of it, right?
Jimmy: I don't like lettering by hand either, but I like it slightly more. I like doing all that stuff.
Harold: A font is unforgiving in the sense that it is what it is at the size it is. Now, you can go in and you can try to stretch this and change this, but then you may as well be doing right. It's a lot of work. Just looking at this strip with Peppermint Patty and Marcie, what's interesting to me is that. And even cartoonists, some cartoonists will do exactly. Most cartoonists will do exactly what you said, that Ames lettering guide. You would run the lines all the way across the panels so that they, you know, if you had a line three of dialogue in panel one versus line three of dialogue in panel three, they would be at exactly the same height in the strip. And Schulz doesn't do that. Schulz will mess with his lettering and size, and you can see it in the strip because in that second panel, where there's less wording and he has a fancier drawing with perspective of Peppermint Patty. Looking back on Marcie, the text is larger and it moves down in the space. So Schulz is very organic about his lettering versus. And sometimes we've seen strips where, like, he's squashed the lettering so much. Cause he has to. Because he just has so much to put in there. And some artists would hate that. It's like, oh, my gosh, the lettering looks so different from this panel to this panel. Schulz doesn't really care.
Todd: I don't think he used an Ames guide.
Jimmy: No, he didn't by this point.
Todd: No. Yeah, I think that because, there's interviews where he brags about how good he got at lettering to where he could just do it. because that's, like, one of his first gigs, I think, was lettering comics.
Harold: For Topix.
Todd: So I think he was just throwing down the words because he'll have him go behind the characters heads and stuff, which is something I would never do. And he has the balloons right up against the letters, which is also something else that I struggle with. And you can see, like, in the ones that I changed, I move the lettering around a little bit to make it more. More space sometimes.
Harold: Yeah. And Schulz will often. You would often have either left justify or right justify or centered. And you often see, on a line that Schulz. One of the lines is not any of those. We'll see it in the next strip with Lucy in the second panel, the word making, kind of in this weird nether space, it's not centered, but it's not left justified. And that is a sign that Schulz is, you know, he's eyeballing it as he goes. But if he had penciled it, he probably would have shifted, making over to make it more of a centered, thing.
Jimmy: Well, let's look at that one.
Todd: Also in that one he has the word balloon. The line of the word balloon dips in towards making there, which is not something that he does a whole lot. And I I wonder if that's because of the weird way the letters were. He was like, well, I'll just make the balloon match it a little better.
Harold: It's interesting. Yeah.
Jimmy: All right, so that strip is
February 3, 1989. Lucy and Charlie Brown are out at the thinking wall, and Lucy says, so, what do you think? And Charlie Brown answers, what difference does it make? You never listen anyway. To which Lucy replies, I was just making conversation. Charlie Brown says, when you make conversation, you have to listen, too. To which Lucy says, you do?
Now, let me read the toddified one, because this is an original punchline. Okay, so basically the exact same strip. So what do you think? What difference does it make? You never listen anyway. Lucy, I was just making conversation. Charlie Brown, when you make conversation, you have to listen to Lucy. You do. And then in the last panel, Lucy continues. Can I just give conversation?
Harold: So, huh? Did you. Did you feel any twinge? Bye. Adding something so Todd, to the Schulz strip or just like this feels right?
Todd: A bit of both. I mean, on my document, you'll see I put good grief on there because I felt like, you know, how dare I add on to something, already perfect? Because I do think you do is funny. But I also feel like, you know, with an extra panel, one of the things you can do is punch up your punchline so you get two punchlines. And this one, the joke came really easily to me. I basically wrote it as if Lucy was the Pigeon in, because that's some, like, I'm pretty sure I've told Jimmy this before. I feel like Pigeon has big Lucy energy sometimes. So that was really easy. And then the other difference in the panels is just in panel three, I kept Charlie Brown just looking like, I redrew Charlie Brown there so that he's just listening to Lucy say, you do. And then in panel four is when he does the eye roll. Can I just give conversation? And also, I put the emphasis on the word give in my own punchline, which, like we talked about a minute ago, it wasn't something Schulz did a whole lot. But sometimes I feel like it is a necessary move. And for that line, I thought it was more necessary than in the baseball one.
Harold: So you think that people might have read it with the wrong emphasis if they hadn't had a little help with, the bolding?
Todd: Yeah, it's just a way of making sure that it gets across the way that I was intending it to be specifically.
Jimmy: That's addictive.
Harold: Yeah. That's one thing I've noticed in Schulz is that my, tendency would be do the same thing to add a bold, added italic because I feel like the way I've written it, it could be read a couple different ways. And Schulz seems to be pretty good at somehow choosing the words so that maybe because he's so wordy, he's able to kind of direct you so that you follow his line of reading and he somehow seems to. Maybe it's just intuitive, but he pulls out the ones that could have multiple inflections and so that you're going to read it pretty much the way he probably intended it.
Liz: I'm not sure that’ “Can I just give conversation?” I think that that's how I'd read it if it wasn't bolded.
Jimmy: Yeah, me too.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Because it plays off the making conversation.
Jimmy: Huh?
Michael: Emphasizing the word making too, because that.
Jimmy: Would give it kind of a making conversation. Yeah.
Michael: Symmetry.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: Right.
Harold: Yeah, that's it.
Jimmy: That would really do it. Yeah. I was just making conversation. When you make conversation, you have to listen to. Can I just give conversation? Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Harold: the other thing I was thinking as we're, as we're kind of analyzing. Oh, what, what would I possibly do with this? I would have maybe so you wouldn't have to bold it or maybe you wouldn't have quite as much necessity as if it was. Can't I just give.
Todd: Which was a. My original one was why can't I Just give conversation?
Jimmy: Yeah, that's too.
Harold: Huh? Yeah.
Todd: But it's an art of removing things for me, so trying to get it down to less words.
Harold: Right. Yeah.
Michael: I think I would have inserted, a panel three of just Lucy reacting to the thinking about what Charlie Brown just said. Because when I first read this, I liked it, but I felt it came too quick. You have to listen to. You do.
Michael: I, thought if he, he says you have to listen to. She thinks about it.
Jimmy: Yep.
Todd: Right.
Harold: Yeah. Yeah. That's another way you could have potentially done it.
Todd: The reason I didn't do that. So I was, I was trying to come up with different ways of doing it, but yes, I agree.
Harold: Right. Yeah.
Todd: If I wasn't so pompous to make up my own punchline, I would have.
Michael: We made up a whole Peanuts strip, so.
Jimmy: Exactly. And that was your assignment.
Harold: I'd encourage everybody to go to unpackingpeanuts.com, click on our obscurities tab and check out these strips and let us know what you think. send us a message or call that old hotline and, let us know which of these worked for you or any insights you got, because it's really a fun exercise, to see these kind of alternative Peanuts.
Todd: It was definitely a fun practice.
Jimmy: Well, Todd, it was amazing having you and thank you for actually taking the time to do all this. I mean, it's one thing to ask people to come on and chat, but to give them a homework assignment, and have someone crush it like you did is really great, and I greatly appreciate it. And I love that we were able to get the full inside scoop on attack of the Nancy fans. Everybody needs to read the Poet every single day. Have it delivered to your mailbox, toddbot.substack.com. is that correct?
Todd: Yep. Two d's. T o d d b o t.
Jimmy: So do that. It's your pick Hit to click. Recommended by me. Todd, thanks again for coming. We really appreciate it, buddy.
Harold and Michael: Thanks, Todd.
Todd: Anytime. Thanks for having me.
Jimmy: We'll be back next week where we go back to our regular schedule of looking at the years as we're wrapping up the eighties here on Unpacking Peanuts.
So if you want to keep that conversation going between now and then, you can do it in the usual number of ways. You can do the good old fashioned email. We're unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com. you can also go over to our website. Remember that sign up for the Great Peanuts reread. That's important because then you can get our newsletter, which comes out once a month, and I'll let you know what's going on there. And also you can find us on social media. We're unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads and unpackingpeanuts on Facebook, Bluesky and YouTube. Other than that, just come back next week. We'll hang out, we'll talk Peanuts. Until then, from Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying be of good cheer.
HM&L : Yes, yes, be of good cheer.
VO: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen and Harold Buchholz produced and edited by Liz Sumner Music by Michael Cohen additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark for more from the show, follow unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads. Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, blue sky and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com. Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Todd: I love being a verb.
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