My Life with Charlie Brown
ISBN: 9781604734485
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University Press of Mississippi
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Cartoonists;

While best known as the creator of Peanuts , Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000) was also a thoughtful and precise prose writer who knew how to explain his craft in clear and engaging ways. My Life with Charlie Brown brings together his major prose writings, many published here for the first time.

Schulz's autobiographical articles, book introductions, magazine pieces, lectures, and commentary elucidate his life and his art, and clarify themes of modern life, philosophy, and religion that are interwoven into his beloved, groundbreaking comic strip. Edited and with an introduction by comics scholar M. Thomas Inge, this volume will serve as the touchstone for Schulz's thoughts and convictions and as a wide-ranging, unique autobiography in the absence of a traditional, extended memoir.

Inge and the Schulz estate have chosen a number of illustrations to include. With the approval and cooperation of the Schulz family, Inge draws on the cartoonist's entire archives, papers, and correspondence to allow Schulz full voice to speak his mind. The project includes his comics criticism, his introductions to Peanuts volumes, his essays about philanthropy, his commentary on Christianity, his newspaper articles about the creation of his characters, and more. My Life with Charlie Brown will reveal new dimensions of this legendary cartoonist.

Charles Monroe Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 26, 1922. He started drawing at a young age, practicing with popular characters such as Popeye. When he was 15, one of his pictures appeared as an illustration in "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" He took a correspondence course with Art Instruction Inc., where he later taught, and served in the Army during World War II.

The Peanuts (originally called Li'l Folks, a name that was changed by the United Feature Syndicate) began syndication on October 2, 1950, when it appeared in seven newspapers. Schulz's work went on to become the most popular syndicated comic strip of all time, appearing in 2600 papers in 75 countries around the world. Schulz drew everyone of the more than 18,250 Peanuts strips himself and his contract stipulated that no one else would ever draw them.

Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts Gang also appear in a number of television specials, the first of which was A Charlie Brown Christmas (1964), created with animator Bill Melendez. It is one of the most watched and best loved television shows in history and winner of an Emmy and a Peabody.

Charles Schulz has been inducted into the Cartoonists Hall of Fame and won numerous awards. He was given Reuben Awards by the National Cartoonists Society in 1955 and 1964, the Yale Humor Award (1956), the School Bell Award from the National Education Society (1960), and the Ordre des Artes et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture. In 1990, his work was shown at the Louvre.

Schulz retired after being diagnosed with colon cancer. The final daily Peanuts strip appeared in January 3, 2000 and the final Sunday strip, along with a letter of thanks to his editors and fans, appeared on February 13, 2000. Schulz died in his home in Santa Rosa, California on February 12, 2000 within hours of the publication of his farewell strip.

(Bowker Author Biography)


hidden image for function call