Peanuts #6
Kaboom! Comics
Created by: Charles M. Shulz
Writers: Paige Braddock, Vicki Scott, Art Roche, Riley Pell-Jenkins, Alexis E. Fajardo, Charles M. Shulz
Pencilers: Paige Braddock, Vicki Scott, Mona Koth, Charles M. Shulz
Letterer: Alexis E. Fajardo
Reviewer: Derrick Crow
Summary: This is an anthology of several short Peanuts one-shots, most of them are modern writers’ take on the iconic Peanuts gang and one of them belongs to Shulz himself, reprinted for everyone to enjoy.
Review: How does one truly review Peanuts? Peanuts is Peanuts and that’s all there is to it. Random adventures of this loveable group of friends and their hilarious everyday hijinks. Innocent, fun, sometimes more profound than we take away, and enjoyable; it’s slice of life at its finest. Growing up I read the Peanuts newspaper strips, and watched the cartoon movies. The movies are brilliant and always entertaining to watch, that is how they have worked their way into becoming an America tradition for every major holiday. But in this instance, we are discussing the comic. And with no prior knowledge of the previous 5 issues, I can say without a doubt that I didn’t feel like I needed to.
Because Peanuts doesn’t exist to have baggage of drama and story or kids growing up and having complex relationships; it exists to convey the innocence of the child’s mind we all wish we would never lose (and I plan on keeping mine). It is meant to entertain with every strip without the reader feeling like they missed anything crucial and can just jump in on the fun at any time. So, with all that being said, why did I feel as if this book was slightly boring?
Perhaps it is because I prefer the original comic strip? Or is it because I see no complete reason for these books than buy a bunch of stories in an issue, around 5-6, that one can read in less than 10 minutes? Hmmm… Or, is it because not all of these, in my opinion, completely caught the feel of the original comic by Shulz? Now, the comic in here that is by Shulz, does feel like classic Peanuts; because it is. There were at least two stories in this that I felt lacked the certain simplistic nature of Shulz’ original comics and thus weren’t very funny. Not to say I didn’t enjoy a few of these new editions to the Peanuts-verse, a few stories in here I did quite like, but it only goes to show that no one else can ever replace those who created a concept in the first place; not entirely anyways.
The art is top notch in all of this though, and does feel like Peanuts even with the cleaned up look it has that separates it from the more raw looking original works. I may not have always felt like I was reading Peanuts, but I always felt as if I was looking at Peanuts and that is always a plus. You can definitely tell the difference between the new stories and the original Shulz’ story when you compare them. Shulz’ artwork was much simpler and sort of sketchy, which I enjoy more over the new more polished look.
Overall new Peanuts isn’t completely up to snuff with the original just yet, it has good potential to be as I said, a few stories did feel like Peanuts, but I would much prefer personally if every story felt like Peanuts. If you’re going to pick this up, I would suggest doing it in a trade, so you can spend less money to get more stories and hopefully more good over the bad.
Final Score: 2.5 “Good Grief’s” out of 5.
Kaboom! Comics
Created by: Charles M. Shulz
Writers: Paige Braddock, Vicki Scott, Art Roche, Riley Pell-Jenkins, Alexis E. Fajardo, Charles M. Shulz
Pencilers: Paige Braddock, Vicki Scott, Mona Koth, Charles M. Shulz
Letterer: Alexis E. Fajardo
Reviewer: Derrick Crow
Summary: This is an anthology of several short Peanuts one-shots, most of them are modern writers’ take on the iconic Peanuts gang and one of them belongs to Shulz himself, reprinted for everyone to enjoy.
Review: How does one truly review Peanuts? Peanuts is Peanuts and that’s all there is to it. Random adventures of this loveable group of friends and their hilarious everyday hijinks. Innocent, fun, sometimes more profound than we take away, and enjoyable; it’s slice of life at its finest. Growing up I read the Peanuts newspaper strips, and watched the cartoon movies. The movies are brilliant and always entertaining to watch, that is how they have worked their way into becoming an America tradition for every major holiday. But in this instance, we are discussing the comic. And with no prior knowledge of the previous 5 issues, I can say without a doubt that I didn’t feel like I needed to.
Because Peanuts doesn’t exist to have baggage of drama and story or kids growing up and having complex relationships; it exists to convey the innocence of the child’s mind we all wish we would never lose (and I plan on keeping mine). It is meant to entertain with every strip without the reader feeling like they missed anything crucial and can just jump in on the fun at any time. So, with all that being said, why did I feel as if this book was slightly boring?
Perhaps it is because I prefer the original comic strip? Or is it because I see no complete reason for these books than buy a bunch of stories in an issue, around 5-6, that one can read in less than 10 minutes? Hmmm… Or, is it because not all of these, in my opinion, completely caught the feel of the original comic by Shulz? Now, the comic in here that is by Shulz, does feel like classic Peanuts; because it is. There were at least two stories in this that I felt lacked the certain simplistic nature of Shulz’ original comics and thus weren’t very funny. Not to say I didn’t enjoy a few of these new editions to the Peanuts-verse, a few stories in here I did quite like, but it only goes to show that no one else can ever replace those who created a concept in the first place; not entirely anyways.
The art is top notch in all of this though, and does feel like Peanuts even with the cleaned up look it has that separates it from the more raw looking original works. I may not have always felt like I was reading Peanuts, but I always felt as if I was looking at Peanuts and that is always a plus. You can definitely tell the difference between the new stories and the original Shulz’ story when you compare them. Shulz’ artwork was much simpler and sort of sketchy, which I enjoy more over the new more polished look.
Overall new Peanuts isn’t completely up to snuff with the original just yet, it has good potential to be as I said, a few stories did feel like Peanuts, but I would much prefer personally if every story felt like Peanuts. If you’re going to pick this up, I would suggest doing it in a trade, so you can spend less money to get more stories and hopefully more good over the bad.
Final Score: 2.5 “Good Grief’s” out of 5.