Schulz, Charles M.


Schulz, Charles M.

(Charles Monroe Schulz), 1922–2000, American cartoonist, b. Minneapolis, Minn. Creator of the syndicated comic strip Peanuts (1950–2000), one of the world's most popular examples of the genre, Schulz expressed a droll yet tender philosophy through his strip's simply drawn yet extremely expressive large-headed, small-bodied children and animals. Among its principal characters are Charlie Brown, a gentle, puzzled boy, usually failing, yet always persevering; Lucy, his bossy, sarcastic, know-it-all friend; Linus, a philosophical tyke with a security blanket; and Snoopy, a romantic, self-deluded beagle. At the peak of its popularity, Peanuts had a readership of some 300 million in 75 countries, was carried by about 2,600 newspapers, and was printed in 21 languages. The strip, whose characters also adorned hundreds of products, made him the world's wealthiest cartoonist. One of the many collections of comic strips from the series published in book form is Peanuts Classics (1970). Peanuts also has been the basis for a number of cartoon television specials as well as a popular Broadway musical (1971, revived 1999).

Bibliography

See his Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me (1980); biographies by R. G. Johnson (1989) and D. Michaelis (2007).

Schulz, Charles M. (Monroe)

(1922– ) cartoonist; born in Minneapolis, Minn. After studying art through a correspondence course and contributing free-lance cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post, he created in 1950 a newspaper comic strip tentatively titled Li'l Folks. The strip was accepted for syndication under the new title, Peanuts, and became the most successful cartoon strip in history. The childhood travails of Charlie Brown and his friends, Lucy, Linus, and his dog, Snoopy, have been immortalized in more than 30 animated television specials and three full-length cartoon films, and have made Schulz one of the wealthiest individuals in America.