Rendering of the Snoopy Museum Tokyo.
Photo: courtesy the Snoopy Museum Tokyo.
Japan is opening a new museum dedicated to Peanuts, the late illustrator Charles Schulz‘s beloved comic strip. The Snoopy Museum Tokyo is scheduled to open in March 2016.
Charlie Brown and Snoopy turned 65 this year, and already have an institution dedicated to their antics, at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.
Last weekend also marked the 47th birthday of Peanuts character Franklin, the first African American character in a major mainstream comic strip, introduced during the Civil Rights movement following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Frankin makes his first appearance in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts on July 31, 1968.
Photo: Charles Schulz.
The new museum will be located in the city’s Roppongi district, known for its shopping and entertainment, and home to the Mori Art Museum. It will feature a rotating selection of Schulz’s drawings and illustrations, vintage Peanuts memorabilia, and other artifacts from the Research Center.
According to the artnet Price Database, the auction record for an original Peanuts illustration was set in March at Christie’s Paris, when an eight-panel comic from 1954 was hammered down at $45,664.
The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.
Photo: Victoria, via the Bubbly Bay.
The museum is slated to operate for just two and a half years, through September 2018, despite its predictions of 800,000 annual visitors.
The Peanuts gang is also hitting the big screen, with a new 3-D animated movie (the franchise’s first film since 1980) opening on November 6.
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