The Rerun Project is designed to be a powerful database and search tool for the comic stips and books about the "Peanuts" characters created by Charles M. Schulz, most notably Snoopy and Charlie Brown. The details contained in the database are to be compiled and entered by enthusiasts connecting to the site, in the hope that it may be made more complete with the help of many contributors.
The name was chosen partly because those using the database are probably searching out a specific topic or strip that they may have seen or heard about previously, and due to the archival nature of the database. "Rerun" in this sense implies "reprint", or "recovered". Additionally, calling it the "Snoopy" project seemed unnecessary; most users doing this kind of research will probably recognise the name "Rerun" as Peanuts-related.
Mainly, it contains descriptive information about any comic strip, and the date the strip originally ran in newspapers. This way, a user can search for spoken dialogue, or for specific characters and objects in a strip. Lists of the major strip collections in book form are given with the strip dates they contain. Thumbnail graphics of each panel are to be included as well, but in small coarse resolution so as not to infringe on copyright laws. The graphics are there to help identify strips, not to eliminate the sales of book collections by the copyright holders.
The search engine is set up for multiple arguments to help narrow the search results; there are currently five search arguments that can be used at one time.
A search on "PIANO" will match strips where the word piano is spoken (or used as text) and when a piano appears as an object in the panel.
The database stores characters and objects in a strip with angle brackets like <Piano>
Possibly. We don't yet have official permission to publish this information, but are attempting to get such permission. One of the key intended uses of the database is to help fans and collectors determine the exact date of a required strip so that full-sized copies may be obtained by United Feature Syndicate.
With their names in lights. Users can submit to the database under an alias or their real name. A contributor list is maintained and published on the site, in the order of most to fewest contributions. A second list of recent contributors is also maintained. A future development we hope to implement is a geographic representation of where (globally) our contributors live.
Anyone may submit a contribution. All submissions are however checked for accuracy. This also will hopefully cut down on deliberate misuse of the database, or "spam".
We start with a strip. This might come from a book, or it might come from a newspaper.
Strips by Date: First choose the date that the strip ran. If the database has an entry for this date, you can view the strip description. If it is new, you first search for the strip by some keywords to see if it has been entered by a user without the date. If found, you apply the correct date to the strip. If not, you proceed to enter the strip's description.
Strips by Book: Choose the book title that you wish to view or enter, and the relevant edition and printing information. If the book is not already in the database, you may set it up as a new book. Then select a book page, and if the strip is not already on that page, you search for the strip by keywords to see if it has been entered by another user for another book.
Once you've determined that the strip is not in the database, you specify how the strip is layed out. For most Peanuts daily strips, this is a simple four equal panel layout. But for the Sunday strips and the dailies after 1989, the layouts can be complicated.
Next the actual details of the strip are specified. More on this below. Finally, you can upload a picture of the strip if you have one. The pictures are not made available right away, as they have to be sized down to thumbnail size by the webmaster.
We've adopted an XML format for the strips. It looks complicated at first, but it really helps with searching the content. Every item in a strip is a "tag", with angle brackets around it like this: <CharlieBrown>
Every tag has an opening part and a closing part, so that tags can contain other tags. The closing part just has a slash / after the angle bracket. To show that Charlie Brown is holding a supper dish, we use <CharlieBrown>
You will be given a template to start with, based on the way the strip is layed out. It might look like this:
<Strip StripDate="2 Oct 1950"> <Panel Num="1" Size="25"> </Panel> <Panel Num="2" Size="25"> </Panel> <Panel Num="3" Size="25"> </Panel> <Panel Num="4" Size="25"> </Panel> </Strip>
Those "Num" and "Size" things are called attributes, and they help describe a tag, in this case showing the number and size of the Panel. The contents of the strip are then put within the panel. Here's an example of a finished strip:
<Strip StripDate="2 Oct 1950">
<Panel Num="1" Size="25">
<road>
<CharlieBrown/>
</road>
<step>
<Shermy>
<speech>WELL! HERE COMES OL' CHARLIE BROWN!</speech>
</Shermy>
<Patty/>
</step>
</Panel>
<Panel Num="2" Size="25">
<road>
<CharlieBrown/>
</road>
<step>
<Shermy>
<speech>GOOD OL' CHARLIE BROWN.....YES, SIR!</speech>
</Shermy>
<Patty/>
</step>
</Panel>
<Panel Num="3" Size="25">
<step>
<Shermy>
<speech>GOOD OL' CHARLIE BROWN...</speech>
</Shermy>
<Patty/>
</step>
</Panel>
<Panel Num="4" Size="25">
<step>
<Shermy>
<irritation/>
<speech>HOW I HATE HIM!</speech>
</Shermy>
<Patty/>
</step>
</Panel>
</Strip>
Don't be too frightened! There are special buttons to make this a fairly painless process.
This makes it easy to search for things like "Give me the strips where Lucy is holding a piano and says 'Woman is winning!'". By storing the information in a nested fashion like this, we can make more intelligent searches.
Any books, book pages, panels, text and thumbnails. All changes are reviewed by the webmaster before being posted to the database. For suggestions, comments or difficulties, contact webmaster@manicfan.com
Pretty particular. We try to check for spelling and puctuation typos, and sometimes little changes to font sizes and such are added. But don't let that scare you! Every effort is made to check all submissions for accuracy and consistency, so contributors are urged to be as accurate as possible, but all contributions are welcome and appreciated. We cannot expect every contributor to be as particular as the next, but let's try to keep the webmaster's job more of a rubber stamper than an editor.
Most Peanuts books have gone through several revisions, and even several publishers. Some publishers also put out abridged versions, and some books have the same titles but only portions of the same contents!
If your copy does not match, you may wish to submit a new edition/printing of that book. Ensure the publisher is listed correctly, and note the edition in the book title if necessary. This will help make the database as comprehensive as possible.
No problem. The strips are stored with or without a date. If another user can attach a date the strip, this will be added later.
Even if the strip dates are not known for either book, you can still match page numbers of one book to the page numbers of another. When the correct dates are confirmed later, the books will reflect the changes. This type of data is a major component of what the Rerun Project is all about: how different two related books really are.
There is an entry box beside the Text and Tag buttons on the entry page. You can type in the object or character here and press Tag to drop one in.
If that tag should be in the list of objects or characters, send a quick note to webmaster@manicfan.com.
On occasion, it may not be obvious how to treat the contents of a particular panel. The list below explains how to treat some of these instances. Of course, if you have another to add to the list, or a suggestion of how to better deal with a situation, please email us your suggestions.
For the time being, and for those who are not familiar with musical notation,
we will use the tag <music/>
This can be a tough one if Mr. Van Pelt is not addressed by his first name. Some of the clues involve situations.
Rerun is often seen in overalls and has shorter hair than Linus. He can be seen at Kindergarten at a drawing table beside a girl with pig tails. He is the one who goes to Charlie Brown's door asking if Snoopy can come out and play.
Linus of course is seen with his blanket occasionally even in the 80's and 90's, but Rerun does not carry one. Linus is usually the one riding in cardboard boxes down snow-covered hills. In this period in time, Linus is sometimes seen at school with Lydia, a girl with chin-length hair and a hair band.
If in doubt, make a guess and click the Identity drop-down to add the uncertain attribute to the character tag.
The first birds to appear that looked like Woodstock were two that hatched on a nest that was perched on Snoopy's stomach. One of these may have been Woodstock, as both had Woodstock's erratic flying patterns. Snoopy is visited on many later occasions by as many as four birds, and a bird hippie (looking like Woodstock with long hair). This is also about the time when Linus first starts patting birds on the head, and these birds also have the familiar style.
Birds not having Woodstock's characteristic head feathers can be tagged
as <bird>
The Beagle Scouts are a group of Woodstock-like birds obviously out on an excursion with Snoopy. Sometimes they are not named, so we employ these tips: four birds (except in the late 80's and 90's) are Woodstock, Conrad, Bill and Oliver. When there are five, the fifth is probably Harriet, who is ususually called by name at some point in the episode.
After Bill and Harriet got married, the line-up came to include Wilson (only by name once) and later Fred and Raymond. You know the group includes Fred and Raymond when the bird darker than the others (Raymond) is present. Therefore, in the late 80's and 90's, use the line-up of Woodstock, Conrad, Oliver, Fred and Raymond. If only four birds are shown, make an educated guess.
A later addition to the group is Roy (not to be confused with Peppermint
Patty's friend whom Linus and Charlie Brown both met at camp). That bird's tag
is <RoyBird>
Only if the context in the strip explicitly shows who is who can they be
distinguished. Use <Three>
Occasionally the characters read, speak or write in text other than Schulz'
usual capital style. When the text is deliberately another font or writing style,
enclose the text in tags. Where Sally writes cursively (the continuous loop-style
writing) use <cursive>
When a character is angry, they sometimes have a voice balloon containing only a dark scribbled area. Use the tag <scribble> Woodstock speaks in what might be called chicken-scratch, and occasionally other characters use this type of notation. If the voice balloon consists of 34 scratches, use <Woodstock> Snoopy often interacts with a bug who speaks in tiny dots, and these are handled in much the same way: <Bug> The meaning of the shorthand is usually apparent due to Snoopy's dictation.
It might be a bit redundant to specify the shorthand explictly then, although
we certainly won't discourage it. The tag <shorthand> Use the Identity drop-down to add the revealedLater attribute to the character. The FAQ is still being added to! About the Project |
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webmaster@manicfan.comHow is Woodstock's "speech" done?
How do I treat Woodstock's shorthand?
What if a character's identity is not revealed until a later strip?