Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks some more about DC's New 52 and looks at the upcoming Peanuts comic from Kaboom.

At 52 I should have gotten used to the whole time passing thing by now, but once again I seemed to have spaced out and missed a couple of weeks.  Without noticing the fall season, the new television season has finally started and Halloween decorations and candy are clogging the aisles of Walmart.  And the last time I was there, taped to the cash register was a discrete notice alerting customers to the fact they could commence laying things away for Christmas.

You will all undoubtedly be happy to know I'm almost done writing about DC, not that there aren't still things to write about.  Like the announcement of the introduction of a gay Teen Titan or the new Ray miniseries; the latter is unexpected but if nothing else shows a willingness by the publisher to try just about anything.  Plus it's also good news for all of their other characters who haven't had their own title in a long time (Sugar, Spike; kids, get your coats).  Hey, if it can happen to The Ray, it can happen to anyone.

But there are already plenty of would-be pundits parsing press releases for hints about upcoming creative team changes and reporting flat-out unsubstantiated rumors.  The most impressive of these (so far) is that after The Dark Knight Rises we can expect a Batman & Robin movie (and maybe TV series) based specifically on the New 52 comic book of the same name.  I don't want to give it any more validity by repeating it but just the fact that it exists shows how this refurbishment of the DC brand is likely to bleed over to other parts of the Time-Warner company.  Like the way Superman's costume in the movie Man of Steel "just happens" to look at lot like the new one from the comics.

I would have said the Internet reaction to the DC heroes new costumes was mostly neutral, that is until I came across a chunk of Facebook comments from a group of (and I really hesitate to use this term but it's appropriate) haters.  And I couldn't help but notice most of these were fans of a certain age, specifically mine.  As previously established (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--We Fear Change") this is a demographic that doesn't react positively when someone starts tinkering with their cultural icons.

I'm not immune to this.  You should have me yowl in 1997 when they introduced the New Captain Kangaroo (for those of you who weren't there to experience it take it from me, sometimes there really can be only one).  But I'm as surprised as anyone to discover I can't really get all that worked up about some literally cosmetic changes to some of my favorite characters.  I don't find them to be either positive or negative; it’s just one more in a long series of changes to them, and the fact we all can't stop talking about them is proof (whether you like them or not) they're effective.  These characters have survived all previous changes made to them so I'm fairly confident they'll survive these.

But I have to admit I'm feeling a great deal more uneasy about another upcoming change.  As previously established (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--This Is Who He Is") I was an enormous Peanuts fiend growing up so I’m looking forward to Kaboom's All-New Peanuts comic coming this November.  Cautiously.  It's a property that definitely has the potential to attract a lot of new comic book readers, but I'd feel a whole lot better about the comic if we were given at least some idea who the creators of it will be.

Because it's a pretty big deal.  While literally hundreds of hands have worked on Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, only one person has ever worked on Peanuts (the comic strip anyway; the comic books from the 50s and 60s are another story, one I won't go into here).  On the Crave Online website I found a piece by Andy Hunsaker titled "BOOM! Studios To Publish New Peanuts Comics," the subtitle of which sums up my feelings nicely, "We all feared this day would come but it's finally here.  Someone who isn’t Charles Schulz is going to be writing new Peanuts stories."

By the way, did any of you know there were Peanuts motion comics posted on the The WB website?  Well, there are, and I didn't even know there were Peanuts motion comics.

And, finally, I’m sure you’ve all read about Slave Labor Graphics dropping the floppy (see "SLG Opts for 'Digital First' Publication Model"), and probably didn’t think much about it.  Because, let's face it, SLG comics don't really add much to most of our store's bottom lines.  While I've previously announced the death of the independent comic (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--It Was Fun While It Lasted"), I believe there's still some life in it.  And that life most likely will be online.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.