Peanuts: not just grimmer than you imagine

[james_davis_nicoll]

Grimmer than you can imagine.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Then there's 3eanuts, which takes Peanuts with its usual formula, three panels of grim followed by a joke, and lops off the joke: 3eanuts.com

[brooksmoses]

Interestingly, I think that chop-off-the-fourth-panel formula makes this one less grim.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree. This one is the rare reversal--three panels of normal and then a simultaneous laugh-but-grim fourth.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I read Peanuts basically to tell Charlie Brown that I love him.

[vass]

Obligatory Smiths response.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Not grimmer than I can imagine.

Not at that age.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

...yeah. Some days, it was exactly like that.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

You think Peanuts is bad, there's a manga called Watamote, or No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular, that's a slice of life story about a girl with crippling social anxiety disorder. A typical chapter consists of her going to McDonalds after school and panicking when some kids from class show up because if they recognize her, they'll tell everyone in class that she's a loser with no friends and everyone will make fun of her.

For an extra slice of grimness, the main character isn't even that likeable -- she thinks any girl more popular than her is a slut, torments her younger brother for being cool, and fantasizes about her class getting chosen for Battle Royale.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

It's also an anime.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I managed to stick with it for half a season before I realised her cute junior-high friend, the one she's always on the phone with, is actually imaginary. Real slit-your-wrists comedy.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

No, Yuu-chan is absolutely real. Not that it makes her existence less despair-inducing -- having your best friend from middle school suddenly become popular, get a boyfriend and not have time for you is even worse than not having any friends to begin with.

Really, you want to see how depressing the series can be, you need to see episode 10/chapters 19 and 27.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Who else ever saw Yuu-chan or spoke to her other than Tomoko?

OK it's a theory but it fits...

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

During the school festival, Tomoko tells Yuu that she had to dress up as a maid for the class cafe. Later on Yuu brings it up where one of Tomoko's classmates can hear. The classmate gets a WTF expression and Tomoko has to hurry Yuu out of the room before the classmate can expose the lie.

Recent chapters have also introduced Komiyama, a girl that Tomoko can't stand but who was also friends with Yuu in middle school. She's a major character in the 4-koma prequel series, and the latest chapter of the main series featured her and Tomoko having lunch with Yuu.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

If that's Japanese comedy, that's downright scary.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

It's as representative of Japanese comedy as Natural Born Killers is of American, or The Office of British. Plus, a significant portion of its fanbase is American -- it first became popular on 4chan, then Japanese blogs started running articles along the lines of, "Why the hell do Americans like this?" leading to an increase in Japanese sales. It's on graphic novel bestseller lists in both countries.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Here's an American who is equally puzzled...it just seems so relentlessly depressing.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, that's how black comedies work.

[ilya187.livejournal.com]

I guess I have to take your word for it -- that's how black comedy works for those for whom it works. Black comedy never worked for me.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

There's also Welcome to the NHK.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think this works in a couple of different ways. I was not a generally sad kid, but I was a big worrier, and I remember hearing people talk about the elusive nature of true happiness and the near-impossibility of finding it so often that I wondered if the thing I felt occasionally that I identified as "happiness" was some kind of fake version, and if I had never actually felt the real kind they were talking about.

The weird concept of "true love," a rare thing that apparently 999 out of 1000 people have never experienced no matter how much they think they love somebody, is similar.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

But do True Scotsmen experience True Love?

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

My favorite's the one where Chuck's lying in bed, thinking, "Sometimes I lie awake at night staring into empty infinity wondering if there's any meaning to life. Then a voice tells me, 'Stop looking at me, you're making me nervous.'"

[david wilford (from livejournal.com)]

Peanuts was my gateway drug into existentialism.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/44/Sartre_and_Peanuts

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Exactly! "What is happiness?" is only as unhappy a question as you make it.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

"'What is happiness?' said jesting Sartre, and would not stay for an answer."

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

If Sartre's full line had been "Life begins after despair, and also try not to be an asshole," his philosophy would have been more complete.

[seawasp]

I'm sorry, Funky Winkerbean beats the hell out of Peanuts there. At least Peanuts doesn't set out to grind *every* *single* *character* into a mass of broken glass.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Charlie Brown would be the happy, optimistic character of the Funkyverse.

[seawasp]

Yeah, if you really want Grimdark Peanuts (but filled with awesome of doom) you look at Weapon Brown.

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

ObNicoll: Note the grim meathook at 35 seconds into the video. Extra points for its, uhh, linkage to floating voluptuous bimbosity.

[seawasp]

I actually didn't watch the video, I've just read the comic, or a large portion of it. It's weird; I think it's totally awesome, but it's one of the few things I can say that about while also saying "I'm really not sure if I LIKE it or not".

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Well, there was a Peanuts book, Happiness is a warm puppy. Each pair of pages was an illustrated "Happiness is...". I don't recall if Charlie Brown was shown in that book.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

He was.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Chapter 4, "Negative Examples".

[nojay.livejournal.com]

"Captain Vimes always wanted a puppy for Hogswatchnight when he was a kid. Actually anything with meat on it would have done."

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

For profound try Calvin and Maud'Dib:

http://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/