WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service has announced several additions to the 2022 stamp program first announced last fall. All stamp designs are preliminary and subject to change. Additional details, including issue dates and locations, will be announced later.

Headlining the new additions is the Charles M. Schulz Centennial 2022.
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/usps-reveals-charles-schulz-centennial-stamps/

On 5/3/2022 4:58 PM, D.D.Degg wrote:
>
> WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service has announced several additions to the 2022 stamp program first announced last fall. All stamp designs are preliminary and subject to change. Additional details, including issue dates and locations, will be announced later.
>
> Headlining the new additions is the Charles M. Schulz Centennial 2022.
> https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/usps-reveals-charles-schulz-centennial-stamps/

Cool! Personally, I would have liked to have seen Rerun or even
Spike instead of Pig-pen, but you can't have everything...

---
Tim Chow

On 2022-05-07 02:27:25 +0000, Timothy Chow said:
> On 5/3/2022 4:58 PM, D.D.Degg wrote:
>>
>> WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service has announced several additions
>> to the 2022 stamp program first announced last fall. All stamp designs
>> are preliminary and subject to change. Additional details, including
>> issue dates and locations, will be announced later.
>>
>> Headlining the new additions is the Charles M. Schulz Centennial 2022.
>> https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/usps-reveals-charles-schulz-centennial-stamps/
>>
>
> Cool! Personally, I would have liked to have seen Rerun or even
> Spike instead of Pig-pen, but you can't have everything...

The one's they've chosen are the main original characters that are best
known (except perhaps the black guy whose name I don't remember, but
then the Politically Correct whiners would have thrown a temper tantrum
if they were all white characters).

If it proves popular, maybe they'll do a second set with other characters.

Wow. Never mind that there are likely plenty of fans who remember Franklin better and more fondly than, say, Pig-pen.

But also: (with help from Wikipedia):
Peppermint Patty's first appearance: August 22, 1966
Franklin's first appearance: July 31, 1968
Marcie's first appearance: July 20, 1971
Woodstock's first appearance: March 4, 1966 (although not officially named until June 22, 1970)

So much for the implication that Franklin was the only character included who was not an "original" character.

I think they made fine choices of beloved and significant characters from the large cast of this strip.

-- Sharon Tuttle

On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 11:38:46 PM UTC-7, Your Name wrote:
> On 2022-05-07 02:27:25 +0000, Timothy Chow said:
>
> > Cool! Personally, I would have liked to have seen Rerun or even
> > Spike instead of Pig-pen, but you can't have everything...
> The one's they've chosen are the main original characters that are best
> known (except perhaps the black guy whose name I don't remember, but
> then the Politically Correct whiners would have thrown a temper tantrum
> if they were all white characters).
>
> If it proves popular, maybe they'll do a second set with other characters.

On 2022-05-07 20:30:28 +0000, Sharon Tuttle said:
> On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 11:38:46 PM UTC-7, Your Name wrote:
>> On 2022-05-07 02:27:25 +0000, Timothy Chow said:
>>>
>>> Cool! Personally, I would have liked to have seen Rerun or even
>>> Spike instead of Pig-pen, but you can't have everything...
>>
>> The one's they've chosen are the main original characters that are best
>> known (except perhaps the black guy whose name I don't remember, but
>> then the Politically Correct whiners would have thrown a temper tantrum
>> if they were all white characters).
>>
>> If it proves popular, maybe they'll do a second set with other characters.
>
> Wow. Never mind that there are likely plenty of fans who remember
> Franklin better and more fondly than, say, Pig-pen.

Fans, maybe, but most of the general public won't have a clue who Franklin is.

> But also: (with help from Wikipedia):
> Peppermint Patty's first appearance: August 22, 1966
> Franklin's first appearance: July 31, 1968
> Marcie's first appearance: July 20, 1971
> Woodstock's first appearance: March 4, 1966 (although not officially
> named until June 22, 1970)
>
> So much for the implication that Franklin was the only character
> included who was not an "original" character.

As I said ... "main original characters *that* *are* *best* *known*". :-\

> I think they made fine choices of beloved and significant characters
> from the large cast of this strip.

On 5/7/2022 5:40 PM, Your Name wrote:
> As I said ... "main original characters *that* *are* *best* *known*".  :-\

Of the ten characters chosen, only Charlie Brown and Snoopy are
"original." But let's say we focus only on characters who were
introduced pre-1970, so as to exclude Rerun and Spike. Then I
would say that Franklin is no more of an outlier than Pig-pen.
I don't have a complete database, but if we start tracking from
1970 onward, Franklin shows up considerably more often in the
strip than Pig-pen does (this is true not just in the 1970s, when
Pig-pen practically vanished from the strip, but remains true
through the 1980s and 1990s). Franklin also made more of an
impression when he debuted, because that was back when some
newspapers would cancel the strip purely on the grounds that it
depicted Franklin and Peppermint Patty in the same classroom, so
anyone old enough to have been around at the time would probably
remember Franklin at least as well as they remember Pig-Pen.

It's also pretty clear that a lot of African-Americans remember
Franklin much better than they remember Pig-pen. Even though
African-Americans are a minority, if you do some kind of weighted
average, giving more weight to stronger memories than to weaker
memories, then I would expect Franklin to get a boost, since I
don't expect there to be as many people who have as strong memories
of Pig-pen as African-Americans have of Franklin.

The one big advantage that Pig-pen has over Franklin is that because
he debuted earlier, Pig-pen shows up in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and "A Boy Named Charlie
Brown." On the other hand, Franklin shows up in "A Charlie Brown
Thanksgiving" and "Snoopy, Come Home," so he did get a fair amount
of screen time.

Minor characters typically suffer from having only one distinctive
feature, which means that they will show up only as often as the
artist can think of a way to work that feature into the gag, and
that they will stick in readers' minds only insofar as that feature
grabs their attention. (To some extent, Schroeder suffers from this
problem as well, although Schulz managed to have Schroeder play a
big role in the baseball team, and also managed to incorporate music
rather often into the strip.) Franklin's most salient characteristic,
his race, was something that Schulz deliberately avoided "playing up"
in the strip, and so that meant that there was less chance that
Franklin would stick in readers' minds. (Superfans might have noticed
that Schulz often invoked Franklin in the later years of the strip
when he wanted to talk about grandparents, but this is a very subtle
point that most readers would never have noticed.) By contrast, Pig-
pen's most salient characteristic is "in your face" in almost every
panel in which he appears. For this reason, Franklin might have been
less "memorable" than Pig-pen, but I don't think that he was clearly
"less known" than Pig-pen, if we go by whether readers would recognize
him.

The reason I thought that Rerun or perhaps Spike might have been a
better choice than Pig-pen was that they---Rerun especially---played
an increasingly large role in the last decade of the strip. Including
Rerun would have been a nod to the generation of fans who grew up with
Rerun as a major character, as well as an acknowledgment that Schulz
was continuing to break new ground and introduce new ideas into the
strip even during its fifth decade---which is more than can be said
of any other cartoonist I can think of.

---
Tim Chow

On 2022-05-08 00:36:22 +0000, Timothy Chow said:

> On 5/7/2022 5:40 PM, Your Name wrote:
>> As I said ... "main original characters *that* *are* *best* *known*".  :-\
>
> Of the ten characters chosen, only Charlie Brown and Snoopy are
> "original."
<snip>

Oh God. Here we go again. Argumentative asses trying to prove how
"clcever" they aren't. What part of "best known' is so damn difficult
to understand!? Don't bother answering because I won't be borthering to
read it. :-\

On 5/8/2022 2:10 AM, Your Name wrote:
> On 2022-05-08 00:36:22 +0000, Timothy Chow said:
>
>> On 5/7/2022 5:40 PM, Your Name wrote:
>>> As I said ... "main original characters *that* *are* *best*
>>> *known*".  :-\
>>
>> Of the ten characters chosen, only Charlie Brown and Snoopy are
>> "original."
> <snip>
>
> Oh God. Here we go again. Argumentative asses trying to prove how
> "clcever" they aren't. What part of "best known' is so damn difficult to
> understand!? Don't bother answering because I won't be borthering to
> read it.  :-\

What makes you think I'm posting this reply for your benefit?
I'm posting it just so that the rest of us can laugh at you.

---
Tim Chow

Not to mention that Rerun is completely indistinguishable from Linus
without context, and at stamp size, I’m not sure Spike can be
distinguished from Snoopy with a hat. Maybe in a jugate, but I don’t
offhand recall ever seeing a jugate stamp.

But, hey, «Noi siam venuti al loco ov’i’ t’ho detto
che tu vedrai le genti dolorose
c’hanno perduto il ben de l’intelletto.» Non è vero?

On 5/7/22 4:30 PM, Sharon Tuttle wrote:
> Wow. Never mind that there are likely plenty of fans who remember Franklin better and more fondly than, say, Pig-pen.
>
> But also: (with help from Wikipedia):
> Peppermint Patty's first appearance: August 22, 1966
> Franklin's first appearance: July 31, 1968
> Marcie's first appearance: July 20, 1971
> Woodstock's first appearance: March 4, 1966 (although not officially named until June 22, 1970)
>
> So much for the implication that Franklin was the only character included who was not an "original" character.
>
> I think they made fine choices of beloved and significant characters from the large cast of this strip.
>
> -- Sharon Tuttle
>
> On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 11:38:46 PM UTC-7, Your Name wrote:
>> On 2022-05-07 02:27:25 +0000, Timothy Chow said:
>>
>>> Cool! Personally, I would have liked to have seen Rerun or even
>>> Spike instead of Pig-pen, but you can't have everything...
>> The one's they've chosen are the main original characters that are best
>> known (except perhaps the black guy whose name I don't remember, but
>> then the Politically Correct whiners would have thrown a temper tantrum
>> if they were all white characters).
>>
>> If it proves popular, maybe they'll do a second set with other characters.

--
John W. Kennedy
Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

On 5/8/2022 2:31 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
> Not to mention that Rerun is completely indistinguishable from Linus
> without context, and at stamp size, I’m not sure Spike can be
> distinguished from Snoopy with a hat.

There are ways to distinguish Rerun, with his overalls being the main
one. Or, one could use a likeness from 1973.

https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/03/26

Spike has a mustache.

https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1975/08/13

---
Tim Chow

On 5/8/22 5:05 PM, Timothy Chow wrote:
> On 5/8/2022 2:31 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
>> Not to mention that Rerun is completely indistinguishable from Linus
>> without context, and at stamp size, I’m not sure Spike can be
>> distinguished from Snoopy with a hat.
>
> There are ways to distinguish Rerun, with his overalls being the main
> one.  Or, one could use a likeness from 1973.
>
> https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/03/26
>
> Spike has a mustache.
>
> https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1975/08/13
>
> ---
> Tim Chow

--which is why I said “at stamp size”.

--
John W. Kennedy
Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

On 5/8/2022 7:40 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
> On 5/8/22 5:05 PM, Timothy Chow wrote:
>> On 5/8/2022 2:31 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
>>> Not to mention that Rerun is completely indistinguishable from Linus
>>> without context, and at stamp size, I’m not sure Spike can be
>>> distinguished from Snoopy with a hat.
>>
>> There are ways to distinguish Rerun, with his overalls being the main
>> one.  Or, one could use a likeness from 1973.
>>
>> https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/03/26
>>
>> Spike has a mustache.
>>
>> https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1975/08/13
>>
>> ---
>> Tim Chow
>
> --which is why I said “at stamp size”.

I collect stamps, and much smaller features than this are of interest
to stamp collectors. In any case, does it matter whether a casual
observer can see the distinction? Fans of Peanuts and of stamp
collecting will have no trouble seeing the differences. Other people
won't care. I'd argue that what matters is whether the people who
might care about the distinctions can detect them and might like them.

---
Tim Chow

On 5/3/2022 4:58 PM, D.D.Degg wrote:
>
> WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service has announced several additions to the 2022 stamp program first announced last fall. All stamp designs are preliminary and subject to change. Additional details, including issue dates and locations, will be announced later.
>
> Headlining the new additions is the Charles M. Schulz Centennial 2022.
> https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/usps-reveals-charles-schulz-centennial-stamps/

These stamps are now available for purchase.

https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/charles-m-schulz-stamps-S_561704

---
Tim Chow