After his discharge from the
army, Charles Schulz took a job as an art teacher at Art Instruction, Inc.
in Minneapolis. His first comic
strip job was doing lettering work for a Catholic comic magazine titled
Timeless Topics, His first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks,
were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He
created a character in Li'l Folks, named Charlie Brown. The
series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a
cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post; the first of seventeen single-panel
cartoons by Schulz that would be published there.
Li'l Folks was dropped in January, 1950. Later that year, Schulz
approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l
Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip
became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a
short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game
(1957 –
1959), but abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts.
From 1956 to 1965, he also contributed a single-panel strip (Young Pillars), a publication associated with the Church of
God.
Peanuts was almost a microcosm of Schultz 's life.
Charlie Brown, the principal character in Peanuts, was named after a
Charlie Brown, a co-worker at the Art Instruction Schools. Like
Charlie Brown's parents, Schulz's father was a barber and his mother a
housewife. Schulz and Charlie Brown were shy and withdrawn. Schulz had a dog
when he was a boy. Schulz's "Little Red-Haired Girl" was Donna Johnson, an
Art Instruction Schools accountant with whom he fell in love. Schulz was
planning to propose to her, but before he got an opportunity to do so, she
agreed to marry another man. Linus and Shermy were both named after his
friends, Linus Maurer and Sherman Plepler. Peppermint Patty was
inspired by Patricia Swanson, one of his cousins.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years without interruption and appeared in
more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. In November 1999 Schulz suffered
a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had
metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or
see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999 and died a few
months later.So to celebrate one of
the world's favorite artist's birthday, we suggest making a batch of peanut
ice cream and watching A Boy
Named Charlie Brown (1969).
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