How Charles M Schulz's Peanuts became a billion-dollar empir. 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' ：celebrates 50 years of 'Peanuts' ...Charles M. Schulz；SNOOPY 65歲；冷彬...Cartoon Characters Get Big Makeover

How Charles M Schulz's Peanuts became a billion-dollar empire: https://bbc.in/3Bx61Qq

'A Charlie Brown Christmas' is a timeless Christmas tradition. Why does it endure? Because the title character understands what Christmas is all about, writes Stephen Lind in WSJ Opinion

You’re a Merry Man, Charlie Brown

In The Wall Street Journal, Stephen Lind writes that the 50-year-old Charlie Brown Christmas TV tradition endures because Chuck knows the reason for the season.

WSJ.COM|由 STEPHEN LIND 上傳

Harvard University

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” is an unforgettable blend of jazz and carols that has enchanted listeners for 50 years. One of those listeners reflects on the inspiration.

Staff musician celebrates 50 years of 'Peanuts' Christmas music

As a boy growing up in West Virginia, Harvard's Brad Conner loved Vince Guaraldi’s music.

NEWS.HARVARD.EDU

SNOOPY 65歲生日快樂
20多年收集逾萬件 體會人生哲學

2015年12月12日

冷彬(右)和冷靜姐妹倆10多歲愛上史努比後，痴狂收集，現有逾萬件各式物品，她們的生活裡，史努比全都參與。




1950年《花生漫畫》誕生，一隻酷狗、一群怪癖小孩，紅遍全球，他們收服冷彬的心，她花20多年時間收集逾萬件物品，因為史努比，她寫書、翻譯、和舒茲太太成為好友，並以哲學家的精神、鑽研劇情、對白、人物角色和性格，她說，查理布朗永遠放不起風箏、棒球比賽總是慘敗，但他不在意，總說明天再來，「舒茲想表達，永不放棄的人生態度。」今年，史努比65歲生日，全球慶賀活動不斷，除了賣歡樂、賣可愛，更賣那永不熄滅的樂觀態度。採訪╱彭蕙珍 攝影╱唐紹航、福斯影片提供


「查理布朗總是被說成魯蛇，但在現實中，查理布朗是個贏家，因為他永不放棄。」克雷格舒茲（作者查爾斯舒茲”Charles M. Schulz”的兒子）說。這部替小人物發聲的《花生漫畫》（Peanuts）於1950年10月2日於報上連載後，立刻博得讀者認同，並開始它走紅全球的傳奇。

史努比收藏家冷彬說：「漫畫裡面講的是『失敗』，查理布朗打棒球永遠是慘敗、風箏總是放不起來、踢不到足球，雖然重覆失敗，他總是說，我們還是要加油！漫畫讓我們從失敗和挫折裡解脫，並一而再、再而三的站起來。」




「史努比多到像故宮」

10多歲時冷彬和姐姐冷靜，因家裡不能養狗，將感情轉移到史努比－這隻酷酷的獵犬身上，「那時媽媽買很多卡通人物的東西，我們特別喜歡史努比，只要是他的東西都捨不得用，文具、貼紙、衛生紙、餅乾包裝盒，都很愛惜，還保留到現在，所以量很驚人。」
當她接觸到漫畫後，以哲學家的精神、鑽研每段劇情、對白、人物角色和性格，她形容：「我姐就是一般人，看史努比只是笑到天翻地覆。」冷靜大她5歲，妹妹出生時，她完全不能接受，冷彬說：「姐姐就像漫畫裡的露西，很自我。」從漫畫她看到自己。
因為姐妹的興趣，家人也投入史努比收藏，冷彬笑道：「全家的生活記憶，都與史努比有關，從T恤、包包，到日用品，只要有史努比圖案的，我們都有；媽媽說家裡的史努比多到像故宮，3個月換1次，可以換10年。」 

寫書翻譯 傳頌經典

2000年因收藏史努比走紅，隔年冷彬接受出版社邀請，撰寫史努比收藏書籍。其後赴紐約讀書，為寫書，她到史努比博物館（Charles M. Schulz Museum）朝聖，和舒茲太太成為好友，「她把我當成是很好的年輕朋友」，兩人情誼延續至今。
後來，她翻譯史努比漫畫，對漫畫如數家珍的她表示，漫畫經典場景的藏品最有意義，如露西心理諮商小舖，「她是非常自我的小女生，舒茲讓一個跋扈、頭腦簡單、個性明快的人當心理諮商師，可能是想表達，懶得跟你多說，過日子不要想這麼多。」
「查理布朗和奈勒斯依在圍牆、天南地北的聊天，內容很無聊但又幽默，非常小大人。」她指出，這個場景在舒茲出生地－明尼蘇達州聖保羅市，有一個放大版，粉絲去朝聖時可以在圍牆和他們合照。 

生日必敗 首推瓷器

今年是史努比65歲生日，全球有許多慶賀活動，並推出周邊商品，她推薦粉絲購買最好入手的瓷器，包括杯、盤。今年推出的瓷器，印製的圖案相當特別，是史努比和查理布朗1950年首度現身漫畫的模樣。
她解釋：「角色改版多次，1990年後才是現在看到的模樣。」舒茲生前，只授權1990年後的圖案，復古版是近年因應粉絲要求才推出。
《花生漫畫》在全球擁有數億粉絲，舒茲更因此躋身富翁之列，但自卑的他卻不相信這件事。冷彬說：「他不是那麼有自信的人。」然而，這樣一位悲觀的人，卻在戰後用那麼大的幽默感去嘲笑世界，更用漫畫、卡通，陪伴世界各地大人、小孩，度過無數歡樂時光。 

。。。。Thought from Germanb

《德國人看花生》

德國連鎖書店《Thalia》最近與美國《花生漫畫》(Peanuts) 合作，推出一系列產品，從漫畫書到毛公仔也有，亦有許多各適其適的家具用品。

《花生漫畫》在世上差不多無人不曉，在香港《星島日報》亦連載多年；而德國人欣賞這漫畫，因其創作者舒爾茨 (Charles M. Schulz) 是德裔而有種特別連繫。

舒爾茨生於上世紀二十年代，父親是生於德國東部的理髮師，德文是母語。舒爾茨在美國出生長大，小時候已經愛繪圖。青年時代正值二戰，他被召入伍到歐洲參戰，參與了解放慕尼黑附近的達豪 (Dachau) 集中營。可說他亦是德國人所稱的「時代見證人」，見證過納粹對待猶太人和異見分子之慘酷。

舒爾茨說最有印象的，是有次遇到個德軍士兵時步槍卻忘了上膛，可幸的是這士兵主動投降。這位漫畫家說起這段參戰歷史總是非常自豪，亦很榮幸獲得國家勛章。

這位剛退伍的年輕人，報讀了繪畫進修課程。1950 年起開始創作《花生漫畫》，裡面的每個角色都令人難以忘懷—查理布朗懵懂而善良、史諾比精明而幽默、連奈斯執著而有藝術天份。這些角色都是舒爾茨的自述與觀察，隱含了他的自我。

舒爾茨那代德裔美國人，是十九世紀末許多德國人遠渡大西洋移美歷史的續篇，亦可說是最後一代感受到這份淵源的人。從 1848 年至一戰，就有超過 600 萬德意志人移美。裡面有支持德國共和革命的人，有因為經濟理由移民者，亦有因為國內水災和農作物失收因而不得不另覓生計者。

一戰時美國瀰漫反德情緒，一些地區禁止德文課並焚燒德文書籍，很多德裔人只好融入英語主流文化。舒爾茨在一戰結束後不久出生，父親雖為德裔，家中卻講英文。除了姓氏外，舒爾茨身上的德國痕跡不多。然而從其作品中可看到德國的根。施奈達很喜歡彈奏貝多芬，亦曾與露西爭論貝多芬作品裡的德文冠詞應用哪性別。

今天許多有德國姓氏的第五六代德裔美國人，都不再講德文，與德國沒有聯繫。舒爾茨的漫畫，展露美國社會人人互信、善良友愛的那面，亦滲集德國人喜愛的哲學反思，是德美兩文化交集的一闕佳品。

(圖: Wikipedia)

。。。

查理布朗和奈勒斯2人依在圍牆聊天，內容無聊但又幽默，有些對談很小大人。這個場景在聖保羅市中心的Landmark Plaza有一個放大版，提供粉絲合照。

露西心理諮商小舖，在漫畫中很多人會向露西吐苦水，她的回答很白痴、好笑，很直率，也許在表達過日子不要想這麼多。

校車是很重要的場景，等校車時角色有很多對話。在美國購得的日本製商品，2005年，購入價約1000元。

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65周年紀念商品。是史努比和查理布朗1950年首度現身漫畫的模樣，盤子加杯子，購入價約600元。

史努比漫畫。2004年5月起推史努比全集，1年出版2本，2016年4月出版最後1本。冷彬為中文版翻譯，台灣只翻了4本。

BEST FRIEND。舒茲過世後，他的出生地明尼蘇達州聖保羅市，做了1個約250公分高銅像，此為縮小版，限量1000份，購入價1000多元。

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【認識史努比漫畫】

●源起：
1950年10月2日《花生漫畫》(Peanuts)開始連載，史努比出現在漫畫問世後的第2天，因此粉絲認為他的生日是10月4日，但漫畫裡曾說是8月10日
●作者：
查爾斯．舒茲(Charles Schulz，1922~2000)，2000年過世漫畫停刊，共畫了50年
●成績：
2000年停刊時，漫畫擁有約3.5億讀者，分布在全球21國，約2600份不同的報紙
●其它重要角色：
•查理布朗(CHARLIE BROWN)，史努比的主人，什麼事都做不好的男孩子
•露西(LUCY)，自我的女孩，以為世界是繞著她轉
•奈勒斯(LINUS)，露西的弟弟，無法離開從小陪伴他的毛巾
•謝勒德(SCHROEDER)，藝術家，經常彈鋼琴，常將貝多芬掛在嘴邊 

【冷彬小檔案】

年齡：1978年生（37歲）
學歷：台大社會系社工組畢業、美國紐約哥倫比亞大學社工系碩士
經歷：
●24歲：撰寫《我們的史努比收藏》
●26歲：翻譯《Peanuts漫畫全集》 

Cartoon Characters
Get Big Makeover
For Overseas Fans

Powerpuff Girls' Leggy Look
Wows Viewers in Japan;
A Brown Snoopy Is Axed

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and AMY CHOZICK
October 16, 2007; Page A1

TOKYO -- Big round heads and tiny bodies make the Powerpuff Girls instantly identifiable to their fans in America. The preteen karate superheroes star in one of the top-rated shows on cable's Cartoon Network.

Last year, though, the "Powerpuff Girls" showed up in Japan with a whole new look. On "Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z," the heroines have grown up, sprouted long legs and wear skirts well above their knees. In the original American storyline, the girls were created of sugar, spice and everything nice; their Japanese counterparts are normal girls who acquire superpowers from a chemical reaction initiated by a rice cake.

The original Powerpuff Girls, top. Their Japanese 'transcreation,' bottom.

Once, American entertainment companies exporting characters just dubbed them into other languages. But in recent years, Asia has become the testing ground for character reinvention, a process called "transcreation."

The idea is to help characters designed with one audience in mind to really resonate in another culture.

Marvel Entertainment Inc. and Gotham Entertainment introduced a transcreated "Spider-Man" to the Indian market in 2004, although the original had been familiar there for a long time.

There, Spidey's alter ego, Peter Parker, is known as Pavitr Prabhakar. Spidey gains his powers from a mysterious yogi rather than a radioactive spider. When fighting crime, he sports a traditional loincloth.

Spidey also inspired one of the region's first transcreations. In 1978, the Japanese media company Toei turned Peter Parker into a racing champion named Yamashiro Takuya, who wears a bracelet that gives him the powers of a spider. His alter ego "Supaidah Man" controls a giant transforming robot to battle an enemy named Professor Monster.

Disney has had a hit in China with its "Cuties" line of Mickey Mouse and friends featuring tiny eyes, button noses and the almost-not-there mouths of Japan's Hello Kitty. Sometimes the cutie Minnie even carries a cellphone. Disney came up with the design six years ago in Japan, and now it's a top seller among preteens in China who didn't grow up with the original Mickey.

Adults like Sarah Chen, a 23-year-old graduate student in Shanghai, like them, too. "They are so cute and sweet, just like a little baby," says Ms. Chen, who first discovered the Disney cuties online and eventually purchased a sweater with the modified Mickey Mouse on it.

Sesame Workshop

"Sesame Street" arrived in India last summer after swapping Big Bird for Boombah (center), an aristocratic lion fond of bhangra, a style of dancing often seen in Bollywood films.

Most media companies acknowledge the need to localize their fare. While there's still a global audience for "Tom and Jerry" reruns and Hollywood blockbusters, American imports don't top the TV ratings in most non-English-speaking markets. Transcreation nods to that need for local relevance.

"There are very few things that work everywhere," says Orion Ross, a vice president of creative at Time Warner's Turner Networks in Asia. "Places with strong national identities, like Japan and India, need adaptation and change," he says.

For some time-tested characters, change doesn't come easily. Disney tweaked Mickey into "Cutie" form, but still insists that only Western women can play Cinderella and Snow White at Tokyo and Hong Kong Disneylands. A Disney spokeswoman says, "These performers bring the animated roles to life and are therefore cast to most closely resemble the onscreen characters....It's about remaining true to the original animated feature."

The family of Charles M. Schulz, the creator of "Peanuts" who died in 2000, forbids any changes to his comic strip. "There is no adapting Peanuts," says a spokeswoman for United Media, the New York company that distributes the feature to newspapers around the world.

Sometimes, though, changes slip in under the radar. The Times of India printed the Peanuts strip with the dog Snoopy painted brown. After the Wall Street Journal asked about that, a United Media spokeswoman said it was a "coloring error" that would be corrected. Now, Snoopy is white in the Indian newspaper, as he is in the U.S.

Ratan Barua, senior cartoon colorist for the Times in New Delhi, says coloring Snoopy brown was his idea. "I thought he should be brown," he says. While he has complied with the distributor's request to adhere to white, he says the result is "not very good."

Characters occasionally thrive despite their foreignness. When Nickelodeon looked into bringing SpongeBob SquarePants to Japan, market research said the show was bound to flop. Japanese viewers were believed to favor characters whose appearance exudes warmth and comfort, a concept known in Japanese as iyashi. Iyashi characters -- typically round, with no mouth and small eyes -- rose to prominence in Japan during the long-running economic slump that began in the early 1990s, when people were anxious and uncertain about the future.

SpongeBob, with his square body, huge mouth, buckteeth, big bug eyes and somewhat annoying personality, was the antithesis of iyashi. But viewers didn't mind: Nearly two million households soon tuned into the show every day. One thing that may have helped is that SpongeBob lives in an undersea world without humans and overt cultural references. "There is very little about SpongeBob that is 'American,'" says Cyma Zarghami, president of the Nickelodeon MTV Networks Kids and Family Group.

When Craig McCracken created the Powerpuff Girls show, he deliberately gave it what he thought was a "Japanese look." But when the show first aired in Japan in 2001, it failed to attract a wide audience. So Cartoon Network decided to reinvent the characters to boost its appeal in Japan, an idea Mr. McCracken welcomed.

In their transcreation, Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles got Japanese names and the lives of typical Japanese junior-high-school students. Since Japanese kids like to dress up like their favorite characters, the girls got more realistic outfits, with miniskirts, matching vests and hip-hugging belts.

Toei Co., the Japanese animation house brought in to help rework the characters, kept the original Powerpuff premise of crime-fighting girls with superhuman powers. To appeal to a preference among Japanese children for longer, more dramatic plots, it made the seven- to 11-minute shows 15 to 20 minutes long. It also gave them a common Japanese theme: accepting people who are different.

"Monsters can be anyone who is different from us. If we change our attitude, they can become our friends," says Hiromi Seki, a producer at Toei who helped create the show. That's a particularly relevant message in Japan, where the pressures among children to conform are very intense.

In one episode, an evil character threatens to bring about an eruption of Mount Fuji that would make Tokyo unbearably hot and spark global climate change. In another episode, a heartbroken performer of traditional kabuki theater turns into a monster and wreaks havoc on his community.

"In Japan, girly love themes are a must," Ms. Seki says. When "Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z" was launched in Japan a year ago, the executives at Cartoon Network soon realized that the revamped plots and skimpier outfits not only attracted young girls, they also broadened the audience to include animation-obsessed adult men known in Japan as otaku, or geeks, who were also fans of the original.

So the network came out with special consumer goods like bookmarks, limited-edition DVDs and pop music targeted at viewers like Hironobu Kamata, a 42-year-old manager of a copyright office in Tokyo. Mr. Kamata wakes up every Saturday morning to watch the Powerpuff Girls.

His favorite character is Miyako Goutokuji, the blond girl known as Bubbles in the U.S. "I love it all! The characters are so cute," says Mr. Kamata.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com and Amy Chozick at amy.chozick@wsj.com