Charles Schulz, 1922-2000

I mentioned the death of Charles Schulz yesterday, but only by happenstance: It was some hours later when I saw various postings that noted that it was the 15th anniversary of his death.

I said then that we'd discuss his legacy another day and so, wotthehell, here's the day.

This pic comes from Mike Lynch's blog, which, btw, is a very good place to visit for interesting random stuff.

And we had some of those dolls. Linus's blanket got lost very, very soon. He seemed to be okay with it, though, which is kind of surprising.

Schulz was a giant who transformed the industry, with innovations in both style and substance that, while not all of them were his alone, he brought to the forefront and made critical parts of how comic strips work.

When I say the innovations were not all his, it's a bit like talking about the fact the Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas. Yes, Leif Ericson was earlier and the Vikings even established temporary settlements. 

And Crockett Johnson had both a simple style and a preternaturally wise child at the center of his strip. But, though I dearly love Barnaby, it's a bit like advancing Leif Ericson as the discoverer of America: In the first place, you're simply begging for someone else to point out an earlier example and, second, it's pretty hard to dispute that Columbus was the one whose work was transformative.

Whatever the discoveries and the firsts, Schulz was the innovator who changed things, from the ability to stack a four-panel comic into a square to the narrator who was not simply a Fool in the classic sense, walking through the world innocently seeing everything in a new light -- and never mind Barnaby, that goes back at least to Nemo -- but a narrator who sees things innocently but comments on them from a wise, dark place.

Peanuts was more than a way to see your own world through new eyes. It was an invitation to enter Charlie Brown's world, and, thus, Charles Schulz's world.

Other cartoonists, like Al Capp and Harold Gray, had viewpoints that you needed to acknowledge in order to appreciate their work, but Schulz was more an auteur, not simply a distinctive John Ford or Sergei Eisenstein, but a Truffault or Fellini whose work and whose personality were indistiguishable one from the other.

And if Charlie Brown's internal universe was sometimes dark and troubling, Charles Schulz's external legacy is similarly complicated and something of a third-rail within comicdom.

On the one hand, his continuing presence, as both a creative influence and a very real patron of the art, is not simply positive but critical to the trade.

But the continuing presence of Peanuts in newspapers as a "zombie strip" does not meet universal approval.

(He said, choosing his words with that third-rail-touching caution.)

When Schulz had his stroke, I dropped by the editor's office and put him on notice that things didn't look good and that we should be ready to make a move if things didn't turn around.

While Schulz had let other artists work on the various commercial offshoots of his strip, it was well-established that the strip itself was sacrosanct and he had declared that he wanted no one else to draw it when he was gone.

So, when he died, we looked at the number of his strips that were still in the pipeline and made a move so we could fill the gap the morning after the last Peanuts had run.

As such, we were one of a very small percentage -- perhaps 10%, though I don't remember the exact figure -- who did not accept the unexpected and, as far as I know, unprecedented proposal to continue running his old material.

I would still defend the decision. My own opinion is that the Internet has plenty of room for reprints, and I own a stack of Peanuts books, and I think that newspapers should justify the word "new" in their name.

And Schulz was known as a generous patron of new, young cartoonists. Lord knows there are other cartoonists who could use what little real estate remains to them in newspapers.

Furthermore, at the risk of arguing from hindsight, whatever the merits of philosophical and artistic purity in a tough world, it's not like only 10 percent of the newspapers are seeing declines in circulation and revenue.

If running old Peanuts strips had reversed that trend, I'd be more inclined to second-guess things. (We had no cancellations specifically attributed to dropping the strip.)

But, obviously, I'm in the minority.

And not just in comics: The movie houses are full of remakes of old films, and adaptations of familar stories like Paddington that market on an established brand though they in no way reflect the stories they adapt, and franchises built upon other successful franchises, and the trailers for those imitative films are loaded with spoilers because audiences don't like surprises and want to know what they're going to see before they shell out their money.

So there it is.

And so what, after all? It's foolish to pretend Schulz was a purist, because he had long since licensed his characters for advertising and products.

It's also foolish to expect that, once the artist has released something, it will not be riffed upon, transformed and interpreted. Look at the Mona Lisa, or the Scream, or American Gothic, or Nighthawks.

So there it is. And here are some Peanuts strips I particularly like.

Whatever else might be said on the topic, it's safe to suggest that, whatever he wanted, whatever else he intended, Charles Schulz certainly wanted people to enjoy the strip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of his last Sundays was also one of his best. Rerun had just begun to emerge as a character whose reflections were bringing a freshness to the strip, and I wish we'd seen more of him.

Comments

[Kathleen]

Charlie Brown to Pigpen: Don't you know that cleanliness is next to godliness?
Pigpen: For me, Charlie Brown, cleanliness is next to impossible.

The arc of Snoopy looking like a vulture.

Lucy takes all of Linus' toys away, tosses him a rubber band, saying: Here, have fun with this.
Linus goes ape with the rubber band and Lucy snatches it back, saying: I didn't mean that much fun.

[Mary in Ohio]

Linus crawls under a table to retrieve a toy, straightens up too soon and bonks his head, knocking him lopsided. As he staggers around groaning, Lucy comes by: "What happened ? Are you hurt ? Are you sick ? Are you bleeding? What happened? What's the matter?"
Regaining the power of speech at last, Linus (with both eyes still clearly in the same socket) screams "I BUMPED MY HEAD !"

"Well !" says Lucy. "You don't have to be so crabby about it !"

[Mike Peterson]

As said, the occasion snuck up on me. I think maybe going through all the books and finding some more favorites than just the ones on my hard drive is called for.

Certainly, Lucy teaching Linus about various types of trees would be in there.