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Post by marianne48 on Nov 26, 2022 12:50:45 GMT
Celebrating one of the great artists of the 20th century!
Schulz's work also taught me how to read before I was five years old. Our house contained collections of Peanuts cartoons in paperback book form, and I used to look at them over and over until I could make out the words. This was fun, because of the character development of everyone in the strip--they were so much more than little kids and a dog. It was like reading a novel in serial form.
Then when I got to first grade, I was "officially" introduced to reading by a teacher who excitedly told our class that we would be meeting a wonderful cast of characters in our reading books--Dick and Jane! I still remember being transfixed by her descriptions of Dick and his sister Jane, their baby sister Sally, the dog Spot, Jane's cat Puff, Sally's teddy bear Tim, etc. I thought these characters would interact like the Peanuts characters, discussing feelings and philosophy, etc. I was so disappointed when these dullards did nothing but play with their toys while robotically repeating words and phrases over again--"Go, Dick, go..."Jane, look at Spot...", etc. No introspection at all, they were the "Stepford Wives" of children's books. All these books did was make kids think reading was boring.
Thank you, Mr. Schulz, for all the years of entertainment and insight.
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Post by divtal on Nov 26, 2022 21:11:08 GMT
Charles Schultz introduced generations of children to; philosophy, language, whimsy, diversity, emotion and the power of imagination. At the same time, he entertained adults, making them/us think about all of the above. When I was very little, I remember a panel that ended with Lucy saying: "I have my own fiscal year." I had no idea what "fiscal" meant, and asked my parents. Bingo ... a lesson! Charlie Brown, and the football, is an automatically recognized metaphor, with many applications. My mother clipped a panel out, for me, that I have framed. It's a "classroom" scene: -- Peppermint Patty: "Yes, Ma'am. Charles Dickens."
-- Marci: "Sir, how did you know that?"
-- Peppermint patty: "If you go to school long enough, sooner or later the answer is going to be Charles Dickens."
I love Dickens, and that's very special to me. A couple of years ago, I visited the Charles Schultz museum (skating rink, and cafe), in Santa Rosa. I'd not been there, before. It was a treat.  |
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Post by petrolino on Nov 27, 2022 2:38:50 GMT
Fun fact - Snoopy posters, pictures, t-shirts etc. appear in numerous Italian genre films of the 1970s / early 1980s, as it became kind of a running joke to insert them because the directors were all 'Peanuts' fans. Spokespeople for the Charles M. Schulz Museum later said they were humbled to see all the shrines to his work built by hand within the latin nations of southern Europe.
'They said it would never happen here, but a million French are now hooked on “Peanuts,” the comic strip by Charles Schulz with the water‐headed beagle Snoopy, the lifetime loser Charlie Brown and the horrible Lucy, all speaking the Gallic tongue here.
France was one of the last holdouts in Western Europe. “The humor is not understandable to the French,” the president of the French Comic Strips Association once said.
Then last year, the masscirculation newspaper France‐Soir began publishing “Peanuts” daily, hilariously translated by Michel Perez, who learned the American idiom at the movies.
In the last few months, 500,000 “Peanuts” T‐shirts have been sold, six paperback books and three hardbacks in color have been breaking records and French children have been sleeping between Snoopy sheets ...'
- Nan Robertson (article published in 'The New York Times' on March 26, 1975)
Kurt Vonnegut mentored John Irving - two of my all-time favourite serio-comic novelists - which means a lot to me. And so it was that Charles Schulz mentored Jim Davis, two of my all-time favourite cartoonists who made the world a better place.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 27, 2022 17:19:58 GMT
Charles Schulz is to comic strips as The Beatles are to rock music. Nearly every strip that followed was influenced by Peanuts.
It's fun to look at the old strips and see how much the strip changed. When Peanuts began, Charlie Brown was a flippant, almost smart assed younger kid. Took years for him to morph into the lovable loser. Lucy Van Pelt was a slightly naive little girl who referred to herself in the 3rd person. The "fussbudget" came later. Most notably, Snoopy was just a dog, doing dog things. One of the first things Schulz did to steer the strip into what it become was to give Snoop his thought balloons. Even later examples. Peppermint Patty was to be a one off character. A tomboy who came across town to help "Chuck" baseball team (she pitched a no-hitter hit five homers and lost 40-5). Schulz said that the characters seemed to evolve and he didn't know which ones would be leads and which one would fade. Shermy could have been the central character and Charlie Brown could have faded into nothingness (Like Shermy, Violet, "Original" Patty).
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Post by novastar6 on Nov 29, 2022 6:31:39 GMT
Charles Schulz is to comic strips as The Beatles are to rock music. Nearly every strip that followed was influenced by Peanuts. It's fun to look at the old strips and see how much the strip changed. When Peanuts began, Charlie Brown was a flippant, almost smart assed younger kid. Took years for him to morph into the lovable loser. Lucy Van Pelt was a slightly naive little girl who referred to herself in the 3rd person. The "fussbudget" came later. Most notably, Snoopy was just a dog, doing dog things. One of the first things Schulz did to steer the strip into what it become was to give Snoop his thought balloons. Even later examples. Peppermint Patty was to be a one off character. A tomboy who came across town to help "Chuck" baseball team (she pitched a no-hitter hit five homers and lost 40-5). Schulz said that the characters seemed to evolve and he didn't know which ones would be leads and which one would fade. Shermy could have been the central character and Charlie Brown could have faded into nothingness (Like Shermy, Violet, "Original" Patty).
Between the two I always preferred Marcie but I did like Peppermint Patty. A neighbor lent me some of her comic collections, I loved Molly Volley, and Crybaby Booby has become a household word in our home. 
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 29, 2022 11:17:53 GMT
Charles Schulz is to comic strips as The Beatles are to rock music. Nearly every strip that followed was influenced by Peanuts. It's fun to look at the old strips and see how much the strip changed. When Peanuts began, Charlie Brown was a flippant, almost smart assed younger kid. Took years for him to morph into the lovable loser. Lucy Van Pelt was a slightly naive little girl who referred to herself in the 3rd person. The "fussbudget" came later. Most notably, Snoopy was just a dog, doing dog things. One of the first things Schulz did to steer the strip into what it become was to give Snoop his thought balloons. Even later examples. Peppermint Patty was to be a one off character. A tomboy who came across town to help "Chuck" baseball team (she pitched a no-hitter hit five homers and lost 40-5). Schulz said that the characters seemed to evolve and he didn't know which ones would be leads and which one would fade. Shermy could have been the central character and Charlie Brown could have faded into nothingness (Like Shermy, Violet, "Original" Patty).
Between the two I always preferred Marcie but I did like Peppermint Patty. A neighbor lent me some of her comic collections, I loved Molly Volley, and Crybaby Booby has become a household word in our home. Mine too. I still call my sister Crybaby Boobie. I loved how you never seen Boobie's eyes or the top of her head just her open, screaming mouth
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Post by novastar6 on Nov 29, 2022 13:24:40 GMT
Between the two I always preferred Marcie but I did like Peppermint Patty. A neighbor lent me some of her comic collections, I loved Molly Volley, and Crybaby Booby has become a household word in our home. Mine too. I still call my sister Crybaby Boobie. I loved how you never seen Boobie's eyes or the top of her head just her open, screaming mouth
She looks like Sally from that angle.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 29, 2022 17:10:18 GMT
Mine too. I still call my sister Crybaby Boobie. I loved how you never seen Boobie's eyes or the top of her head just her open, screaming mouth
She looks like Sally from that angle.
She did look a lot like Sally from that angle. And that was all you ever seen of CBB.
And I really did like Marcie. Even though she called Peppermint Patty "Sir" she was the brains of that outfit. And she had enough backbone to go against PP. Peppermint Patty was a game changing character for the strip. Schulz almost spun Patty off to make another strip. But she could be as cruel as Lucy at times. She blamed everyone else for her mistakes. Twice she played with Charlie Brown making him think she wanted him to play for her baseball team while she just wanted to use him to sell popcorn and make a jackass of himself, dressing up as a pelican mascot. The strip made fun of her grades at times ("D Minus Hall of Fame") but no one ever offered to help her. Sign of the times
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