The "real" Linus, artist Linus Maurer, cuts a ribbon after unveiling a statue of Linus during a ceremony at his hometown of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, September 23, 2003. Maurer, who was a friend of Charles Schulz and the inspiration for the character, traveled from his California home to participate in the dedication of the statue that the Minnesota community purchased at auction.
These articles are arranged from the most recent down, so you'll always find the newest news about Charlie Brown and his friends toward the top; older articles will be located further down, or on previous pages.
Li’l beginnings
A collection of Charles Schulz’s first cartoons draws out the
origins of ‘Peanuts’
May 31, 2004
By Dixie Reid
The Sacramento Bee
The boy glanced at the scowling dog on the pillow beside him.
"I always read in bed so (you) might just as well get used to it!"
he said.
This was June 22, 1947, and the debut of "Li’l Folks," an earlier
and pivotal body of work by the late Charles M. "Sparky" Schulz, who
created "Peanuts."
And while the boy and dog look little like the often-beleaguered,
round-faced Charlie Brown and his pet beagle, Snoopy, it’s our first
glimpse of two characters who would come to dominate "Peanuts."
For the first time, except in Schulz’s personal scrapbook, all 135
"Li’l Folks" cartoon panels are together in a single volume. Davis
journalist Derrick Bang wrote the annotations and editorial commentary
for the new book "Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings" ($30, Charles M.
Schulz Museum).
The value of "Li’l Folks," says Bang, is that "Peanuts" fans can
see a young artist creating the neighborhood where children are wise
beyond their years and speak at a level far more sophisticated than real
kids do -- and where a dog takes on almost human qualities.
"With ‘Li’l Folks,’ you can see that Sparky already knew very
strongly what he wanted to say and the impact he wanted to make on his
readers," Bang says. "He spent those 2-1/2 years playing around with art
styles. At first it was a sophisticated display of line work and, by
1950, when (the cartoon) ended, the (drawings) had a very strong
resemblance to early ‘Peanuts.’ "
Although "Li’l Folks" was dear to Schulz, he wasn’t particularly
interested in having the panels published as a collection. His drawing
style had evolved, and he didn’t think fans of "Peanuts" would be
interested.
"When Sparky was doing these ‘Li’l Folks’ cartoons," says Jean
Schulz, his wife of 26 years, "he and his father lived in a four-room
apartment above (his father’s) barber shop, and he was drawing at the
kitchen table at night. He was probably as happy as at any time in his
life.
"I wish he could be here to reminisce on this, and he got cheated
out of that, in a sense. He always wanted to work, and he never would
have had time to sit back in a grandfatherly way, but it would have been
interesting to hear him."
Schulz had big dreams when he came out of the Army after World War
II. He got a job teaching at Art Instruction, a correspondence school in
Minneapolis, and hand-lettering pages for a Catholic comic book.
In 1947, at age 24, he persuaded the senior editor of his hometown
St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press to run a weekly panel containing three to
five cartoons called "Li’l Folks by Sparky." He earned $10 for each
submission.
And every week, Schulz carefully cut the latest "Li’l Folks" from
the newspaper and taped it into an artist’s sketchbook.
That scrapbook is one of the treasures stored at the Charles M.
Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa. The $8 million
institution safeguards his legacy and about 7,000 pieces of his original
artwork.
"We were looking through the scrapbook," says museum director Ruth
Gardner Begell, "and were knocked out by how Sparky had so carefully
pasted each image into the book. So even though he didn’t have a high
opinion of his early work, it was valuable enough for him to give us a
complete scrapbook."
The black-bound collection is all the more valuable because the
newspaper didn’t return Schulz’s "Li’l Folks" original drawings, and
only a few are known to exist today. The museum owns one, purchased on
eBay.
If not for that tight-fisted editor at the Pioneer Press, a man who
apparently didn’t see much potential in the stalwart cartoonist’s work,
"Peanuts" might have come along much later than Oct. 2, 1950, when it
debuted in seven newspapers.
"Sparky had done ‘Li’l Folks’ for around two years," says Jean
Schulz, who spends most afternoons at the museum. "He went to the editor
of the newspaper and said, ‘I’d like to ask for an increase’ (in pay.)
The editor said no. Sparky asked for it to be put on the comics page
instead of the women’s page. The editor said no. Then he asked if the
drawings could be made a little bigger. The editor said no. So Sparky
said, ‘I guess I quit.’
"Here he was, this starving artist, backed against the wall. But it
made him focus even more on putting together a submission for the
syndicates," she says. "It’s a wonderful story about determination and
how something you think is terrible is not necessarily that bad."
Undaunted, Schulz moved some characters from "Li’l Folks," among
them the boy and his beagle, into a comic-strip format and submitted
them to United Feature, a newspaper syndicate. Eight months later,
"Peanuts" (a name Schulz never liked but one that a syndicate executive
insisted upon) began its long run. Snoopy showed up in the third strip.
Also in stores now is "The Complete Peanuts, 1950 to 1952"
(Fantagraphics Books, $28.95), which reproduces the strip’s first two
years. It is on the New York Times’ best-seller list, further testament
to the enduring popularity of "Peanuts."
The book is the first of a 25-volume collection (to be published
over 12 1/2 years) that will reproduce every "Peanuts" strip ever
printed.
Both it and the "Li’l Folks" collection are invaluable historically
because together they chronicle nearly five years in the evolution of
Schulz’s art style and his child characters.
When he died of colon cancer four years ago at age 77, "Peanuts"
was the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world and the most
popular cartoon of all time. It appeared in 2,600 papers in 75
countries. Today, "Peanuts" reprints continue to run in 2,400
newspapers, including The Bee. Schulz’s family decided long ago that no
one else would ever write or draw the comic strip.
Schulz used his early work in "Li’l Folks" to champion things that
were important to him baseball, golf, Edgar Allan Poe, dog-book author
Albert Payson Terhune, Beethoven (Schroeder’s muse in "Peanuts") and
even the Johann Strauss opera "Die Fledermaus."
"I can’t imagine most cartoonists these days trusting readers that
much, to drop such highfalutin references into their work," Bang says.
"Sparky got away with it because he was so good. He probably figured he
had enough of a dialogue with them that they would go along. Even in
those early days, that was astonishing to me."
Bang, entertainment editor at the Davis Enterprise, is a longtime
"Peanuts" fan. He wrote the 1999 trivia guide "50 Years of Happiness A
Tribute to Charles M. Schulz" (which the Schulz Museum reissued two
years ago) before taking on the "Li’l Folks" project. His tasks included
solving a "Li’l Folks" mystery.
Among the "Li’l Folks by Sparky" cartoons in Schulz’s scrapbook
were two panels called "Sparky’s Li’l Folks." Bang was certain they
hadn’t been published in the St. Paul newspaper. With the help of a
Minnesota historic group, he learned that they were in the Minneapolis
Herald Tribune during the summer of 1947.
"If we are to fully appreciate who an artist is or what he became
during the course of his entire career," Bang says, "it’s important to
see where he’s been. When I put together the ‘50 Years’ book, I was only
able to devote a short chapter to what I realized was a part of Sparky
Schulz’s life that nobody knew about. I don’t think he went out of his
way to keep it a secret, but so much time had passed that nobody, with a
few exceptions, knew to ask him about it."
Schulz later reused several successful "Li’l Folks" gags in
"Peanuts."
On Dec. 21, 1947, for instance, a girl greets a boy at her front
door. "Oh rats!" she says. "I thought it was somebody important." Four
years later in "Peanuts," the visitor is Charlie Brown and a
disappointed Patty delivers the line. He had children drawing pictures
on fences in both "Li’l Folks" and "Peanuts," as well as having them
play hide-and-seek under a rug and having a child crawl across the
desert (a sandbox), begging for water.
"He may have been equivocal about ‘Li’l Folks’ by the time people
were beginning to talk about it in the ‘70s, when they were doing the
25th-anniversary books," Jean Schulz says. "He would bring out the
scrapbook for the editors who put together those books. Obviously, it
meant a lot to him, his first work.
"It’s like looking through your old photo albums. You’re looking in
the face of that baby to see if you see anything that looks like you
now. And in ‘Li’l Folks,’ you can look back and say, ‘Yes, I can see
this is where he came from.’ "
Comics as social commentary
Peanuts was the most influential comic strip of the 20th century;
tom tomorrow lampoons U.S. politics
May 22, 2004
By Claude Lalumiere
Canada.com
In Charles M. Schulz’s very first Peanuts strip, Shermy and Patty,
the series’ original lead characters, discuss their eventual
replacement.
Since the late 19th century, when Richard Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley
began appearing in the New York Sunday World, comic strips have been
mainstays of newspaper publishing. In its heyday, the newspaper comic
strip was a popular venue for many genres, including surrealism,
adventure, science fiction and detective stories. Once an art form
renowned for its high standard of draughtsmanship, it is now mostly a
joke-driven medium with little place for artistic accomplishment.
But there will always be visionary cartoonists whose bold talents
shake up the medium.
The most important and influential comic-strip cartoonist of the
20th century is the late Charles M. Schulz, whose Peanuts ran for 50
years, from 1950 to 2000. Peanuts has, more than any other comic strip,
infiltrated North American culture and the English language.
This essential pop-culture phenomenon has long been ill-served by
haphazardly assembled collections, but, finally, Peanuts is getting its
just rewards, with a projected 25-volume series that will present the
entire Peanuts archive in chronological order, including hundreds of
strips that have never been reprinted since their original newspaper
appearances.
"The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952" (Fantagraphics Books, 343 pages,
$39.95) is a beautiful object, lovingly designed by Canadian cartoonist
Seth. Along with 287 pages of carefully reproduced classic Peanuts
comics, the book also includes several extras, such as an insightful
biographical essay about Schulz by David Michaelis and a candid 34-page
interview with the Peanuts creator conducted in 1987.
This volume is especially fascinating because it allows readers to
follow Schulz step by step as he develops the Peanuts universe, cast and
worldview. For example, initially, Peanuts focused on Shermy and Patty,
two characters who are now mostly forgotten. Charlie Brown and Snoopy
(then only a puppy) appear only twice in the first seven strips, not
once together and always with Shermy and/or Patty. The tone of the early
strips collected in this volume is much more rascally than the
better-known postmodern philosophical comics to come.
Schulz’s deft minimalist cartooning style immediately grabs the eye
from Page 1, and his skill at concise yet complex characterization
imbues even this embryonic incarnation of Peanuts with infectious zest
and energy.
A ‘Peanuts’ farewell
St. Paul soon begins its fifth -- and final -- summer honoring
Charles Schulz.
May 19, 2004
By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
Sometime this summer, among the crowds checking out the fifth and
final summer of "Peanuts" statues in St. Paul, will be Sandy McCarthy
and her husband, Tim, from West Des Moines, Iowa.
"Wouldn’t miss it. Have to see the new ones, Snoopy with Woodstock
on the doghouse,’’ McCarthy said in a telephone interview.
The first chance to see this year’s installment of St. Paul’s
annual salute to native son Charles Schulz comes this weekend when
artists participate in a public "paint-off" of statues at RiverCentre.
McCarthy will have to miss the opening event of the Doghouse Days of
Summer because her husband booked a trip to Alaska, but the couple plans
to make the trip later.
In 2000, they visited St. Paul four times to see the first Snoopy
statues and came back four times the next year for the Charlie Brown
statues. They also returned for the Lucy and Linus summers.
The trips, she said, made St. Paul one of their favorite places to
go.
"We came up last fall just for a weekend to visit downtown, have
coffee and pastry on Grand Avenue,’’ McCarthy said.
McCarthy could be described as a plastic statue fanatic. She
visited the Isle of Mann in Britain last year to see cow statues and
catch a glimpse of a visiting Queen Elizabeth. She’s also traveled to
scores of other cities to view cows, pigs, horses, elephants and other
public art creations. And the statues do draw people.
"What else will bring people out on a Tuesday in St. Paul to stand
in line to take pictures?’’ said Sue Gonsior, director of communications
for Capital City Partnership, which manages the event.
Final tribute
There will be 104 colorful statues of Charlie Brown’s famous beagle
and his bird companion that make up "Doghouse Days of Summer,’’ the
city’s final summer tribute to Schulz, their creator.
After this week’s paint-off -- set-up work began Tuesday, with free
public sessions Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- the statues will be given
protective coatings and put on display within two weeks. About
two-thirds of them will be in the downtown area, with the largest
concentration in the Rice Park neighborhood.
This year, the thousands of people drawn to the statues can take
part in a "Where’s Woodstock?’’ contest that involves finding 30 of the
statues that have a special label showing Woodstock in flight.
Contestants need to circle the statue numbers on the official
"Doghouse Days of Summer’’ map and mail it to Capital City Partnership.
A drawing from among all submitted entries will determine the winners.
Top prize is a $500 merchandise card at Best Buy, one of the event
sponsors.
The maps will be available May 28, the opening of the event’s
information booth -- a doghouse at the Science Museum of Minnesota plaza
-- and a merchandise booth at Ecolab Plaza. The maps also will be
available at Best Buy stores and tourist information sites in St. Paul.
Finale Sept. 19
A few of the statues will be in the June 6 Grand Old Day parade,
some at the Taste of Minnesota in July and some at the State Fair in
late August. All the statues will be brought downtown for the Sept. 19
finale, which includes an auction of about 40 statues.
Proceeds from the auction, as in previous years, will pay for
scholarships at two art schools and help pay for bronze "Peanuts"
statues as a permanent tribute to Schulz, who died of cancer at age 77
in February 2000.
There are three bronze vignettes of his characters in downtown’s
Landmark Plaza, with a fourth depicting Peppermint Patty and Marcie to
be located nearby. It will be unveiled Sept. 19.
The St. Paul Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that the
statues have drawn 500,000 to 700,000 visitors each of the past two
summers. Bureau vice president Brad Toll said people usually visit for
other reasons but then take time to see the statues.
Anecdotal evidence from folks like the McCarthys indicates that
others plan vacations around the statues and travel from all over the
United States to see and photograph them.
Sandy McCarthy noted that she and her husband have a busy summer
planned, with stops in Iowa City, Iowa, to see "Herky the Hawk’’
statues, in Washington, D.C., to see pandas and maybe a zip over to
Europe to Prague and Brussels to see more cows.
The "paint-off’’ that kicks off the "Doghouse Days of Summer’’
begins today with set-up work. Free public sessions will be from 3 to 7
p.m. Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in the exhibit space
at the St. Paul RiverCentre.
For a full schedule of events and information about the annual St.
Paul tribute to Charles Schulz and his work, go to
www.doghousedaysofsummer.com or call the event’s information hotline at
651-291-5608.
Statues on parade
Here’s a recap of St. Paul’s five summer tributes to the life and
work of native son Charles Schulz
2000 "Peanuts on Parade," with 101 Snoopy statues
2001 "Charlie Brown Around Town," 102 Charlie Brown statues
2002 "Looking for Lucy," 103 Lucy Van Pelt statues
2003 "Linus Blankets the Town," 92 Linus Van Pelt statues
2004 "Doghouse Days of Summer," 104 Snoopy and Woodstock statues
You’re in a good book, Charlie Brown
May 12, 2004
By Wil Moss
The Nashville City Paper
You may think you know Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the rest of
the gang from Charles Schulz’s classic "Peanuts" comic strip, but The
Compete Peanuts 1950-1952, in bookstores now, may surprise you.
It is the first volume in a series of hardback books that will
reprint every "Peanuts" strip chronologically from 1950 to 2000. There
will be 25 volumes in all, with two to be released a year for the next
12-and-a-half years, each book collecting two years worth of strips from
the comic’s 50-year history.
Cartoonist Schulz ("Sparky" to his friends) was largely responsible
for bringing respect and dignity to the comic strip, and this collection
serves as a testament to that fact.
The production values are excellent, with a beautifully designed
cover by Canadian cartoonist Seth, an introduction by author and radio
personality Garrison Keillor, and high-quality reproduction of the
material, some of which has never seen print before. But as nice as the
package looks, the real treat lies inside.
"I think people are going to be surprised by it," Jean Schulz,
Charles’ widow, said of the book’s content, "but I think they’re going
to be rather charmed. When they decided to rerun the strips after Sparky
died [in 2000], I thought they might go back to the strips from the
‘50s, but United Features Syndicate [the strip’s publisher] said nobody
would recognize it."
Although the early strips are unmistakably "Peanuts," they do
feature some characterizations and designs that readers may not be
familiar with, like Schroeder, Lucy and Linus all starting off as
infants; Snoopy even debuted as a puppy.
Going beyond the countless Snoopy dolls, cartoons and other
licensed products, however, this collection gets back to what matters
most -- the actual "Peanuts" comic strips. Schulz’s influence is still
felt on the funny pages today, through the reprints of "Peanuts" still
running and to other strips whose cartoonists idolize Schulz.
Alternative comics creator Ivan Brunetti, who uses Schulz’s work as
a source in his cartooning courses at Columbia College Chicago, feels
"Peanuts" has influenced countless cartoonists, both on the comics page
and off.
"He’s inspired a generation of cartoonists," Brunetti said. "Most
cartoonists I know cite him as a primary influence."
"The Complete Peanuts" offers readers the chance to see such a
revered cartoonist (Schulz remains the only modern American comic strip
artist to be given a retrospective at the Louvre) developing his style
and his characters day by day over the course of 50 years.
"It’s fascinating to see the inception of ["Peanuts"], to see the
strip develop and the characters develop to what you know they’re going
to be," Brunetti said. "It’s come alive in a way no other strip has, so
seeing it in this infancy where it doesn’t know how to walk yet, I think
people will find it surprising.
"He’s the first cartoonist who put real emotion into the comic
strip," Schulz said. "And I believe that emotion continues to speak to
people, and I believe that is what accounts for ["Peanuts"] enduring
through time."
"The Complete Peanuts" will help to ensure that, and to ensure that
Charlie Brown will be trying to kick that football for a long time
coming.
The Ultimate Blockhead ‘Peanuts’ Collection Arrives
May 6, 2004
By Sharon Waxman
The New York Times
SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- Charles M. Schulz never wanted to publish his
"Peanuts" cartoons in full all of them, start to finish, in order.
A leading cartoon publisher offered to do just that a few years
before Schultz died in 2000. He begged off. Nobody wants to read that
old stuff, he said, and they’re not very good. Forty-nine years of
strips? Good grief.
But now his widow, Jean Schulz, has authorized the publication of
all of her husband’s work, with the first volume, 1950 through 1952, out
this week.
Though not without a vague pang of guilt. "You feel a little
disloyal," she confessed, speaking in her office upstairs in the
two-year-old Charles M. Schulz Museum here. "A little bit. He didn’t
want to do this." The airy, modernist structure is a few hundred yards
from where Mr. Schulz drew his comic strip every day.
Mrs. Schulz managed to get over the guilt, which is probably what
her husband -- as a master of life’s bittersweet qualities -- would have
wanted.
"There’s nothing like seeing his work in its entirety, day after
day, the little changes," she said, picking up the hardback book of his
strips.
She pointed out the first time he scribbled black lines in a
balloon above Charlie Brown’s head to denote something like dismay. She
found the first panel that had no dialogue at all, and an early image of
Snoopy, laughing hilariously at a stupid human trick.
"I’m not a ‘Peanuts’ expert," she said. "It’s the first time I’ve
looked at his early work in anything except when I archived the strips."
But Mrs. Schulz isn’t the only one who considers "Peanuts" a
cultural treasure that reveals deeper truths upon scrutiny.
That is probably why it endured for so long on newspaper pages and
why readers demanded that newspapers continue running "Peanuts" even
after Schulz stopped drawing in December 1999 because of cancer.
While "Peanuts" strips have been published in books before, the new
volumes, published by Fantagraphics Books, are the first complete
"Peanuts" compendium. Many people have seen the very first Peanuts
cartoon, which shows two kids sitting on a curb watching Charlie Brown
walk by, with one commenting "Good ol’ Charlie Brown ... How I hate
him."
The second one, not as frequently reprinted, shows a girl walking
down the street saying to herself "Little girls are made of sugar and
spice ... and everything nice." Then she pauses to punch a little boy in
the eye before concluding the poem, "That’s what little girls are made
of."
Mrs. Schulz, 65, said she tried not to think of what her husband, a
World War II veteran and self-described Eisenhower Republican, would
have thought of the current state of the world.
"Every once in a while it does cross my mind, but I don’t like to
think about it," she said. "He was not a dogmatic person. He was a
person of good sense, and open-minded. And he always had a wonderful way
of getting to the heart of things."
She said she found her work at the museum preserving his legacy at
odds with the events of the early 21st century. "I think of ‘cynical’
all the time," she said. "I hate it. It’s terrible. I want to be full of
hope. Even Lucy, pulling the football -- it’s funny. It’s who she is.
And who he is. You don’t have to say that ‘Peanuts’ is innately good.
People realize it. They know it."
Her work at the museum is the center of her life and fills most of
it. "I literally don’t have time for my own life," she said. "My family
room has papers stacked everywhere. But I don’t want someone else to
write the legacy. At least I want my take on it. If I were to disappear,
that wouldn’t be expressed."
What does she want people to know? "Simply how hard he worked at
what he did," she said. "And that he did it because he loved it, and
there wasn’t anything else he could do, being who he was. That his was a
genius, I think, for all time."
The books will be released twice a year, with each book containing
two years of Mr. Schulz’s cartoons. That makes it a 12 1/2 year project,
a good pace for Peanuts fans.
Suffer the Little Children
How did a comic strip about a depressed kid become a cultural icon?
Find out in "The Complete Peanuts"
May 3, 2004
By Lev Grossman
Time Magazine
Charlie Brown tried to kick a football for the first time in
November 1951. He ran, his tongue out to show his determination, and
then ... disaster. In the final frame, his tormentor stands over his
supine form. But it’s not Lucy; it’s Violet. Where’s Lucy? And who, for
that matter, is Violet?
Little anomalies like that are among the many pleasures of "The
Complete Peanuts" (Fantagraphics; 343 pages), the initial volume of an
extraordinary publishing project that over the next 12 years will
reprint the entire run -- 50 years and 18,170 strips -- of Charles
Schulz’s towering comic-strip masterpiece. "The Complete Peanuts" will
eventually take up 25 gorgeous hardcover books and include hundreds of
strips that haven’t been seen since the day they appeared in newsprint.
The first volume (1950-52) confronts us afresh with what a brilliant,
truly modern and totally weird idea it was to create a comic strip about
a chronically depressed child.
The name Peanuts was foisted on Schulz by an editor who had never
seen the strip, and Schulz always hated it. ("It’s totally ridiculous,
has no meaning, is simply confusing, and has no dignity," he fumes in a
frank, funny 1987 interview reprinted in the book.) He wasn’t wild about
"The Complete Peanuts" either. He thought his early work was crude, and
he didn’t especially want to see it reprinted. But his wife Jean
disagreed, and after his death in 2000 she worked with an editor at
Fantagraphics to pull the collection together. "Unlike Sparky, the rest
of his family loves those old strips," she says (apparently everybody
called Schulz Sparky). "To me, what’s happening here is we’re getting
back to the comic strip -- the simplicity, the black and whiteness of
it. For some people, the animation is more real than the comic strip,
but the comic is what is truly him." She’s right. To read "The Complete
Peanuts" is to forget that Snoopy ever did a MetLife commercial.
Of course, Schulz was right too. The early comics are crude, but
that’s what makes them fascinating. Back then, Lucy is still a toddler,
as are Schroeder and Linus, and Snoopy is a puppy. Charlie Brown’s best
friend is named Shermy, and they spend most of their time with a blond
named Patty (not Peppermint) and cruel Violet, a winsome brunet who gets
a lot of semifunny gags involving mud pies. Charlie Brown is more into
golf than baseball, and he says, "Great Scott!", not "Good Grief!" His
personality is different too. He’s more of a mischievous prankster; he
can often be seen scampering off in the last frame with a punk’d victim
in hot pursuit. Once or twice Schulz even breaks one of the cardinal
rules of Peanuts he lets us hear the voice of an adult.
But as you turn the pages, you can feel Schulz finding his rhythm.
There’s a restless intelligence there, pacing behind the panels,
learning from his mistakes. Three months in, Charlie Brown gets his
stripy shirt, and he gets called a blockhead for the first time in 1951.
There’s less chatter; some of the best strips are almost silent. After
some early glimmers of sentience, Snoopy gets his first thought balloon
in 1952 ("Why do I have to suffer such indignities!?"). Part of Schulz’s
getting better is Charlie Brown’s feeling worse. It’s almost a relief
when he drops the Li’l Rascal act in favor of melancholy refrains like
"I always say the wrong thing!", "I can’t stand it!!!" and "Boy, am I
ever depressed."
It all comes together in 1952, when for the first time (but not the
last) Schulz crams the whole weight of the world into a single panel
Charlie Brown says, to no one in particular, "Nobody loves me ..." as
waving cypresses in the background show us that the wind is blowing in
his face. If Freud discovered infant sexuality, Schulz is the pioneer of
the sadness of little children. It turns out to be not so different from
the sadness of adults.
Always Cute and Often Cruel
May 1, 2004
By Brad Mackay
The National Post [Canada]
"The Complete Peanuts 1950-52"
By Charles M. Schulz
Fantagraphics Books
343 pp., $39.95
"Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings"
By Derrick Bang
Charles M. Schulz Museum
292 pp., $30
Charles Monroe Schulz was arguably the most successful artist in
the history of popular American culture. According to Forbes magazine,
he earned some US $32-million last year -- a payday that placed him
runner-up only to Elvis Presley on the publication’s annual list of
wealthiest dead celebrities. And in 1999, a panel of comic critics and
scholars voted Peanuts, his life’s work, the second-greatest comic strip
of the 20th century. (It came a distinguished second to George
Herriman’s masterpiece, Krazy Kat.)
Yet despite both critical and financial success, Schulz himself
never shook his inherently bleak view of life. Consider this ode to
loneliness from a 1985 Peanuts collection "The most terrifying
loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only
a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see
running frantically down the road pursuing the family car. He is not
really being left behind, for the family knows it is to return, but for
that moment in his limited understanding he is being left alone forever,
and he has to run and run to survive."
The more introspective Schulz is an unknown entity to the majority
of Peanuts fans, whose impressions are coloured by the waves of
T-shirts, coffee mugs, greeting cards and souvenir ball caps that began
to emerge in the 1960s. (A 1967 New York Times Magazine article about
Schulz revealed that Peanuts was already earning more than $20-million
in licensing fees.)
There are now two new books that aim to resuscitate some of the
original Schulz wit and sophistication that existed long before Snoopy
became an insurance company shill.
"The Complete Peanuts 1950-52" is the first of an ambitious
12-1/2-year project that will see every Peanuts strip reprinted in 25
hardcover volumes. Published by U.S. alternative comics stalwart
Fantagraphics Books and designed by Canadian cartoonist Seth, the
handsome tome includes scores of Peanuts strips that haven’t been seen
by the public since they first appeared in newspapers more than half a
century ago. (Schulz was always selective about what went into his
Peanuts collections, and indeed only grudgingly gave his approval for
this project before he died in January, 2000.)
The first strip, which appeared in October, 1950, depicts the
soon-to-be star of the feature walking by some friends. As he
approaches, his pal Shermy comments, "Well! Here comes Ol’ Charlie
Brown! Good Ol’ Charlie Brown ... Yes, sir!" The final panel, after
Charlie has passed by, ends with the rebuke "How I hate him!"
And that bite is spread throughout the strip’s first 27 months,
with Everyman Charlie suffering a host of undignified firsts; his first
mud pie (courtesy of Violet), his first trademark "Good Grief," his
first baseball game and the first time a football is yanked away from
him -- though, in this case, it’s not Lucy’s fault.
A glance at the index gives you an idea of what to expect. The
annotations for Charlie Brown include citations for "failure in sports
or games ...", "injuries to ..." and an "insults to ...", a listing that
is divided into "general" and "re size and shape of head." Much of the
joy of this book is in witnessing Schulz in his embryonic period as an
artist, before he settled into a regular cast with defined
personalities.
For the first 100 or so strips, there is no clear "star" among the
tight cast of Patty, Shermy, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. In fact, Charlie
is depicted as a relatively worry-free little guy. It’s only as the
strip progresses that he evolves into his signature mix of bruised ego
and wounded pride.
As Violet, Schroeder, Lucy and Linus are introduced in a horizon
full of sandboxes and slides, Schulz never fails to depict them as both
endearingly cute and unerringly cruel. One rarely exists without the
other. In an era when the domestic comedy of Blondie and the
square-jawed justice of Dick Tracy ruled the funny pages, this
collection offers a brisk reminder the uniqueness of Charles Schulz’s
arch take on the world at the time.
Of course, Schulz devotees will know that Peanuts is not the
Minnesota native’s first foray into the comic pages. More than three
years before Peanuts, the artist produced L’il Folks, a weekly feature
that ran in the women’s section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The
gag-style feature, which ran from June, 1947, to January, 1950, shows a
much younger Schulz in both style and content. All 134 cartoons have
been gathered for the first time in "Charles M. Schulz Li’l
Beginnings," published by the Charles M. Schulz Museum.
True devotees will get a thrill out of spotting familiar characters
like a telltale black and white pup and several Charlie Brown
doppelgangers. And even this early on, Schulz’s trenchant wit is evident
-- one panel has a boy telling a fisticuffed girl "Don’t hit me! Just
say something sarcastic."
But the one-panel format of these strips limits their appeal by not
allowing for any narrative or character development. As well, the art
here is clearly Schulz trying to find his way, much of it bland and
stiff. The poor reproductions and shallow commentary don’t help.
But in the waning weeks of L’il Folks, Schulz comes into his own,
simplifying a style that he would expand upon in Peanuts.
But Schulz’s goal was always to keep the cartoon simple. "I like
it, for example, when Charlie Brown watches the first leaf of fall float
down and then walks over and just says ‘Did you have a good summer?’
That’s the kind of strip that gives me pleasure to do."
Whole works? Good Grief!
"The Complete Peanuts" is being published in a huge undertaking
once questioned by the strip’s troubled creator himself
April 25, 2004
By Murray Whyte
The Toronto Star
Fifty-four years ago, a meek, unremarkable-looking round-headed kid
made his debut on the comics pages of a handful of major newspapers
around North America. Bound by the traditional four-panel strip of the
day, he simply walked into frame, stage left, passed by a couple of kids
perched on the curb, and exited, stage right.
If that wasn’t worthy of notice, perhaps the words that accompanied
them were "Well! Here comes good ol’ Charlie Brown!," said one lad,
watching him walk past. And then, his brow knotted, he gets to the
point "How I hate him!"
It was an instructive debut. If nothing else can be said for
Charles M. Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy and the
rest of the Peanuts gang, it’s fair to say he wore his fragile heart on
his sleeve. And through the filter of Peanuts, it was only amplified.
For the first time, the arc of Schulz’s 50-year creative trajectory
has been collected in its entirety in "The Complete Peanuts," a
25-volume collection that gathers all of Schulz’s four-panel daily
musings, from the 1950 debut to his death in 2000.
Fantagraphics, a small Seattle publisher of high-culture graphic
novel authors such as Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes, will publish two
volumes per year, for 12-1/2 years.
The first edition, covering 1950 to 1952, appears next month.
A shy, reclusive homebody wracked by self-doubt and feelings of
inadequacy, Schulz laid bare the emotional complexities of his own soul
every day for a half century, infusing the Peanuts crew with his own
hopes, fears, sensitivities and occasional cruelties.
From its modest beginnings, a little strip with a name Schulz never
approved of ("It was the worst title ever thought up," said Schulz, in a
1987 interview, of Peanuts, a name assigned by his publisher. "It’s
totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing and has no
dignity -- and I think my humour has dignity."), it would become the
most popular comic strip of all time, appearing in 21 languages in about
2,600 newspapers, reaching 355 million people around the world.
Fantagraphics, a purveyor of sophisticated comics material, may
seem an odd publisher for such a mass-culture juggernaut, but publisher
Gary Groth begs to differ.
"Usually, gigantic merchandising phenomena and art-house concerns
never collide, but I would argue that, in this instance, they do," he
said. "When Peanuts appeared in 1950, it really was something of the
avant-garde. It dealt with all kinds of existential issues that comic
strips did not deal with. So really, Peanuts is an art-house comic
strip. It just so happened to appeal to the general public."
When it began, wedged between the likes of Li’l Abner and Little
Orphan Annie, this was difference on a cataclysmic scale. "Peanuts was
the fault line of a cultural earthquake," wrote David Michaelis, author
of a forthcoming biography of Schulz. Edgy, confused, alienated and
ridden with angst, Peanuts played its characters not for laughs, but
rather imbued them with an existential quest for significance more
appropriate to the complexities of adult life than day-to-day kid stuff.
"Sparky (Schulz’s nickname) had a very strong belief that children
were thinking, imaginative, sensitive beings who had all the feelings
and sensibilities that adults did," said Lynn Johnston, the Canadian
creator of the comic strip For Better Or For Worse. "He thought they
understood the complexities of relationships better than they were often
given credit for. He covered all the bases he had anger, he had apathy,
he had loss, he had frustration, he had solitude -- he just covered
everything."
Johnston and Schulz met through the American Comics Association in
the mid-’80s, and became close friends. Through the years, it became
clear to Johnston that Schulz’s strip was not merely invention, but
rather a reflection of the man himself.
"He often said, if you read my work you know me," she said.
"Everything he was, was in it. Absolutely."
Even a cursory reading of Schulz’s lifelong work is revealing.
Charlie Brown’s angst-ridden life of constant failure and
disappointment; Linus’s overachieving nature offset by his dependency on
his blanket; Lucy’s extreme bossiness; Schroeder’s quiet musical genius.
"All the kids were surrogates for Schulz himself, and all the
people in his life," said Groth -- most notably Charlie Brown, who was
an unvarnished version of Schulz. Even the mythical little red-haired
girl, for whom Charlie Brown nursed a decades-long crush, had a
real-life corollary The woman who turned down Schulz’s marriage
proposal in the 1940s.
Groth interviewed Schulz at length in 1997, spending an entire day
at his home in California. He found him to be genuine, soft-spoken,
quietly proud of his work, but at the same time unsure of himself,
despite his vast success. "He was always questioning his value," Groth
said. "When I first proposed "The Complete Peanuts", he really did say,
‘Oh, who would want to read that?’ It was obviously a very personal
endeavour."
Sometimes, Schulz’s personal involvement in Peanuts was a serious
burden, Johnston said. "He was very sensitive to criticism," she said.
"There were people who said he should have quit years ago, and he was
very hurt by that. He was very proud of the fact he had achieved what he
had achieved. He couldn’t give it up. It was his whole life."
As a result, Peanuts resonated with an emotional impact that earned
Schulz the affection of not only the mass market, but a community of
intellectuals and artists.
Umberto Eco, the author and semiotician, called Peanuts the first
comic strip to speak "in two different keys." "The world of Peanuts is a
microcosm, a little human comedy for the innocent reader and for the
sophisticated," he wrote.
Groth said Schulz’s work was revolutionary for the same reason, if
quietly so. "He’s not the radical that someone like Robert Crumb or
Jules Feiffer is, but in his own way, he was, and the strip was, even
though he didn’t see it that way," he said. "He just saw it as doing
what he was capable of doing, and he was temperamentally incapable of
not putting himself in the strip."
Johnston remembers Schulz as a thorny man whose emotional face was
never fully revealed in person. And on occasion, what he did reveal
wasn’t necessarily appealing. "Most people thought of him as humble, but
there were times when he was so mean, you would have to apologize to
people on his behalf," she said. "He really was moody and needy."
Both the work and the man himself have left a deep imprint on those
touched by him.
"When you go out with lunch with friends of his even now, the
conversation will ultimately turn to him, because he was such a complex
individual," Johnston said.
"He hurt all of our feelings many, many times. And you wouldn’t let
a lot of people get away with that," she said. "But his warmth, and his
fragility and his fears and everything that he was came out in the work
that he did. Sparky produced something that will never, ever be
duplicated. And that’s why it lasts."
Lucy was a crybaby and Snoopy was just a plain old dog
First installment of ambitious project to publish all of Peanuts
strip shows developing characters
Apirl 18, 2004
By Charles Solomon
The San Francisco Chronicle
"The Complete Peanuts 1950-52
By Charles Schulz
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS; 343 PAGES; 28.95
"Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings"
Annotations and editorial commentary by Derrick Bang
CHARLES M. SCHULZ MUSEUM; 292 PAGES; $30
During its 50-year run, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts became such an
essential part of American popular culture, it’s difficult to imagine a
time before it existed. Like the Mona Lisa and Mickey Mouse, Charlie
Brown, Linus and Snoopy were always there. Only Walt Disney and Jim
Henson left comparable legacies of characters, but they worked with
large staffs of artists. Schulz sat alone at his desk and created a
world, one panel at a time.
Two new books remind fans just how modestly Peanuts began When
Schulz ended the strip in early 2000, it was running in more than 2,200
newspapers worldwide, but in 1950, it premiered in eight papers. "The
Complete Peanuts Dailies & Sundays 1950-1952" is the first installment
in an ambitious project from Fantagraphics Books.
Two volumes will be issued every year for the next 12-1/2 years,
reprinting the entire run of the strip. "Charles M. Schulz Li’l
Beginnings" is the first collection of the artist’s earliest work spot
cartoons for the Saturday Evening Post and Li’l Folks, the weekly strip
he drew for the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1947 to 1950.
In "Li’l Beginnings," Derrick Bang offers background information
and links many of the Li’l Folks cartoons to related Peanuts strips.
Unfortunately, he often states the obvious. In a cartoon from October
1949, a boy out for a hike looks into the distance and says to his
friend, "We won’t get anyplace on this road ... it comes to a point!"
Bang writes "The ... cartoon derives its humor from perspective. In
real life, of course, most roads vanish over a hill or into a valley
long before their two edges come to a point." Albert Payson Terhune,
whose canine-themed novels delighted Schulz, has dropped out of the
popular canon, but does anyone need notes identifying Mozart and
Beethoven?
Not surprisingly, Li’l Folks anticipates many aspects of Peanuts.
Magazine cartoons of small children with improbably sophisticated
vocabularies and attitudes were popular during the ‘40s, and much of
Schulz’s early work falls into this category. In a Li’l Folks from March
1949, a small boy tells a baby, "Oh, how I tremble when I think of the
great task that faces your generation!," and in January 1951, Patty
wonders if Charlie Brown is crying because he’s frustrated or inhibited
(his shoes are too tight). Schulz expanded what had become a familiar
cartoon genre into a purely child’s world where adults never appeared.
When he began Peanuts, Schulz was able to recycle many of the jokes
he had used in his earlier strip. In an October 1949 Li’l Folks, two
boys walk past a girl and her puppy. One of the boys remarks, "There
sits a strange combination ... a dog and a girl ... man’s best friend
and man’s biggest problem." In January 1951, Charlie Brown watches as
Snoopy and Patty walk by, commenting, "Well, look who’s coming ... man’s
best friend! And look who’s with him ... man’s biggest worry! What a
combination!"
Turning the precocious kids from Li’l Folks into characters capable
of entertaining readers on a daily basis would prove a more daunting
challenge. Certain children had appeared more than once in Li’l Folks,
among them a baby in a high chair who acted as if he were in a
restaurant On Nov. 7, 1948, he raises a hand and calls, "Check,
please!" But this baby was just a drawing delivering an incongruous
line; he didn’t have a life beyond the individual gags. Schulz drew many
little girls with bows in their hair, but he hadn’t yet created a girl
with the recognizable personality of Patty or Violet or Lucy.
Some of the characters in Peanuts would remain virtually unchanged
for the next 50 years; others took longer to gel. Charlie Brown and
Snoopy proved the most durable of the original five-member cast. The
three others -- Violet, Patty and Shermy -- slipped into the role of
straight men and were eventually dropped.
Lucy, Linus and Schroeder all began as babies, but Schulz quickly
aged them to become Charlie Brown’s contemporaries. Lucy appeared in
early 1952 as a wide-eyed infant who often spoke in fractured English
"I wanna hear ‘Twengle Twengle Li’l Car.’ " Within a few months, she
began to evolve into the domineering fussbudget readers know and love.
In November 1952, Lucy yanked the football away when Charlie Brown tried
to kick it for the first time, but she had a reason (other than malice)
She didn’t want anyone with dirty shoes kicking her new toy.
No character underwent more significant changes than Snoopy.
Mischievous, unnamed beagles appeared regularly in Li’l Folks, and
Snoopy began as an ordinary canine with a playful, impish disposition.
He soon got a TV set, had an awning installed on his doghouse so he
could pretend he was living in a hotel and went ice skating on all
fours. By early 1952, he was beginning to have fantastic dreams in which
he spoke and walked on his hind legs. Snoopy wasn’t ready to climb onto
his roof to pursue the Red Baron or type "It was a dark and stormy
night," but Schulz was already discovering the character’s potential.
Schulz’s initial drawing style was more detailed, reflecting the
influence of his former teacher, Frank Wing (Yesterdays). The characters
in Li’l Folks and the early Peanuts strips often appeared in rooms
filled with furniture drawn in careful perspective. As the strip
progressed, Schulz began to develop the elegant, almost arid simplicity
that became the hallmark of his style. As his drawings grew simpler,
they became more expressive. During the ’50s, most cartoonists drew
faces showing extreme anger, happiness or frustration; Schulz
communicated subtler emotions in a few deft lines discouragement,
bewilderment, boredom, annoyance.
Although "classic" reprints appear in many newspapers, Peanuts
ended with Schulz’s death, as he had always intended. However, its
influence can be seen in the most imaginative strips of recent years.
Calvin and Hobbes, Zits, Mutts and Get Fuzzy all owe a debt to Schulz’s
extraordinary creation that began so simply, 54 years ago.
Interview with Jeannie Schulz
April 13, 2004
By Jennifer M. Contino
The San Diego Comic Con Pulse
Jean Schulz might not have created a comic strip empire, but the
wife of the late Charles Schulz has led just as -- if not more -- of an
exciting life as her famous husband. Schulz has worked for a variety of
organizations including The League of Women Voters, Canine Companions
for Independence, Building a Better City [Santa Rosa], and the Volunteer
Wheels Program, to name a few. Schulz’s an avid sportswoman and
following in her mother’s footsteps, she took up flying and competed in
several Powder Puff Derbies. Schulz is still involved in a number of
things today and her schedule is always full. Still she found some time
to answer some PULSE questions via e-mail about her life with and
without Charles Schulz and the new Fantagraphics Peanuts collections.
THE PULSE You told Sequential Tart in this interview that you were
born in Germany in 1939, but moved soon after because the British
Government thought it wasn’t safe. How different do you think your life
might have been had you stayed in Germany and been raised there? Do you
ever think about the "what ifs?"
JEAN SCHULZ No, I never think about being raised in Germany
because I am not German. My mother did once tell me that they considered
South Rhodesia as an alternative to US and during the extreme reign of
apartheid I wondered what sort of person I would have grown up to be if
I had been raised in that environment.
THE PULSE When you were younger, thinking about the future, what
did you want to "be" when you grew up? Where did you think your destiny
lay? Was it something you mused about a lot as a child/teen?
SCHULZ I am inclined to say something about my thinking was pretty
traditional, but I always wanted to travel. I have a saying — nothing
exists until I have seen it.
THE PULSE When did you first discover PEANUTS? What were your
initial thoughts about the precocious characters?
SCHULZ Strange as it may seem, when I was in college I didn’t read
the newspaper, but somehow knew about the characters. I think it wasn’t
until I was an adult that I began reading the comic strips regularly.
THE PULSE ST listed one of your credits as being given the Key to
the City of Santa Rosa. What work had you done to be bestowed this
honor?
SCHULZ I had been the co-chairman of a committee put together to
pass a bond issue to construct a new city hall.
THE PULSE Do you consider yourself a "driven" type person? Do you
come across projects or hear about issues that need someone to DO
something and feel a need to dive in and work/help? If so, what do you
think this drive stems from?
SCHULZ More than driven — I think I am curious. I like to find out
about things, and as other readers may have experienced, when you find
out about things you do want to do something.
THE PULSE When your daughter first began taking lessons at Schulz’
Redwood Empire Ice Arena, did you think you might meet Charles? Were you
a fan of his series?
SCHULZ No, I don’t think I thought anything about meeting him and,
of course, I read the comic strips and discussed them as most people did
in those days.
THE PULSE What was your first meeting like? Was it an attraction
at first sight? Did you get asked out on a date that first time? Where
was your first date?
SCHULZ Our first meeting was simply a discussion about my daughter
and her skating and I don’t actually remember any individual dates. What
I find amazing, and your readers may also, is looking back at how very
ordinary our life was in those days and indeed for the first 10 years we
were married. We played a lot of tennis on the weekends, took tennis
lessons, played in some tournaments, had dinner with a few good friends
and generally had a very low key life.
THE PULSE Were your children fans of Peanuts -- were they geeking
out that you were dating Charles? What was the family reaction like?
SCHULZ When Sparky did a 25th anniversary special with Phyllis
George all of our friends were amazed that he was going to be on
television. Sparky and my children always got along well, but they were
pretty busy with their own lives.
THE PULSE Had you already completed your pilots training when you
were dating Charles? Did you ever fly off together? Was Charles a fan of
flight?
SCHULZ I got my pilots license in 1968 and had already flown in
one of the Powder Puff Derbys (Women’s Transatlantic Air Race) with my
mother. Sparky actually was never enamored of small planes, but he was
very enthusiastic about my flying these races with my mother and he even
did one Sunday page about Peppermint Patty and Marcie flying the Powder
Puff Derby.
THE PULSE When you were first dating Charles what was the public
thoughts about PEANUTS like? I know it had been around for over a decade
when you began dating, but was it at a high then? Had there been a lot
of animated specials and collected editions at that point in time?
SCHULZ When Sparky and I married the comic strip had been going
for 23 years and the classic Charlie Brown Christmas and Great Pumpkin
shows had been on. The Thanksgiving special came next and I remember it
got good ratings and created a climate for more and more animation shows
which came along pretty regularly during the last part of the ’70s and
through the ’80s. Sparky always gave important input into the story line
itself and reviewed the story board once Bill Melendez had put that
together, but once it went to the animators it was pretty much out of
his hands — that’s because the animation process is so expensive that
they never wanted to re-draw and re-shoot scenes. All of this time
Sparky was working a regular schedule 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week
drawing the comic strip. So, as far as I know, Sparky is the only
cartoonist who has drawn and lettered every strip and thought of every
idea for a comic strip lasting just under 50 years. As far as reprints
of the comic strip are concerned, they had been going virtually since
the beginning. Fawcett began reprinting those little 4 x 5 reprint books
very early on. But, the thing to remember with this upcoming
Fantagraphics project, is that those early books didn’t print all the
comic strips.
THE PULSE How did you notice -- if at all -- the fandom of Peanuts
change in the ’70s and ’80s? I seem to recall a ton of animated specials
in the mid to late ’70s to around the same timeperiod in the ’80s. How
charged were you both to see those characters in cartoons and animated
movies?
SCHULZ Sparky was working to do his comic strips every day and do
the work on the animation specials -- I know he was pleased when they
got good reviews, but we didn’t have time to think about what he had
done because he had to go on to the next thing.
THE PULSE Why do you think Charlie Brown became such a universal
character and so well-loved around the world? What do you view as the
main thing that set this comic strip apart from all the others?
SCHULZ I think the comic strip became what it is because Sparky
put all of his emotions into the comic strip,. Both into the lives of
his many characters and actually into the lines as he was drawing them.
THE PULSE How much of upcoming strips and ideas did Charles
discuss with you? Did he ever ask your opinion about what to do with
this character or how to let a scene play out or anything like that? If
you and he discussed the series, what was it like to see little
suggestions or ideas you had for the direction of something come into
play in the finished work?
SCHULZ Sparky never took ideas from other people, but he did
occasionally ask if I thought an idea was funny because as he would say
"sometimes I just can’t tell." There were so few times when he discussed
a storyline in the strips that you would think I could remember them,
but I can’t — I know it was rare.
THE PULSE Why did Charles want PEANUTS to end with his run? Why
didn’t he want anyone else working on these characters?
SCHULZ Because nobody else could do it — it was his creation, his
drawings and no one else could do it.
THE PULSE How did Fantagraphics get chosen to release the COMPLETE
PEANUTS? What made this publisher a good one to collect and introduce a
whole new generation to some of the earliest PEANUTS?
SCHULZ After Sparky died there were several conversations about
the need to re-produce the entire 50 years, but there were so many
missing strips and we had no idea how to locate them. Gary Groth came to
us with his Fantagraphic proposal and felt confident he could find them
all and do it relatively quickly. We also thought that the designs that
the artist, Seth, proposed were perfectly in keeping with the spirit of
the work.
THE PULSE What do you think of the advanced copy of the book?
SCHULZ I have been going through the first book lovingly and have
likened it to looking at pictures of your kids when they were young. It
takes me right back to how I felt then. To me the book is very simple
and very direct and allows the reader to have his own reminiscence.
You might be interested to know The Charles M. Schulz Museum and
Research Center is publishing a book of all the "Li’l Folks" cartoons
showing Peanuts strips that are related to these earlier panel cartoons.
You can get more information on the Web site schulzmuseum.org. The
Museums first publication is a compilation by other cartoonists of
cartoon strips, editorial cartoons and panels paying tribute to Charles
Schulz and the genius of his work.
THE PULSE Fantagraphics told us you would be making some personal
appearances to promote "The Complete Peanuts". Where will you be
appearing this year?
SCHULZ I will be making public appearances only on the West Coast.
THE PULSE Why will there only be two books a year for the next 12
years? Was that are your request or is there another reason to do a slow
reprinting of the series? What other projects are you involved with in
2004?
SCHULZ That is the time schedule that Fantagraphics came up with.
The Museum is an ongoing work and right now we are preparing for an
exhibit that will open toward the end of March which will be the Mad
Magazine parodies on Peanuts. Also a biography of Schulz is being done
by David Michaelis, whose most recent biography was N.C. Wyeth. He is
hoping to have his book finished in 2005. We also have Sparky’s Ice
Arena here in Santa Rose — Snoopy’s Home Ice -- with a full schedule of
activities, including the Senior Ice Hockey Tournament which Sparky
began and we have run for over 25 years.
Jen Cody, Hunter Foster and Deven May talk about "Snoopy!" benefit
set for Monday, April 12th
April 09, 2004
By Craig Brockman
www.BroadwayWorld.com
This Monday, April 12th, several of Broadway's finest will take to
the stage at Symphony Space on the upper west side for a concert version
of "Snoopy!" The Musical. The event will benefit the Pied Piper
Children's Theatre. I recently sat down with Jen Cody, Hunter Foster and
Deven May to talk about their involvement in Monday's concert.
Unlike doing a full production, the performers don't have a lot of
time to prepare for their roles. "I think of Sally as the youngest one,
so I am trying to think of youthful things that kids do like catching
your breath. My character is funny because she just says things and it
comes from that innocent place. It's also a fun role because Sally has a
big crush on Linus so it makes for some very funny moments in the show,"
said Jen.
Why does that amuse Jen? Because playing Linus is real life
husband, Hunter Foster. Hunter is no stranger to the role having played
it before (but in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown) when he was 13. "The
Peanuts were one of my favorite things growing up as a kid so I have
always loved Linus. I have to tell you though, I don't really remember
how I played him - it was the first thing I ever did."
Deven May is also reprising his role as Charlie Brown having
portrayed him in, what he politely refers to, as an amalgamation of both
YAGMCB and "Snoopy!" back in High School which then toured to middle
schools and summer camps. Deven was being quite entertaining as he went
into a very "cerebral" type mode during the interview. "When you've done
a role before you've already done most of the legwork. So now doing
Charlie Brown, it's a little bit -- I wouldn't say easier -- I am just
more familiar with the Peanuts gang. I'm also a big Peanuts fan. I
collected the books and watched all the cartoons when I was a kid, so I
pretty much had it keyed in. Everyone feels down sometimes, or hasn't
had the right answer. He's a bit of a depressive guy. He has his moments
of joy but they're squashed. You know Charlie Brown is every man. If you
think about on a small scale what the Peanuts gang goes through -- on a
larger scale we've all gone through."
When asked how they were recruited for their roles in "Snoopy!" by
producer, Sutton Foster, Jen, Hunter and Deven (almost like it was
rehearsed) gave the same answer. "We had to audition." Deven chimed in
that clearly it was "nepotism." Hunter said "Actually she called up and
did it very formally. She said 'Hi this is Sutton and I'd like to
formally offer you the role of Linus' and I was like 'what's with all
the formality -- just ask me to do it." Jen was offered her role at a
Christmas party, while Deven was contacted by Sutton having worked
together on such projects like the workshop for Wicked.
Sutton's not the only producer -- Jamie McGonnigal, after the very
successful "Children of Eden" and "Embrace" events (the latter for the
Matthew Shepard Foundation, is also on hand. Hunter and Jen both said
that although at this point they haven't worked that much with Jamie
specifically (they've been working more with the director, choreographer
and musical director at this point) that they really like him and "he
really has great things to say. He's really smart and insightful," says
Jen, "he's such an easy audience. He makes you feel funny because he
just laughs and laughs." Hunter adds that "He's also really positive
and supportive." Sutton has been very proactive in organizing the
event, but during the actual rehearsals, Jen says that she's had to let
go of some of those responsibilities and let Jamie take those on so she
can concentrate on being an actress.
"This all happens so quick," continues Jen, "we've been doing a lot
of homework because we don't rehearse on weekends and we're only a few
days away." Their final dress rehearsal is a couple of hours before
they perform in front of the benefit audience. Both Jen and Hunter raved
about the costumes having just had their fitting a few days before the
interview.
It will be a treat for those attending to see both Sutton and
Hunter perform on the same stage here in NYC. Hunter reminded me that
they have actually performed together before "We did Grease together for
about 2 weeks and Les Mis together for 2 days." Jen and Hunter are
quite familiar sharing the same stage having appeared in quite a few
shows together -- Urinetown, Grease, and Cats (where they first met). So
do they like working together? "I love it!" boasts Jen. Hunter paused,
and when I raised an eyebrow to see if he'd disagree, he said "It's both
good and bad. It's bad -- not on something like this because something
like this is fun -- but doing a long run it gets difficult because the
show problems become your problems and I don't like that. I don't like
when she gets upset about the show-" Jen continued with " If one of us
is mad at somebody in the show and then the other person is like 'how
can you talk to that person??'" Hunter then added "But on the other
hand, it's nice to go to work and spend time together."
With both of them very active in the Broadway community, how does
the happy couple influence each other's decisions on which roles to
take? "I think more now we talk about things when it comes down to
leaving town. I don't think I would ever leave now for a long period of
time. We've been, knock on wood, very fortunate and never had to really
make those decisions."
So what can people expect on Monday evening? "A lot of good
wholesome fun. A lot of smiling" says Deven, "What we've been able to
raise for this children's theater already is fantastic. We have like 50
kids singing as part of the chorus with 8 or 9 acting as doppelgangers
to each character. "A really fun evening. We've got John Tartaglia
hosting, and kids - we have these 50 kids singing as part of the chorus.
So they are part of the performance and also who we are raising the
money for...And this one cute 6 year old (McKinny Danger-James) who
plays Woodstock" Jen adds with Hunter interjecting "She's just so..so
cute!"
So what role would Jen like to take on most? "Thinking ahead to
what shows are coming to Broadway, I'd like to be in West Side Story.
It's one of those things you grew up on as a kid and to have it play
when I'm the right age to do it. Ahh. I would love to play Anybodys.
It's my dream"
As for Hunter, he's a little torn. His initial answer was Jesus in
Jesus Christ Superstar. But then corrected himself "I'd really love to
play Georg in She Loves Me - it's just a great show and a great
character."
And if they could do a show together? They both responded with
"Mack and Mabel," which Hunter appeared with his sister, Sutton, in
concert last year.
Deven told me that he has some interesting plans already in the
works. After having originated the role of Bat Boy/Edgar both in LA and
New York (Off-Broadway) he is currently in discussions with the "powers
that be" to take on the role once again - this time in Leeds in the UK
under the direction of Mark Wing-Davey. The production would have Deven
in rehearsals as early as mid-May. For those curious if that means he's
planning shaving his head again, "Oh of course I would. I actually
prefer to have my head shaved."
Deven's dream role would be to play Sweeney in Sweeney Todd. And if
he could perform with his girlfriend? Well Deven didn't want to answer
without first calling Jessica Grove (who is currently in Thoroughly
Modern Millie) on her cell. "She's saying Bat Boy. No.. actually we
would both love to originate roles in a new Broadway show. So all you
lyricists, composers and book writers out there - Jessica Grove and
Deven May want to be in your show."
It's not too late to pick up tickets to Monday's event. For more
information about the Snoopy benefit, visit
www.snoopyconcert.org.
