Featuring Good Seventy-year-ol’ Charlie Brown
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Charlie Brown remains my favorite Peanuts character.
Peanuts and the characters are © Peanuts Worldwide LLC
Seventy years after its creation, and 20 years after the death of its creator, Charles M. Schulz‘s Peanuts remains on of the most popular and influential comic strips of all time. The anniversary is being celebrated across the world (and the internet).
What better place to start than at The Charles M. Schulz Museum.
The Schulz Museum is closed due to The Covid but Online exhibits and activities continue.
The first “Peanuts” comic strip was published in seven newspapers on October 2, 1950.
Now, Santa Rosa’s renowned Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center celebrates the comic strip’s Platinum Anniversary and covers other timely topics with a fall season filled with public programs.
The North Bay alternative newspaper The Bohemian started last month with a list of planned festivities.
While the Museum’s hometown paper, the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat honors it best known citizen with an appreciation by biographers, curators, and local cartoonists.
Reprints still run in more than 2,000 newspapers around the globe, now 20 years after Schulz’s death. His far-reaching work has been translated into 25 languages and published in 75 countries. Over the second half of the 20th century, “Peanuts” portrayed the everyday life of children and sometimes reflected much larger events, from the Vietnam War to the feminist movement. It’s obvious the comic strip has left an indelible mark on popular language and culture.
“To understand what a revolution ‘Peanuts’ was, you have to look at a newspaper comics page from 1950,” Fies said. “Most of the strips looked very dense, even the funny ones, with a lot of black ink, cross-hatching and overstuffed word balloons. And in the middle of this page of gray sludge floated ‘Peanuts’ — light, elegant, economical.”
above: Long-time licensee Hallmark joins the celebration
LicenseGlobal lists only a lot, but still only some, of the 70th Anniversary items available.
This year, Snoopy and the gang have been featured on collections with the Brazilian apparel company Mar Quente, as well as Nordic fashion house Soulland and French retailer Cyrillus. In the accessories’ aisle, Timex has bowed limited-edition watches and LA Rocks released a line of 70th anniversary Peanuts jewelry. Out of Spain, Woodys launched 70th anniversary eyewear featuring the gang…
Upon returning to St. Paul [from Army service] in 1946, Schulz was hired to do lettering for Timeless Topix, a Catholic comic magazine. From 1947 to the early 1950s, he was an instructor at the Art Instruction Schools. In early 1947, Schulz finally had his debut of a weekly panel, titled Li’l Folks, in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Published under the byline of “Sparky” (the artist’s nickname as a child) the cartoon introduced early versions of the characters of Charlie Brown, a long-suffering everyman type, and his pet dog, Snoopy. The first fifteen strips of Li’l Folks ran in the Saturday Evening Post between 1948 and 1950.
The Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul is where Schulz and Peanuts began,
so the Northfield News tells the tale of young Master Charles.
Peanuts Worldwide is not just a name, it is a reality. From Shangai:
Over the past seven decades, Snoopy, who has countless fans worldwide, has become arguably the most popular dog in the world. To celebrate Snoopy’s 70th anniversary, the exhibition “What a Wonderful Day!” features not only Snoopy and his gang of friends in Schulz’s classic comic strip “Peanuts,” but also a cluster of modern-day artworks by 20 artists and groups from across China commissioned for this occasion.
From Shangai to Spokane – The Spokesman-Review presents a timeline.
Schulz’s influence as a cartoonist has been beyond comparison and continues even today. His life was fascinating, and there are plenty of interesting anecdotes, such as the time someone tried to abduct his wife. Here’s a look at the life and times of Charles M. Schulz, one of the greatest cartoonists of all time, including his triumphs, his early beginnings, his fears, and more.
Grunge gives us some little-known facts about Charles M. Schulz.
According to History.com, Charles Schultz actually wanted to name the cartoon dog Sniffy. Sniffy was based on a black-and-white dog that Charles Schultz had when he was a teenager. His real dog’s name was actually Spike. However, Charles Schultz decided to change Sniffy’s name after he saw a magazine strip that featured another dog with the same name.
But THE place to go for trivia, inside information, and news about Peanuts is Nat Gertler’s fantastic AAUGH Blog.
Of course for maximum enjoyment read the strips themselves, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz can be found at Peanuts.com or at GoComics. And there are books, books, books.
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