The Comics Of Charles Schulz

With contributions by Leonie Brialey, MJ Clarke, Roy T. Cook, Joseph J. Darowski, Ian Gordon, Gene Kannenberg Jr., Christopher P. Lehman, Anne C. McCarthy, Ben Owen, Lara Saguisag, Ben Saunders, Jeffrey O. Segrave, and Michael Tisserand The Comics of Charles Schulz collects new essays on the work of the creator of the immensely popular Peanuts comic strip. Despite Schulz's celebrity, few scholarly books on his work and career have been published. This collection serves as a foundation for future study not only of Charles Schulz (1922-2000) but, more broadly, of the understudied medium of newspaper comics. Schulz's Peanuts ran for a half century, during which time he drew the strip and its characters to express keen observations on postwar American life and culture. As Peanuts' popularity grew, Schulz had opportunities to shape the iconography, style, and philosophy of modern life in ways he never could have imagined when he began the strip in 1950. Edited by leading scholars Jared Gardner and Ian Gordon, this volume ranges over a spectrum of Schulz's accomplishments and influence, touching on everything from cartoon aesthetics to the marketing of global fast food. Philosophy, ethics, and cultural history all come into play. Indeed, the book even highlights Snoopy's global reach as American soft power. As the broad interdisciplinary range of this volume makes clear, Peanuts offers countless possibilities for study and analysis. From many perspectives--including childhood studies, ethnic studies, health and exercise studies, as well as sociology--The Comics of Charles Schulz offers the most comprehensive and diverse study of the most influential cartoonist during the second half of the twentieth century.

Born to Draw Comics, a mixed-panel format picture book biography of Charles "Sparky" Schulz, creator of the beloved comic strip Peanuts. As a child, Charles split his free time between adventures outdoors with his friends and dog Spike, and daydreams and doodles inspired by the comics he loved to read. He longed to become a professional cartoonist, but saw his dreams deferred by unexpected challenges that laid ahead: military deployment to the European front of World War II, and the heartbreak of a family tragedy back home. Even so, Charles never lost sight of the hopeful joy of his early years and his love for Spike, both of which inspired PEANUTS. The comic strip went on to become the most popular and influential in comics history. For fans of Brad Meltzer’s New York Times-bestselling picture book biography of the Muppets and Sesame Street creator, I Am Jim Henson. Christy Ottaviano Books

Drawn from the archives of the Charles M. Schulz Museum, an in-depth look at Peanuts with a “wealth of original art” (The New York Times). Charles M. Schulz believed that the key to cartooning was to take out the extraneous details and leave in only what’s necessary. For fifty years, from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, Schulz wrote and illustrated Peanuts, the single most popular and influential comic strip in the world. In all, 17,897 strips were published, making it “arguably the longest story ever told by one human being,” according to Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. For Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts, renowned designer Chip Kidd was granted unprecedented access to the extraordinary archives of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California. Reproducing the best of the Peanuts newspaper strip, all shot from the original art by award-winning photographer Geoff Spear, Only What’s Necessary also features exclusive, rare, and unpublished original art and developmental work—much of which has never been seen before. “Glorious...equal parts museum and monument, a masterwork of curatorial rigor and an affectionate homage.”—Brain Pickings

"About Charles Schulz, creator of the comic strip, Peanuts. Includes photos, comics and a studio tour."--Amazon.com.

Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip franchise, the most successful of all time, forever changed the industry. For more than half a century, the endearing, witty insights brought to life by Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy have caused newspaper readers and television viewers across the globe to laugh, sigh, gasp, and ponder. A Charlie Brown Religion explores one of the most provocative topics Schulz broached in his heartwarming work--religion. Based on new archival research and original interviews with Schulz's family, friends, and colleagues, author Stephen J. Lind offers a new spiritual biography of the life and work of the great comic strip artist. In his lifetime, aficionados and detractors both labeled Schulz as a fundamentalist Christian or as an atheist. Yet his deeply personal views on faith have eluded journalists and biographers for decades. Previously unpublished writings from Schulz will move fans as they begin to see the nuances of the humorist's own complex, intense journey toward understanding God and faith. "There are three things that I've learned never to discuss with people," Linus says, "Religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin." Yet with the support of religious communities, Schulz bravely defied convention and dared to express spiritual thought in the "funny pages," a secular, mainstream entertainment medium. This insightful, thorough study of the 17,897 Peanuts newspaper strips, seventy-five animated titles, and global merchandising empire will delight and intrigue as Schulz considers what it means to believe, what it means to doubt, and what it means to share faith with the world.

In the late 1950s, amidst the surging popularity of Peanuts and during a strongly creative period, Charles M. Schulz created his only other syndicated newspaper comic. It's Only a Game focused on the fun and foibles of people and their pastimes. Schulz targets those who play bridge and those who bowl, little leaguers and horse track regulars, those who rush across the gridiron and those who hunch over the chessboard. This full-color collection offers up the series in its full Sunday format. Commentary and insight are provided by artist and cartoonist Jim Sasseville, who worked with Schulz on the feature. To facilitate the best display of the art, this book is in a special format: the pages flip up like a calendar, rather than to the left like a regular book. For those readers used to the Sunday newspaper funnies, this makes for a familiar and comfortable reading experience. Prepared and published by About Comics.

This first volume, covering the first two and a quarter years of the strip, will be of particular fascination toPeanuts aficionados worldwide: Although there have been literally hundreds of Peanuts books published, many of the strips from the series' first two or three years have never been collected before―in large part because they showed a young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip and include some characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast we're all familiar with. (Among other things, three major cast members―Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus―initially show up as infants and only "grow" into their final "mature" selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy debuts as a puppy!) Thus The Complete Peanuts offers a unique chance to see a master of the art form refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.

A collection of interviews that reflect on the life and work of cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.

Collection of a sports comic series written and published 1957-1959 by Charles Schulz and Jim Sasseville.

Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz insisted good ol' Charlie Brown and his friends were neither "great art" nor "significant." Yet Schulz's acclaimed daily comic strip--syndicated in thousands of newspapers over five decades--brilliantly mirrored tensions in American society during the second half of the 20th century. Focusing on the strip's Cold War roots, this collection of new essays explores existentialism, the reshaping of the nuclear family, the Civil Rights Movement, 1960s counterculture, feminism, psychiatry and fear of the bomb. Chapters focus on the development of Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Franklin, Shermy, Snoopy and the other characters that became American icons.