Peanuts and Charles Schulz Rarities

We start not with Peanuts but Sparky’s other comic It’s Only A Game.

A dozen years ago Nat Gertler wrote of a Charles Schulz rarity he had missed out on:

… a booklet called Golfing — It’s Only A Game, which reprinted seven panels from Schulz & Sasseville’s “It’s Only a Game” feature, behind a cover that was clearly not drawn by either of them. Missing any publishing information, copyright information, or price, it is hard to know why this book exists, when it was published, and how it was distributed. It’s an odd little thing…

Then finding a companion title he did not miss out on:

… another booklet obviously from the same set, although unlike the first one, this one includes one all-Schulz panel rather than just Sasseville-drawn ones…

… Not only does this not answer any of the open questions, it opens up at least one new one: if there’s more than one booklet, then are there others? Are there booklets on bridge or tennis or some other topic? I hope to find out someday!

Two years ago Nat got his hands on the Golfing booklet, which satisfied his collector urge but left his research still wanting:

What I can’t tell you is:

• Who published this
• When it was published
• Why it was published
• How it was distributed (it seems too cheap and thin to be a commercial item, beyond perhaps a vending machine filler, and the one I just got seems in too good condition to have been that)
• Who drew the cover (it’s clearly neither Schulz nor Sasseville)

The pamphlet has no indica, no copyright notice, no clue that I can discern what it’s purpose was in this world.

Now finally Nat has answers – and another booklet:

Then earlier this month I saw at auction the thing that would both answer my questions and get me the third and (I presume) final pamphlet in my set. Someone tried to outbid me, but fooey on them, it didn’t work. And today, it arrived in the mail.

You can have the answer to. Go to A set completed and a mystery solved.

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In 1970, a group of fifth-grade students from Beverly Hills were asked to write to someone they admired, and 10-year-old Joel Lipton chose “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz. The question posed was, “What makes a good citizen?” Lipton, with innocent admiration, directed this question to Schulz, who responded with a heartfelt and thoughtful answer, according to Letters of Note.

On a letterhead bearing Schulz’s name and address, he penned a touching response.

The remarkable letter written in 1970 was discovered 50 years later, per KQED. Lipton, now an adult, found the letter while digging through his box and was delighted. 

As Jeannie Schulz said in that KQED link, “It could have been written today.”

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PEANUTS NOT BY SCHULZ

In 2000 on hearing that Charles Schulz was retiring (but before Schulz’s death) Art Spiegelman, for The New Yorker, drew a multi-page appreciation of Schulz and what the cartoonist had accomplished.