Also, Elton John is mentioned in the March 8th, 1978 strip.
Lah dee dah, readin’ the Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 book, mmm hmm mmm…WHA–!?
(Here’s the full strip.)
I think I’ve mentioned before that seeing real celebrity names in Peanuts always catches me off-guard. I realize that it’s not like this is something Schulz never did, but it’s just that…well, I’m not sure how to put it, exactly. Maybe it’s that Peanuts was just so much of its own little world that the occasional intrusion from outside really stands out. Like the celebrity name-dropping, or the Vietnam reference in the strip I pointed out yesterday, or…okay, I was going to point out the Disco Beagle strips (scroll down on that page to see the rest) (EDIT 5-31-11): strips are non longer there, as the official Peanuts strip archive has been shut down) as another kind of oddball thing to find in the Peanuts milieu, but let’s face it, those strips are fantastic.
Anyway, Peanuts…I have, won’t you?
In other news:
- I’d like to thank the folks who were nice enough to get me mentioned three times in Tom Spurgeon’s “Name Five Writers About Comics You Like” survey. That was a very welcome surprise, especially since I usually feel like I’m not so much writing about comics as flailing about wildly, slamming my forehead against the keyboard and hoping something halfway coherent results. Anyway, thanks to those good people, and to all of you, for continuing to come back and encourage this sort of behavior.
- Now here’s someone who knows his stuff…and it’s a six year old little stuffed bull by the name of Bully, who’s taking you on a whirlwind tour of Marvel Comics’ many publishers. Pack a lunch, it’s a long trip!
- Hey, you guys like awesome stuff that is free, right? And presumably you like reading about comic books, unless you’re coming here for my cooking tips and frank relationship advice, which, well, more pity you. Anyhoo, all four issues of the legendary comics ‘zine The Imp are available for download in PDF format at the publisher’s webpage, entirely gratis. Each issue devoted to a specific topic (Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Jack Chick, and naughty Mexican comics), and each issue is great reading.
- One of my readers, the presumably-pseudonymous Glitch Girl, sent me an email yesterday morning altering me to the Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary Edition CD, featuring DC-related theme songs and other music from the past few decades. Of particular note is the track Glitch Girl was emailing me about:
“22. Swamp Thing – Christopher Stone (1991)
– Previously unavailable. Digitally remastered. From the live-action TV show ‘Swamp Thing: The Series.'”Granted, it’s not this Swamp Thing theme song, but it’ll do, it’ll do.
And as someone mentions in the comments at the DCU blog, it’s a damned shame this song isn’t on the disc:
Well, there’s always Volume 2. - Because my Twitter pals demanded it:
ULTRA THE VOTE: 
OR 
OR
Write-in vote for Ultra-Humanite.
Oh my god, Sally Brown has Shi’ar hair. I’ve never noticed before and now I can’t unsee it.
I understand the CD was going to leave a few things off, but they have the JLU theme on there and not the regular Justice League. Kind of a fail there.
Is it just me, or do the “Peanuts” links not work?
I don’t think the Sh’iar have hair. I think it’s supposed to be feathers.
The links to the individual strips aren’t working for me either. And it’s not just today’s strips; the ones that definitely were working yesterday aren’t working now. But the embedded strip is still showing up in yesterday’s post, which is somewhat mysterious.
What about ULTRAMITE MARVEL?
It couldn’t be any more disappointing than ULTIMATE MARVEL, right?
…Right?
*sigh*
GAH!
TYPO effed up my (lame) joke.
ULTRAMATE… not UltramIte.
Ulthough Ultra-Mite could be a cool little dude to pal around with Bat-Mite.
ok. I suck.
The problems with the Peanuts strip links appear to be at comics.com…hopefully it’ll clear up soon.
It sounds like you’ve subscribed to the Myth of the Timeless Peanuts.
Which is not to say that there isn’t much about Peanuts which is timeless. But a lot of folks seem shocked when they come upon some contemporary pop culture reference in Peanuts, because Peanuts Didn’t Do That. After all, they grew up reading the Fawecett Crest or Holt Rinehart Winston reprint books, and didn’t run into pop culture references there…
But what really appears to have happened is that the editors at Holt, who were not doing complete strip reprints, selected against those with such contemporary references. And that’s warped everyone’s perception.
(There has been some suggestion that whenever Schulz wanted to meet some celebrity, he dropped their name into the strip, making it likely he would hear from them. I cannot confirm that, of course… but this strip hardly argues against it.)
How could anyone not vote for Ultra the Multi-Alien? I bet Ultraa’s relatives here on Earth-Prime voted for him.
REAL AMERICANS VOTE FOR THE FREAKISH MULTI-ALIEN.
References to contemporary sports figures were pretty common in Peanuts. Schulz must really have wanted to meet that Joe Shlabotnik guy. And I had to look up “Miss Frances” to see if that was a real person after a few mentions in the mid-1950s strips.
I think the weirdest one was the 1971 Bob Dylan reference. When I first saw a copy of that one it was the only time I felt compelled to check the library’s microfilm archive of the local paper to see if it was real and if any of the surrounding strips had anything related (the answers were Yes and No).
Not clicking through to the full strip, I am choosing to believe that Sally and Lucy are talking about why Captain America is out of touch with the 1970’s.
Yeah, sports figures definitely show up all the time. Isn’t Sam Snead mentioned like once a month in Peanuts?
My fave of the pop culture references is the one I discuss here, a Star Trek reference years after the struggling TV series had gone, but mere weeks after (and more importantly, drawn weeks before) the first Star Trek convention revealed the series to be a far larger continuing cultural phenomenon than anyone had detected.
How could one not love the Multi-Alien?
I love Ultra the Multi-Alien, but my heart will always belong to Ultraa. There, I said it.
The Metamorpho song is the grooviest thing ever, even if you HATE Metamorpho. At one time, I had a remix of it that included dialogue from the adventure. Mind-warping.
And Mike, you are totally one of my favorite writers about comics, too! (Yes, I am a total suck-up.)
Many, many thanks for the link to THE IMP and its .PDF downloads. I think my jones for obsessive comics journalism is taken care of for the Labor Day weekend.
Oh course I know who those celebrities are. They’ve been on bubblegum cards.
heh, a double mention. Cool. Glad you liked the link. I saw that on the list and immediately thought of here. -GG