BOOM! Studios has released some vague new teaser images suggesting the company's newly-renamed kids line Kaboom! is set to release new Peanuts comics sometime in 2011. No word on exactly what this means as the BOOM! KIDS website has been replaced with an equally nondescript image. BOOM!'s been hinting at significant changes to its kids-friendly line with "2.0" teasers for awhile, but especially since its flagship Pixar books have moved to Disney under Marvel Comics.ComicsAlliance reached out to Fantagraphics, which has been publishing Charles M. Schulz's classic strips, The Complete Peanuts since 2004, and confirmed that the Seattle-based publisher still owns the publishing rights to all of the original Peanuts strips. BOOM! was not available for immediate comment. Given that the rights to the strips are already spoken for, BOOM! has probably acquired the rights to either publish some other type of older content, or produce new content based on the original characters.

It's important to note that Peanuts material has rarely ever been created without the involvement of Schulz; even in the early '60s when Dell was publishing some insanely awesome comics by Dale Hale, Schulz was overseeing the process.

Publishing what might be the first new Peanuts material in 11 years (the last Peanuts newspaper strip saw print on February 6, 2000) certainly makes business sense, but what about creatively? Would comic readers embrace new tales of the beloved gang, or would this be more in-line with Hollywood's proposed Buffy sans Joss Whedon? And since these comics are primarily for younger readers, would the absence of Schulz ultimately affect buyers' perception?

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