My Life with Charlie Brown

216 Pages·2010·1.55 MB·English

by  Charles M. Schulz

My Life with Charlie Brown
Edited and with an introduction by M. Thomas Inge
Charles M.
sChulz
My Life with Charlie Brown
University Press of Mississippi / Jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
Designed by Todd Lape
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2010 by Schulz Family Intellectual Property
Trust. All rights reserved.
PEANUTS © United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
PEANUTS is a registered trademark of United Feature
Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.
All illustrations by Charles M. Schulz, PEANUTS ©
United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2010
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schulz, Charles M. (Charles Monroe), 1922–2000.
My life with Charlie Brown / Charles M. Schulz ; edited
and with an introduction by M. Thomas Inge.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-60473-447-8 (alk. paper)
1. Schulz, Charles M. (Charles Monroe), 1922–2000.
2. Cartoonists—United States—Biography. 3. Schulz,
Charles M. (Charles Monroe), 1922–2000. Peanuts.
I. Inge, M. Thomas. II. Title.
PN6727.S3Z46 2010
741.5’6973
[B 22] 2009033756
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
On behalf of Sparky
this book is dedicated to

his wife, Jeannie

and his children
Meredith
Monte
Craig
Amy
and
Jill
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
ix Introduction
xv Chronology
My life
3 My Life and Art with Charlie Brown and Others
20 Peanuts as Profession of Faith
26 Commencement Address at Saint Mary’s College
32 Charles Schulz and Peanuts
37 The Christmas That Almost Got Stolen
41 Snoopy’s Senior World Hockey Tournament
46 I’ll Be Back in Time for Lunch
51 The Fan: Baseball Is Life, I’m Afraid
57 Comic Inspiration
60 Don’t Grow Up
67 My Shot: Good Grief!
69 A Morning Routine
71 Questions about Reading That Children Frequently Ask
My Profession
77 Developing a Comic Strip
85 Peanuts—How It All Began
89 Creativity
104 A Career in Cartooning
111 Why 100 Million of Us (GASP!) Read the Comics
viii Contents
116 Happiness Is a Lot of Assignments
123 On Staying Power
126 Address to the National Cartoonists Society Convention
141 Pleasures of the Chalk-Talk
My art
147 The Theme of Peanuts
164 But a Comic Strip Has to Grow
171 What Do You Do with a Dog That Doesn’t Talk?
Appendix
181 Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
187 A Poem for Jeannie
189 Index
Introduction
Charles Monroe Schulz, better known as “Sparky” among his fam-
ily and friends, was twentieth-century America’s favorite and most
highly respected cartoonist. His comic strip, Peanuts, appeared daily
in over two thousand newspapers in the United States and abroad
in a multiplicity of languages. Compilations of the strips sold in mil-
lions of copies during his lifetime and often topped best seller lists,
and more recently a series of volumes collecting the complete run of
Peanuts appeared in the New York Times listings.
Thousands of toy and gift items bore and continue to bear the
likenesses of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy, and the other characters
who populate their world. A stage musical based on Peanuts—You’re
a Good Man Charlie Brown—has remained one of the most frequently
performed shows in American theatrical history, and
several award-winning animated television spe-
cials continue to be shown annually and sold
in DVD. Even today, almost a decade after
the untimely death of Schulz on February
12, 2000, classic Peanuts reprints continue
to hold their own space in major newspapers
throughout the United States and in other
countries.
While sometimes bewildered by the enor-
mous influence of the characters of his creation
on American culture in general, Schulz held to
ix