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"Until people change. Until they take a pill to become perfect people and all have perfectly balanced personalities ... I think he's given them a touchstone," she said. "He's given them something to let them know that they're all right." Fantagraphics Books Inc. is producing a series of volumes -- each with two years worth of Peanuts comics
-- to let fans read the strip every day. On Oct. 14, the Peanuts cast also will launch a new "Great Pumpkin Island" on Poptropica, a popular game website for millions of tweens who may be less familiar with Charlie Brown and his friends. And the Peanuts gang has come to life online with Flash-animated comics. Next year's film will feature new animations created by a team involving Charles Schulz's son, Craig, and "Pearls Before Swine" cartoonist Stephan Pastis. Even with the more modern trappings, though, the animations have maintained their simplistic roots. Jeannie Schulz has said in the past that computer-generated "Peanuts" characters just wouldn't quite look right. Before establishing a permanent place in Washington with the portrait unveiled last week, Schulz brought his characters to the Smithsonian in 1985 for a visit for a TV series called "This is America, Charlie Brown." Lucy marveled at seeing a comic strip with their names on a museum wall, and Charlie Brown found his name and Snoopy's on the Apollo 10 capsules at the space museum. Schulz was a history buff and considered himself an Eisenhower Republican, but he mostly stayed away from politics in his cartoons. He included timely issues, though, such as the environment, race, bullying and other themes. But if he visited Washington today, Mendelson said, Schulz would be taken aback by the bitter political tone. "I think he would be appalled," Mendelson said, "and I think he would have poked fun at it in the comic strip." ___ Online: Peanuts Inc.: http://peanuts.com/ National Portrait Gallery: Great Pumpkin Countdown Game:
http://www.npg.si.edu/
http://greatpumpkincountdown.com/
[Associated
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