Linus Maurer

News Clippings
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Press Releases



The "real" Linus, artist Linus Maurer, cuts a ribbon after unveiling a statue of Linus during a ceremony at his hometown of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, September 23, 2003. Maurer, who was a friend of Charles Schulz and the inspiration for the character, traveled from his California home to participate in the dedication of the statue that the Minnesota community purchased at auction.



These articles are arranged from the most recent down, so you'll always find the newest news about Charlie Brown and his friends toward the top; older articles will be located further down, or on previous pages.



Li’l beginnings

A collection of Charles Schulz’s first cartoons draws out the origins of ‘Peanuts’

May 31, 2004

By Dixie Reid
The Sacramento Bee

The boy glanced at the scowling dog on the pillow beside him.

"I always read in bed so (you) might just as well get used to it!" he said.

This was June 22, 1947, and the debut of "Li’l Folks," an earlier and pivotal body of work by the late Charles M. "Sparky" Schulz, who created "Peanuts."

And while the boy and dog look little like the often-beleaguered, round-faced Charlie Brown and his pet beagle, Snoopy, it’s our first glimpse of two characters who would come to dominate "Peanuts."

For the first time, except in Schulz’s personal scrapbook, all 135 "Li’l Folks" cartoon panels are together in a single volume. Davis journalist Derrick Bang wrote the annotations and editorial commentary for the new book "Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings" ($30, Charles M. Schulz Museum).

The value of "Li’l Folks," says Bang, is that "Peanuts" fans can see a young artist creating the neighborhood where children are wise beyond their years and speak at a level far more sophisticated than real kids do -- and where a dog takes on almost human qualities.

"With ‘Li’l Folks,’ you can see that Sparky already knew very strongly what he wanted to say and the impact he wanted to make on his readers," Bang says. "He spent those 2-1/2 years playing around with art styles. At first it was a sophisticated display of line work and, by 1950, when (the cartoon) ended, the (drawings) had a very strong resemblance to early ‘Peanuts.’ "

Although "Li’l Folks" was dear to Schulz, he wasn’t particularly interested in having the panels published as a collection. His drawing style had evolved, and he didn’t think fans of "Peanuts" would be interested.

"When Sparky was doing these ‘Li’l Folks’ cartoons," says Jean Schulz, his wife of 26 years, "he and his father lived in a four-room apartment above (his father’s) barber shop, and he was drawing at the kitchen table at night. He was probably as happy as at any time in his life.

"I wish he could be here to reminisce on this, and he got cheated out of that, in a sense. He always wanted to work, and he never would have had time to sit back in a grandfatherly way, but it would have been interesting to hear him."

Schulz had big dreams when he came out of the Army after World War II. He got a job teaching at Art Instruction, a correspondence school in Minneapolis, and hand-lettering pages for a Catholic comic book.

In 1947, at age 24, he persuaded the senior editor of his hometown St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press to run a weekly panel containing three to five cartoons called "Li’l Folks by Sparky." He earned $10 for each submission.

And every week, Schulz carefully cut the latest "Li’l Folks" from the newspaper and taped it into an artist’s sketchbook.

That scrapbook is one of the treasures stored at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa. The $8 million institution safeguards his legacy and about 7,000 pieces of his original artwork.

"We were looking through the scrapbook," says museum director Ruth Gardner Begell, "and were knocked out by how Sparky had so carefully pasted each image into the book. So even though he didn’t have a high opinion of his early work, it was valuable enough for him to give us a complete scrapbook."

The black-bound collection is all the more valuable because the newspaper didn’t return Schulz’s "Li’l Folks" original drawings, and only a few are known to exist today. The museum owns one, purchased on eBay.

If not for that tight-fisted editor at the Pioneer Press, a man who apparently didn’t see much potential in the stalwart cartoonist’s work, "Peanuts" might have come along much later than Oct. 2, 1950, when it debuted in seven newspapers.

"Sparky had done ‘Li’l Folks’ for around two years," says Jean Schulz, who spends most afternoons at the museum. "He went to the editor of the newspaper and said, ‘I’d like to ask for an increase’ (in pay.) The editor said no. Sparky asked for it to be put on the comics page instead of the women’s page. The editor said no. Then he asked if the drawings could be made a little bigger. The editor said no. So Sparky said, ‘I guess I quit.’

"Here he was, this starving artist, backed against the wall. But it made him focus even more on putting together a submission for the syndicates," she says. "It’s a wonderful story about determination and how something you think is terrible is not necessarily that bad."

Undaunted, Schulz moved some characters from "Li’l Folks," among them the boy and his beagle, into a comic-strip format and submitted them to United Feature, a newspaper syndicate. Eight months later, "Peanuts" (a name Schulz never liked but one that a syndicate executive insisted upon) began its long run. Snoopy showed up in the third strip.

Also in stores now is "The Complete Peanuts, 1950 to 1952" (Fantagraphics Books, $28.95), which reproduces the strip’s first two years. It is on the New York Times’ best-seller list, further testament to the enduring popularity of "Peanuts."

The book is the first of a 25-volume collection (to be published over 12 1/2 years) that will reproduce every "Peanuts" strip ever printed.

Both it and the "Li’l Folks" collection are invaluable historically because together they chronicle nearly five years in the evolution of Schulz’s art style and his child characters.

When he died of colon cancer four years ago at age 77, "Peanuts" was the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world and the most popular cartoon of all time. It appeared in 2,600 papers in 75 countries. Today, "Peanuts" reprints continue to run in 2,400 newspapers, including The Bee. Schulz’s family decided long ago that no one else would ever write or draw the comic strip.

Schulz used his early work in "Li’l Folks" to champion things that were important to him baseball, golf, Edgar Allan Poe, dog-book author Albert Payson Terhune, Beethoven (Schroeder’s muse in "Peanuts") and even the Johann Strauss opera "Die Fledermaus."

"I can’t imagine most cartoonists these days trusting readers that much, to drop such highfalutin references into their work," Bang says. "Sparky got away with it because he was so good. He probably figured he had enough of a dialogue with them that they would go along. Even in those early days, that was astonishing to me."

Bang, entertainment editor at the Davis Enterprise, is a longtime "Peanuts" fan. He wrote the 1999 trivia guide "50 Years of Happiness A Tribute to Charles M. Schulz" (which the Schulz Museum reissued two years ago) before taking on the "Li’l Folks" project. His tasks included solving a "Li’l Folks" mystery.

Among the "Li’l Folks by Sparky" cartoons in Schulz’s scrapbook were two panels called "Sparky’s Li’l Folks." Bang was certain they hadn’t been published in the St. Paul newspaper. With the help of a Minnesota historic group, he learned that they were in the Minneapolis Herald Tribune during the summer of 1947.

"If we are to fully appreciate who an artist is or what he became during the course of his entire career," Bang says, "it’s important to see where he’s been. When I put together the ‘50 Years’ book, I was only able to devote a short chapter to what I realized was a part of Sparky Schulz’s life that nobody knew about. I don’t think he went out of his way to keep it a secret, but so much time had passed that nobody, with a few exceptions, knew to ask him about it."

Schulz later reused several successful "Li’l Folks" gags in "Peanuts."

On Dec. 21, 1947, for instance, a girl greets a boy at her front door. "Oh rats!" she says. "I thought it was somebody important." Four years later in "Peanuts," the visitor is Charlie Brown and a disappointed Patty delivers the line. He had children drawing pictures on fences in both "Li’l Folks" and "Peanuts," as well as having them play hide-and-seek under a rug and having a child crawl across the desert (a sandbox), begging for water.

"He may have been equivocal about ‘Li’l Folks’ by the time people were beginning to talk about it in the ‘70s, when they were doing the 25th-anniversary books," Jean Schulz says. "He would bring out the scrapbook for the editors who put together those books. Obviously, it meant a lot to him, his first work.

"It’s like looking through your old photo albums. You’re looking in the face of that baby to see if you see anything that looks like you now. And in ‘Li’l Folks,’ you can look back and say, ‘Yes, I can see this is where he came from.’ "


Comics as social commentary

Peanuts was the most influential comic strip of the 20th century; tom tomorrow lampoons U.S. politics

May 22, 2004

By Claude Lalumiere
Canada.com

In Charles M. Schulz’s very first Peanuts strip, Shermy and Patty, the series’ original lead characters, discuss their eventual replacement.

Since the late 19th century, when Richard Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley began appearing in the New York Sunday World, comic strips have been mainstays of newspaper publishing. In its heyday, the newspaper comic strip was a popular venue for many genres, including surrealism, adventure, science fiction and detective stories. Once an art form renowned for its high standard of draughtsmanship, it is now mostly a joke-driven medium with little place for artistic accomplishment.

But there will always be visionary cartoonists whose bold talents shake up the medium.

The most important and influential comic-strip cartoonist of the 20th century is the late Charles M. Schulz, whose Peanuts ran for 50 years, from 1950 to 2000. Peanuts has, more than any other comic strip, infiltrated North American culture and the English language.

This essential pop-culture phenomenon has long been ill-served by haphazardly assembled collections, but, finally, Peanuts is getting its just rewards, with a projected 25-volume series that will present the entire Peanuts archive in chronological order, including hundreds of strips that have never been reprinted since their original newspaper appearances.

"The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952" (Fantagraphics Books, 343 pages, $39.95) is a beautiful object, lovingly designed by Canadian cartoonist Seth. Along with 287 pages of carefully reproduced classic Peanuts comics, the book also includes several extras, such as an insightful biographical essay about Schulz by David Michaelis and a candid 34-page interview with the Peanuts creator conducted in 1987.

This volume is especially fascinating because it allows readers to follow Schulz step by step as he develops the Peanuts universe, cast and worldview. For example, initially, Peanuts focused on Shermy and Patty, two characters who are now mostly forgotten. Charlie Brown and Snoopy (then only a puppy) appear only twice in the first seven strips, not once together and always with Shermy and/or Patty. The tone of the early strips collected in this volume is much more rascally than the better-known postmodern philosophical comics to come.

Schulz’s deft minimalist cartooning style immediately grabs the eye from Page 1, and his skill at concise yet complex characterization imbues even this embryonic incarnation of Peanuts with infectious zest and energy.


A ‘Peanuts’ farewell

St. Paul soon begins its fifth -- and final -- summer honoring Charles Schulz.

May 19, 2004

By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press

Sometime this summer, among the crowds checking out the fifth and final summer of "Peanuts" statues in St. Paul, will be Sandy McCarthy and her husband, Tim, from West Des Moines, Iowa.

"Wouldn’t miss it. Have to see the new ones, Snoopy with Woodstock on the doghouse,’’ McCarthy said in a telephone interview.

The first chance to see this year’s installment of St. Paul’s annual salute to native son Charles Schulz comes this weekend when artists participate in a public "paint-off" of statues at RiverCentre. McCarthy will have to miss the opening event of the Doghouse Days of Summer because her husband booked a trip to Alaska, but the couple plans to make the trip later.

In 2000, they visited St. Paul four times to see the first Snoopy statues and came back four times the next year for the Charlie Brown statues. They also returned for the Lucy and Linus summers.

The trips, she said, made St. Paul one of their favorite places to go.

"We came up last fall just for a weekend to visit downtown, have coffee and pastry on Grand Avenue,’’ McCarthy said.

McCarthy could be described as a plastic statue fanatic. She visited the Isle of Mann in Britain last year to see cow statues and catch a glimpse of a visiting Queen Elizabeth. She’s also traveled to scores of other cities to view cows, pigs, horses, elephants and other public art creations. And the statues do draw people.

"What else will bring people out on a Tuesday in St. Paul to stand in line to take pictures?’’ said Sue Gonsior, director of communications for Capital City Partnership, which manages the event.

Final tribute

There will be 104 colorful statues of Charlie Brown’s famous beagle and his bird companion that make up "Doghouse Days of Summer,’’ the city’s final summer tribute to Schulz, their creator.

After this week’s paint-off -- set-up work began Tuesday, with free public sessions Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- the statues will be given protective coatings and put on display within two weeks. About two-thirds of them will be in the downtown area, with the largest concentration in the Rice Park neighborhood.

This year, the thousands of people drawn to the statues can take part in a "Where’s Woodstock?’’ contest that involves finding 30 of the statues that have a special label showing Woodstock in flight.

Contestants need to circle the statue numbers on the official "Doghouse Days of Summer’’ map and mail it to Capital City Partnership. A drawing from among all submitted entries will determine the winners. Top prize is a $500 merchandise card at Best Buy, one of the event sponsors.

The maps will be available May 28, the opening of the event’s information booth -- a doghouse at the Science Museum of Minnesota plaza -- and a merchandise booth at Ecolab Plaza. The maps also will be available at Best Buy stores and tourist information sites in St. Paul.

Finale Sept. 19

A few of the statues will be in the June 6 Grand Old Day parade, some at the Taste of Minnesota in July and some at the State Fair in late August. All the statues will be brought downtown for the Sept. 19 finale, which includes an auction of about 40 statues.

Proceeds from the auction, as in previous years, will pay for scholarships at two art schools and help pay for bronze "Peanuts" statues as a permanent tribute to Schulz, who died of cancer at age 77 in February 2000.

There are three bronze vignettes of his characters in downtown’s Landmark Plaza, with a fourth depicting Peppermint Patty and Marcie to be located nearby. It will be unveiled Sept. 19.

The St. Paul Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that the statues have drawn 500,000 to 700,000 visitors each of the past two summers. Bureau vice president Brad Toll said people usually visit for other reasons but then take time to see the statues.

Anecdotal evidence from folks like the McCarthys indicates that others plan vacations around the statues and travel from all over the United States to see and photograph them.

Sandy McCarthy noted that she and her husband have a busy summer planned, with stops in Iowa City, Iowa, to see "Herky the Hawk’’ statues, in Washington, D.C., to see pandas and maybe a zip over to Europe to Prague and Brussels to see more cows.

The "paint-off’’ that kicks off the "Doghouse Days of Summer’’ begins today with set-up work. Free public sessions will be from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in the exhibit space at the St. Paul RiverCentre.

For a full schedule of events and information about the annual St. Paul tribute to Charles Schulz and his work, go to www.doghousedaysofsummer.com or call the event’s information hotline at 651-291-5608.

Statues on parade

Here’s a recap of St. Paul’s five summer tributes to the life and work of native son Charles Schulz
2000 "Peanuts on Parade," with 101 Snoopy statues
2001 "Charlie Brown Around Town," 102 Charlie Brown statues
2002 "Looking for Lucy," 103 Lucy Van Pelt statues
2003 "Linus Blankets the Town," 92 Linus Van Pelt statues
2004 "Doghouse Days of Summer," 104 Snoopy and Woodstock statues


You’re in a good book, Charlie Brown

May 12, 2004

By Wil Moss
The Nashville City Paper

You may think you know Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the rest of the gang from Charles Schulz’s classic "Peanuts" comic strip, but The Compete Peanuts 1950-1952, in bookstores now, may surprise you.

It is the first volume in a series of hardback books that will reprint every "Peanuts" strip chronologically from 1950 to 2000. There will be 25 volumes in all, with two to be released a year for the next 12-and-a-half years, each book collecting two years worth of strips from the comic’s 50-year history.

Cartoonist Schulz ("Sparky" to his friends) was largely responsible for bringing respect and dignity to the comic strip, and this collection serves as a testament to that fact.

The production values are excellent, with a beautifully designed cover by Canadian cartoonist Seth, an introduction by author and radio personality Garrison Keillor, and high-quality reproduction of the material, some of which has never seen print before. But as nice as the package looks, the real treat lies inside.

"I think people are going to be surprised by it," Jean Schulz, Charles’ widow, said of the book’s content, "but I think they’re going to be rather charmed. When they decided to rerun the strips after Sparky died [in 2000], I thought they might go back to the strips from the ‘50s, but United Features Syndicate [the strip’s publisher] said nobody would recognize it."

Although the early strips are unmistakably "Peanuts," they do feature some characterizations and designs that readers may not be familiar with, like Schroeder, Lucy and Linus all starting off as infants; Snoopy even debuted as a puppy.

Going beyond the countless Snoopy dolls, cartoons and other licensed products, however, this collection gets back to what matters most -- the actual "Peanuts" comic strips. Schulz’s influence is still felt on the funny pages today, through the reprints of "Peanuts" still running and to other strips whose cartoonists idolize Schulz.

Alternative comics creator Ivan Brunetti, who uses Schulz’s work as a source in his cartooning courses at Columbia College Chicago, feels "Peanuts" has influenced countless cartoonists, both on the comics page and off.

"He’s inspired a generation of cartoonists," Brunetti said. "Most cartoonists I know cite him as a primary influence."

"The Complete Peanuts" offers readers the chance to see such a revered cartoonist (Schulz remains the only modern American comic strip artist to be given a retrospective at the Louvre) developing his style and his characters day by day over the course of 50 years.

"It’s fascinating to see the inception of ["Peanuts"], to see the strip develop and the characters develop to what you know they’re going to be," Brunetti said. "It’s come alive in a way no other strip has, so seeing it in this infancy where it doesn’t know how to walk yet, I think people will find it surprising.

"He’s the first cartoonist who put real emotion into the comic strip," Schulz said. "And I believe that emotion continues to speak to people, and I believe that is what accounts for ["Peanuts"] enduring through time."

"The Complete Peanuts" will help to ensure that, and to ensure that Charlie Brown will be trying to kick that football for a long time coming.


The Ultimate Blockhead ‘Peanuts’ Collection Arrives

May 6, 2004

By Sharon Waxman
The New York Times

SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- Charles M. Schulz never wanted to publish his "Peanuts" cartoons in full all of them, start to finish, in order.

A leading cartoon publisher offered to do just that a few years before Schultz died in 2000. He begged off. Nobody wants to read that old stuff, he said, and they’re not very good. Forty-nine years of strips? Good grief.

But now his widow, Jean Schulz, has authorized the publication of all of her husband’s work, with the first volume, 1950 through 1952, out this week.

Though not without a vague pang of guilt. "You feel a little disloyal," she confessed, speaking in her office upstairs in the two-year-old Charles M. Schulz Museum here. "A little bit. He didn’t want to do this." The airy, modernist structure is a few hundred yards from where Mr. Schulz drew his comic strip every day.

Mrs. Schulz managed to get over the guilt, which is probably what her husband -- as a master of life’s bittersweet qualities -- would have wanted.

"There’s nothing like seeing his work in its entirety, day after day, the little changes," she said, picking up the hardback book of his strips.

She pointed out the first time he scribbled black lines in a balloon above Charlie Brown’s head to denote something like dismay. She found the first panel that had no dialogue at all, and an early image of Snoopy, laughing hilariously at a stupid human trick.

"I’m not a ‘Peanuts’ expert," she said. "It’s the first time I’ve looked at his early work in anything except when I archived the strips."

But Mrs. Schulz isn’t the only one who considers "Peanuts" a cultural treasure that reveals deeper truths upon scrutiny.

That is probably why it endured for so long on newspaper pages and why readers demanded that newspapers continue running "Peanuts" even after Schulz stopped drawing in December 1999 because of cancer.

While "Peanuts" strips have been published in books before, the new volumes, published by Fantagraphics Books, are the first complete "Peanuts" compendium. Many people have seen the very first Peanuts cartoon, which shows two kids sitting on a curb watching Charlie Brown walk by, with one commenting "Good ol’ Charlie Brown ... How I hate him."

The second one, not as frequently reprinted, shows a girl walking down the street saying to herself "Little girls are made of sugar and spice ... and everything nice." Then she pauses to punch a little boy in the eye before concluding the poem, "That’s what little girls are made of."

Mrs. Schulz, 65, said she tried not to think of what her husband, a World War II veteran and self-described Eisenhower Republican, would have thought of the current state of the world.

"Every once in a while it does cross my mind, but I don’t like to think about it," she said. "He was not a dogmatic person. He was a person of good sense, and open-minded. And he always had a wonderful way of getting to the heart of things."

She said she found her work at the museum preserving his legacy at odds with the events of the early 21st century. "I think of ‘cynical’ all the time," she said. "I hate it. It’s terrible. I want to be full of hope. Even Lucy, pulling the football -- it’s funny. It’s who she is. And who he is. You don’t have to say that ‘Peanuts’ is innately good. People realize it. They know it."

Her work at the museum is the center of her life and fills most of it. "I literally don’t have time for my own life," she said. "My family room has papers stacked everywhere. But I don’t want someone else to write the legacy. At least I want my take on it. If I were to disappear, that wouldn’t be expressed."

What does she want people to know? "Simply how hard he worked at what he did," she said. "And that he did it because he loved it, and there wasn’t anything else he could do, being who he was. That his was a genius, I think, for all time."

The books will be released twice a year, with each book containing two years of Mr. Schulz’s cartoons. That makes it a 12 1/2 year project, a good pace for Peanuts fans.


Suffer the Little Children

How did a comic strip about a depressed kid become a cultural icon? Find out in "The Complete Peanuts"

May 3, 2004

By Lev Grossman
Time Magazine

Charlie Brown tried to kick a football for the first time in November 1951. He ran, his tongue out to show his determination, and then ... disaster. In the final frame, his tormentor stands over his supine form. But it’s not Lucy; it’s Violet. Where’s Lucy? And who, for that matter, is Violet?

Little anomalies like that are among the many pleasures of "The Complete Peanuts" (Fantagraphics; 343 pages), the initial volume of an extraordinary publishing project that over the next 12 years will reprint the entire run -- 50 years and 18,170 strips -- of Charles Schulz’s towering comic-strip masterpiece. "The Complete Peanuts" will eventually take up 25 gorgeous hardcover books and include hundreds of strips that haven’t been seen since the day they appeared in newsprint. The first volume (1950-52) confronts us afresh with what a brilliant, truly modern and totally weird idea it was to create a comic strip about a chronically depressed child.

The name Peanuts was foisted on Schulz by an editor who had never seen the strip, and Schulz always hated it. ("It’s totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing, and has no dignity," he fumes in a frank, funny 1987 interview reprinted in the book.) He wasn’t wild about "The Complete Peanuts" either. He thought his early work was crude, and he didn’t especially want to see it reprinted. But his wife Jean disagreed, and after his death in 2000 she worked with an editor at Fantagraphics to pull the collection together. "Unlike Sparky, the rest of his family loves those old strips," she says (apparently everybody called Schulz Sparky). "To me, what’s happening here is we’re getting back to the comic strip -- the simplicity, the black and whiteness of it. For some people, the animation is more real than the comic strip, but the comic is what is truly him." She’s right. To read "The Complete Peanuts" is to forget that Snoopy ever did a MetLife commercial.

Of course, Schulz was right too. The early comics are crude, but that’s what makes them fascinating. Back then, Lucy is still a toddler, as are Schroeder and Linus, and Snoopy is a puppy. Charlie Brown’s best friend is named Shermy, and they spend most of their time with a blond named Patty (not Peppermint) and cruel Violet, a winsome brunet who gets a lot of semifunny gags involving mud pies. Charlie Brown is more into golf than baseball, and he says, "Great Scott!", not "Good Grief!" His personality is different too. He’s more of a mischievous prankster; he can often be seen scampering off in the last frame with a punk’d victim in hot pursuit. Once or twice Schulz even breaks one of the cardinal rules of Peanuts he lets us hear the voice of an adult.

But as you turn the pages, you can feel Schulz finding his rhythm. There’s a restless intelligence there, pacing behind the panels, learning from his mistakes. Three months in, Charlie Brown gets his stripy shirt, and he gets called a blockhead for the first time in 1951. There’s less chatter; some of the best strips are almost silent. After some early glimmers of sentience, Snoopy gets his first thought balloon in 1952 ("Why do I have to suffer such indignities!?"). Part of Schulz’s getting better is Charlie Brown’s feeling worse. It’s almost a relief when he drops the Li’l Rascal act in favor of melancholy refrains like "I always say the wrong thing!", "I can’t stand it!!!" and "Boy, am I ever depressed."

It all comes together in 1952, when for the first time (but not the last) Schulz crams the whole weight of the world into a single panel Charlie Brown says, to no one in particular, "Nobody loves me ..." as waving cypresses in the background show us that the wind is blowing in his face. If Freud discovered infant sexuality, Schulz is the pioneer of the sadness of little children. It turns out to be not so different from the sadness of adults.


Always Cute and Often Cruel

May 1, 2004

By Brad Mackay
The National Post [Canada]

"The Complete Peanuts 1950-52"
By Charles M. Schulz
Fantagraphics Books
343 pp., $39.95

"Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings"
By Derrick Bang
Charles M. Schulz Museum
292 pp., $30

Charles Monroe Schulz was arguably the most successful artist in the history of popular American culture. According to Forbes magazine, he earned some US $32-million last year -- a payday that placed him runner-up only to Elvis Presley on the publication’s annual list of wealthiest dead celebrities. And in 1999, a panel of comic critics and scholars voted Peanuts, his life’s work, the second-greatest comic strip of the 20th century. (It came a distinguished second to George Herriman’s masterpiece, Krazy Kat.)

Yet despite both critical and financial success, Schulz himself never shook his inherently bleak view of life. Consider this ode to loneliness from a 1985 Peanuts collection "The most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running frantically down the road pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind, for the family knows it is to return, but for that moment in his limited understanding he is being left alone forever, and he has to run and run to survive."

The more introspective Schulz is an unknown entity to the majority of Peanuts fans, whose impressions are coloured by the waves of T-shirts, coffee mugs, greeting cards and souvenir ball caps that began to emerge in the 1960s. (A 1967 New York Times Magazine article about Schulz revealed that Peanuts was already earning more than $20-million in licensing fees.)

There are now two new books that aim to resuscitate some of the original Schulz wit and sophistication that existed long before Snoopy became an insurance company shill.

"The Complete Peanuts 1950-52" is the first of an ambitious 12-1/2-year project that will see every Peanuts strip reprinted in 25 hardcover volumes. Published by U.S. alternative comics stalwart Fantagraphics Books and designed by Canadian cartoonist Seth, the handsome tome includes scores of Peanuts strips that haven’t been seen by the public since they first appeared in newspapers more than half a century ago. (Schulz was always selective about what went into his Peanuts collections, and indeed only grudgingly gave his approval for this project before he died in January, 2000.)

The first strip, which appeared in October, 1950, depicts the soon-to-be star of the feature walking by some friends. As he approaches, his pal Shermy comments, "Well! Here comes Ol’ Charlie Brown! Good Ol’ Charlie Brown ... Yes, sir!" The final panel, after Charlie has passed by, ends with the rebuke "How I hate him!"

And that bite is spread throughout the strip’s first 27 months, with Everyman Charlie suffering a host of undignified firsts; his first mud pie (courtesy of Violet), his first trademark "Good Grief," his first baseball game and the first time a football is yanked away from him -- though, in this case, it’s not Lucy’s fault.

A glance at the index gives you an idea of what to expect. The annotations for Charlie Brown include citations for "failure in sports or games ...", "injuries to ..." and an "insults to ...", a listing that is divided into "general" and "re size and shape of head." Much of the joy of this book is in witnessing Schulz in his embryonic period as an artist, before he settled into a regular cast with defined personalities.

For the first 100 or so strips, there is no clear "star" among the tight cast of Patty, Shermy, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. In fact, Charlie is depicted as a relatively worry-free little guy. It’s only as the strip progresses that he evolves into his signature mix of bruised ego and wounded pride.

As Violet, Schroeder, Lucy and Linus are introduced in a horizon full of sandboxes and slides, Schulz never fails to depict them as both endearingly cute and unerringly cruel. One rarely exists without the other. In an era when the domestic comedy of Blondie and the square-jawed justice of Dick Tracy ruled the funny pages, this collection offers a brisk reminder the uniqueness of Charles Schulz’s arch take on the world at the time.

Of course, Schulz devotees will know that Peanuts is not the Minnesota native’s first foray into the comic pages. More than three years before Peanuts, the artist produced L’il Folks, a weekly feature that ran in the women’s section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The gag-style feature, which ran from June, 1947, to January, 1950, shows a much younger Schulz in both style and content. All 134 cartoons have been gathered for the first time in "Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings," published by the Charles M. Schulz Museum.

True devotees will get a thrill out of spotting familiar characters like a telltale black and white pup and several Charlie Brown doppelgangers. And even this early on, Schulz’s trenchant wit is evident -- one panel has a boy telling a fisticuffed girl "Don’t hit me! Just say something sarcastic."

But the one-panel format of these strips limits their appeal by not allowing for any narrative or character development. As well, the art here is clearly Schulz trying to find his way, much of it bland and stiff. The poor reproductions and shallow commentary don’t help.

But in the waning weeks of L’il Folks, Schulz comes into his own, simplifying a style that he would expand upon in Peanuts.

But Schulz’s goal was always to keep the cartoon simple. "I like it, for example, when Charlie Brown watches the first leaf of fall float down and then walks over and just says ‘Did you have a good summer?’ That’s the kind of strip that gives me pleasure to do."


Whole works? Good Grief!

"The Complete Peanuts" is being published in a huge undertaking once questioned by the strip’s troubled creator himself

April 25, 2004

By Murray Whyte
The Toronto Star

Fifty-four years ago, a meek, unremarkable-looking round-headed kid made his debut on the comics pages of a handful of major newspapers around North America. Bound by the traditional four-panel strip of the day, he simply walked into frame, stage left, passed by a couple of kids perched on the curb, and exited, stage right.

If that wasn’t worthy of notice, perhaps the words that accompanied them were "Well! Here comes good ol’ Charlie Brown!," said one lad, watching him walk past. And then, his brow knotted, he gets to the point "How I hate him!"

It was an instructive debut. If nothing else can be said for Charles M. Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang, it’s fair to say he wore his fragile heart on his sleeve. And through the filter of Peanuts, it was only amplified.

For the first time, the arc of Schulz’s 50-year creative trajectory has been collected in its entirety in "The Complete Peanuts," a 25-volume collection that gathers all of Schulz’s four-panel daily musings, from the 1950 debut to his death in 2000.

Fantagraphics, a small Seattle publisher of high-culture graphic novel authors such as Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes, will publish two volumes per year, for 12-1/2 years.

The first edition, covering 1950 to 1952, appears next month.

A shy, reclusive homebody wracked by self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, Schulz laid bare the emotional complexities of his own soul every day for a half century, infusing the Peanuts crew with his own hopes, fears, sensitivities and occasional cruelties.

From its modest beginnings, a little strip with a name Schulz never approved of ("It was the worst title ever thought up," said Schulz, in a 1987 interview, of Peanuts, a name assigned by his publisher. "It’s totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing and has no dignity -- and I think my humour has dignity."), it would become the most popular comic strip of all time, appearing in 21 languages in about 2,600 newspapers, reaching 355 million people around the world.

Fantagraphics, a purveyor of sophisticated comics material, may seem an odd publisher for such a mass-culture juggernaut, but publisher Gary Groth begs to differ.

"Usually, gigantic merchandising phenomena and art-house concerns never collide, but I would argue that, in this instance, they do," he said. "When Peanuts appeared in 1950, it really was something of the avant-garde. It dealt with all kinds of existential issues that comic strips did not deal with. So really, Peanuts is an art-house comic strip. It just so happened to appeal to the general public."

When it began, wedged between the likes of Li’l Abner and Little Orphan Annie, this was difference on a cataclysmic scale. "Peanuts was the fault line of a cultural earthquake," wrote David Michaelis, author of a forthcoming biography of Schulz. Edgy, confused, alienated and ridden with angst, Peanuts played its characters not for laughs, but rather imbued them with an existential quest for significance more appropriate to the complexities of adult life than day-to-day kid stuff.

"Sparky (Schulz’s nickname) had a very strong belief that children were thinking, imaginative, sensitive beings who had all the feelings and sensibilities that adults did," said Lynn Johnston, the Canadian creator of the comic strip For Better Or For Worse. "He thought they understood the complexities of relationships better than they were often given credit for. He covered all the bases he had anger, he had apathy, he had loss, he had frustration, he had solitude -- he just covered everything."

Johnston and Schulz met through the American Comics Association in the mid-’80s, and became close friends. Through the years, it became clear to Johnston that Schulz’s strip was not merely invention, but rather a reflection of the man himself.

"He often said, if you read my work you know me," she said. "Everything he was, was in it. Absolutely."

Even a cursory reading of Schulz’s lifelong work is revealing. Charlie Brown’s angst-ridden life of constant failure and disappointment; Linus’s overachieving nature offset by his dependency on his blanket; Lucy’s extreme bossiness; Schroeder’s quiet musical genius.

"All the kids were surrogates for Schulz himself, and all the people in his life," said Groth -- most notably Charlie Brown, who was an unvarnished version of Schulz. Even the mythical little red-haired girl, for whom Charlie Brown nursed a decades-long crush, had a real-life corollary The woman who turned down Schulz’s marriage proposal in the 1940s.

Groth interviewed Schulz at length in 1997, spending an entire day at his home in California. He found him to be genuine, soft-spoken, quietly proud of his work, but at the same time unsure of himself, despite his vast success. "He was always questioning his value," Groth said. "When I first proposed "The Complete Peanuts", he really did say, ‘Oh, who would want to read that?’ It was obviously a very personal endeavour."

Sometimes, Schulz’s personal involvement in Peanuts was a serious burden, Johnston said. "He was very sensitive to criticism," she said. "There were people who said he should have quit years ago, and he was very hurt by that. He was very proud of the fact he had achieved what he had achieved. He couldn’t give it up. It was his whole life."

As a result, Peanuts resonated with an emotional impact that earned Schulz the affection of not only the mass market, but a community of intellectuals and artists.

Umberto Eco, the author and semiotician, called Peanuts the first comic strip to speak "in two different keys." "The world of Peanuts is a microcosm, a little human comedy for the innocent reader and for the sophisticated," he wrote.

Groth said Schulz’s work was revolutionary for the same reason, if quietly so. "He’s not the radical that someone like Robert Crumb or Jules Feiffer is, but in his own way, he was, and the strip was, even though he didn’t see it that way," he said. "He just saw it as doing what he was capable of doing, and he was temperamentally incapable of not putting himself in the strip."

Johnston remembers Schulz as a thorny man whose emotional face was never fully revealed in person. And on occasion, what he did reveal wasn’t necessarily appealing. "Most people thought of him as humble, but there were times when he was so mean, you would have to apologize to people on his behalf," she said. "He really was moody and needy."

Both the work and the man himself have left a deep imprint on those touched by him.

"When you go out with lunch with friends of his even now, the conversation will ultimately turn to him, because he was such a complex individual," Johnston said.

"He hurt all of our feelings many, many times. And you wouldn’t let a lot of people get away with that," she said. "But his warmth, and his fragility and his fears and everything that he was came out in the work that he did. Sparky produced something that will never, ever be duplicated. And that’s why it lasts."


Lucy was a crybaby and Snoopy was just a plain old dog

First installment of ambitious project to publish all of Peanuts strip shows developing characters

Apirl 18, 2004

By Charles Solomon
The San Francisco Chronicle

"The Complete Peanuts 1950-52
By Charles Schulz
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS; 343 PAGES; 28.95

"Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings"
Annotations and editorial commentary by Derrick Bang
CHARLES M. SCHULZ MUSEUM; 292 PAGES; $30

During its 50-year run, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts became such an essential part of American popular culture, it’s difficult to imagine a time before it existed. Like the Mona Lisa and Mickey Mouse, Charlie Brown, Linus and Snoopy were always there. Only Walt Disney and Jim Henson left comparable legacies of characters, but they worked with large staffs of artists. Schulz sat alone at his desk and created a world, one panel at a time.

Two new books remind fans just how modestly Peanuts began When Schulz ended the strip in early 2000, it was running in more than 2,200 newspapers worldwide, but in 1950, it premiered in eight papers. "The Complete Peanuts Dailies & Sundays 1950-1952" is the first installment in an ambitious project from Fantagraphics Books.

Two volumes will be issued every year for the next 12-1/2 years, reprinting the entire run of the strip. "Charles M. Schulz Li’l Beginnings" is the first collection of the artist’s earliest work spot cartoons for the Saturday Evening Post and Li’l Folks, the weekly strip he drew for the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1947 to 1950.

In "Li’l Beginnings," Derrick Bang offers background information and links many of the Li’l Folks cartoons to related Peanuts strips. Unfortunately, he often states the obvious. In a cartoon from October 1949, a boy out for a hike looks into the distance and says to his friend, "We won’t get anyplace on this road ... it comes to a point!"

Bang writes "The ... cartoon derives its humor from perspective. In real life, of course, most roads vanish over a hill or into a valley long before their two edges come to a point." Albert Payson Terhune, whose canine-themed novels delighted Schulz, has dropped out of the popular canon, but does anyone need notes identifying Mozart and Beethoven?

Not surprisingly, Li’l Folks anticipates many aspects of Peanuts. Magazine cartoons of small children with improbably sophisticated vocabularies and attitudes were popular during the ‘40s, and much of Schulz’s early work falls into this category. In a Li’l Folks from March 1949, a small boy tells a baby, "Oh, how I tremble when I think of the great task that faces your generation!," and in January 1951, Patty wonders if Charlie Brown is crying because he’s frustrated or inhibited (his shoes are too tight). Schulz expanded what had become a familiar cartoon genre into a purely child’s world where adults never appeared.

When he began Peanuts, Schulz was able to recycle many of the jokes he had used in his earlier strip. In an October 1949 Li’l Folks, two boys walk past a girl and her puppy. One of the boys remarks, "There sits a strange combination ... a dog and a girl ... man’s best friend and man’s biggest problem." In January 1951, Charlie Brown watches as Snoopy and Patty walk by, commenting, "Well, look who’s coming ... man’s best friend! And look who’s with him ... man’s biggest worry! What a combination!"

Turning the precocious kids from Li’l Folks into characters capable of entertaining readers on a daily basis would prove a more daunting challenge. Certain children had appeared more than once in Li’l Folks, among them a baby in a high chair who acted as if he were in a restaurant On Nov. 7, 1948, he raises a hand and calls, "Check, please!" But this baby was just a drawing delivering an incongruous line; he didn’t have a life beyond the individual gags. Schulz drew many little girls with bows in their hair, but he hadn’t yet created a girl with the recognizable personality of Patty or Violet or Lucy.

Some of the characters in Peanuts would remain virtually unchanged for the next 50 years; others took longer to gel. Charlie Brown and Snoopy proved the most durable of the original five-member cast. The three others -- Violet, Patty and Shermy -- slipped into the role of straight men and were eventually dropped.

Lucy, Linus and Schroeder all began as babies, but Schulz quickly aged them to become Charlie Brown’s contemporaries. Lucy appeared in early 1952 as a wide-eyed infant who often spoke in fractured English "I wanna hear ‘Twengle Twengle Li’l Car.’ " Within a few months, she began to evolve into the domineering fussbudget readers know and love. In November 1952, Lucy yanked the football away when Charlie Brown tried to kick it for the first time, but she had a reason (other than malice) She didn’t want anyone with dirty shoes kicking her new toy.

No character underwent more significant changes than Snoopy. Mischievous, unnamed beagles appeared regularly in Li’l Folks, and Snoopy began as an ordinary canine with a playful, impish disposition. He soon got a TV set, had an awning installed on his doghouse so he could pretend he was living in a hotel and went ice skating on all fours. By early 1952, he was beginning to have fantastic dreams in which he spoke and walked on his hind legs. Snoopy wasn’t ready to climb onto his roof to pursue the Red Baron or type "It was a dark and stormy night," but Schulz was already discovering the character’s potential.

Schulz’s initial drawing style was more detailed, reflecting the influence of his former teacher, Frank Wing (Yesterdays). The characters in Li’l Folks and the early Peanuts strips often appeared in rooms filled with furniture drawn in careful perspective. As the strip progressed, Schulz began to develop the elegant, almost arid simplicity that became the hallmark of his style. As his drawings grew simpler, they became more expressive. During the ’50s, most cartoonists drew faces showing extreme anger, happiness or frustration; Schulz communicated subtler emotions in a few deft lines discouragement, bewilderment, boredom, annoyance.

Although "classic" reprints appear in many newspapers, Peanuts ended with Schulz’s death, as he had always intended. However, its influence can be seen in the most imaginative strips of recent years. Calvin and Hobbes, Zits, Mutts and Get Fuzzy all owe a debt to Schulz’s extraordinary creation that began so simply, 54 years ago.


Interview with Jeannie Schulz

April 13, 2004

By Jennifer M. Contino
The San Diego Comic Con Pulse

Jean Schulz might not have created a comic strip empire, but the wife of the late Charles Schulz has led just as -- if not more -- of an exciting life as her famous husband. Schulz has worked for a variety of organizations including The League of Women Voters, Canine Companions for Independence, Building a Better City [Santa Rosa], and the Volunteer Wheels Program, to name a few. Schulz’s an avid sportswoman and following in her mother’s footsteps, she took up flying and competed in several Powder Puff Derbies. Schulz is still involved in a number of things today and her schedule is always full. Still she found some time to answer some PULSE questions via e-mail about her life with and without Charles Schulz and the new Fantagraphics Peanuts collections.

THE PULSE You told Sequential Tart in this interview that you were born in Germany in 1939, but moved soon after because the British Government thought it wasn’t safe. How different do you think your life might have been had you stayed in Germany and been raised there? Do you ever think about the "what ifs?"

JEAN SCHULZ No, I never think about being raised in Germany because I am not German. My mother did once tell me that they considered South Rhodesia as an alternative to US and during the extreme reign of apartheid I wondered what sort of person I would have grown up to be if I had been raised in that environment.

THE PULSE When you were younger, thinking about the future, what did you want to "be" when you grew up? Where did you think your destiny lay? Was it something you mused about a lot as a child/teen?

SCHULZ I am inclined to say something about my thinking was pretty traditional, but I always wanted to travel. I have a saying — nothing exists until I have seen it.

THE PULSE When did you first discover PEANUTS? What were your initial thoughts about the precocious characters?

SCHULZ Strange as it may seem, when I was in college I didn’t read the newspaper, but somehow knew about the characters. I think it wasn’t until I was an adult that I began reading the comic strips regularly.

THE PULSE ST listed one of your credits as being given the Key to the City of Santa Rosa. What work had you done to be bestowed this honor?

SCHULZ I had been the co-chairman of a committee put together to pass a bond issue to construct a new city hall.

THE PULSE Do you consider yourself a "driven" type person? Do you come across projects or hear about issues that need someone to DO something and feel a need to dive in and work/help? If so, what do you think this drive stems from?

SCHULZ More than driven — I think I am curious. I like to find out about things, and as other readers may have experienced, when you find out about things you do want to do something.

THE PULSE When your daughter first began taking lessons at Schulz’ Redwood Empire Ice Arena, did you think you might meet Charles? Were you a fan of his series?

SCHULZ No, I don’t think I thought anything about meeting him and, of course, I read the comic strips and discussed them as most people did in those days.

THE PULSE What was your first meeting like? Was it an attraction at first sight? Did you get asked out on a date that first time? Where was your first date?

SCHULZ Our first meeting was simply a discussion about my daughter and her skating and I don’t actually remember any individual dates. What I find amazing, and your readers may also, is looking back at how very ordinary our life was in those days and indeed for the first 10 years we were married. We played a lot of tennis on the weekends, took tennis lessons, played in some tournaments, had dinner with a few good friends and generally had a very low key life.

THE PULSE Were your children fans of Peanuts -- were they geeking out that you were dating Charles? What was the family reaction like?

SCHULZ When Sparky did a 25th anniversary special with Phyllis George all of our friends were amazed that he was going to be on television. Sparky and my children always got along well, but they were pretty busy with their own lives.

THE PULSE Had you already completed your pilots training when you were dating Charles? Did you ever fly off together? Was Charles a fan of flight?

SCHULZ I got my pilots license in 1968 and had already flown in one of the Powder Puff Derbys (Women’s Transatlantic Air Race) with my mother. Sparky actually was never enamored of small planes, but he was very enthusiastic about my flying these races with my mother and he even did one Sunday page about Peppermint Patty and Marcie flying the Powder Puff Derby.

THE PULSE When you were first dating Charles what was the public thoughts about PEANUTS like? I know it had been around for over a decade when you began dating, but was it at a high then? Had there been a lot of animated specials and collected editions at that point in time?

SCHULZ When Sparky and I married the comic strip had been going for 23 years and the classic Charlie Brown Christmas and Great Pumpkin shows had been on. The Thanksgiving special came next and I remember it got good ratings and created a climate for more and more animation shows which came along pretty regularly during the last part of the ’70s and through the ’80s. Sparky always gave important input into the story line itself and reviewed the story board once Bill Melendez had put that together, but once it went to the animators it was pretty much out of his hands — that’s because the animation process is so expensive that they never wanted to re-draw and re-shoot scenes. All of this time Sparky was working a regular schedule 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week drawing the comic strip. So, as far as I know, Sparky is the only cartoonist who has drawn and lettered every strip and thought of every idea for a comic strip lasting just under 50 years. As far as reprints of the comic strip are concerned, they had been going virtually since the beginning. Fawcett began reprinting those little 4 x 5 reprint books very early on. But, the thing to remember with this upcoming Fantagraphics project, is that those early books didn’t print all the comic strips.

THE PULSE How did you notice -- if at all -- the fandom of Peanuts change in the ’70s and ’80s? I seem to recall a ton of animated specials in the mid to late ’70s to around the same timeperiod in the ’80s. How charged were you both to see those characters in cartoons and animated movies?

SCHULZ Sparky was working to do his comic strips every day and do the work on the animation specials -- I know he was pleased when they got good reviews, but we didn’t have time to think about what he had done because he had to go on to the next thing.

THE PULSE Why do you think Charlie Brown became such a universal character and so well-loved around the world? What do you view as the main thing that set this comic strip apart from all the others?

SCHULZ I think the comic strip became what it is because Sparky put all of his emotions into the comic strip,. Both into the lives of his many characters and actually into the lines as he was drawing them.

THE PULSE How much of upcoming strips and ideas did Charles discuss with you? Did he ever ask your opinion about what to do with this character or how to let a scene play out or anything like that? If you and he discussed the series, what was it like to see little suggestions or ideas you had for the direction of something come into play in the finished work?

SCHULZ Sparky never took ideas from other people, but he did occasionally ask if I thought an idea was funny because as he would say "sometimes I just can’t tell." There were so few times when he discussed a storyline in the strips that you would think I could remember them, but I can’t — I know it was rare.

THE PULSE Why did Charles want PEANUTS to end with his run? Why didn’t he want anyone else working on these characters?

SCHULZ Because nobody else could do it — it was his creation, his drawings and no one else could do it.

THE PULSE How did Fantagraphics get chosen to release the COMPLETE PEANUTS? What made this publisher a good one to collect and introduce a whole new generation to some of the earliest PEANUTS?

SCHULZ After Sparky died there were several conversations about the need to re-produce the entire 50 years, but there were so many missing strips and we had no idea how to locate them. Gary Groth came to us with his Fantagraphic proposal and felt confident he could find them all and do it relatively quickly. We also thought that the designs that the artist, Seth, proposed were perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the work.

THE PULSE What do you think of the advanced copy of the book?

SCHULZ I have been going through the first book lovingly and have likened it to looking at pictures of your kids when they were young. It takes me right back to how I felt then. To me the book is very simple and very direct and allows the reader to have his own reminiscence.
You might be interested to know The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center is publishing a book of all the "Li’l Folks" cartoons showing Peanuts strips that are related to these earlier panel cartoons. You can get more information on the Web site schulzmuseum.org. The Museums first publication is a compilation by other cartoonists of cartoon strips, editorial cartoons and panels paying tribute to Charles Schulz and the genius of his work.

THE PULSE Fantagraphics told us you would be making some personal appearances to promote "The Complete Peanuts". Where will you be appearing this year?

SCHULZ I will be making public appearances only on the West Coast.

THE PULSE Why will there only be two books a year for the next 12 years? Was that are your request or is there another reason to do a slow reprinting of the series? What other projects are you involved with in 2004?

SCHULZ That is the time schedule that Fantagraphics came up with.
The Museum is an ongoing work and right now we are preparing for an exhibit that will open toward the end of March which will be the Mad Magazine parodies on Peanuts. Also a biography of Schulz is being done by David Michaelis, whose most recent biography was N.C. Wyeth. He is hoping to have his book finished in 2005. We also have Sparky’s Ice Arena here in Santa Rose — Snoopy’s Home Ice -- with a full schedule of activities, including the Senior Ice Hockey Tournament which Sparky began and we have run for over 25 years.


Jen Cody, Hunter Foster and Deven May talk about "Snoopy!" benefit set for Monday, April 12th

April 09, 2004

By Craig Brockman
www.BroadwayWorld.com

This Monday, April 12th, several of Broadway's finest will take to the stage at Symphony Space on the upper west side for a concert version of "Snoopy!" The Musical. The event will benefit the Pied Piper Children's Theatre. I recently sat down with Jen Cody, Hunter Foster and Deven May to talk about their involvement in Monday's concert.

Unlike doing a full production, the performers don't have a lot of time to prepare for their roles. "I think of Sally as the youngest one, so I am trying to think of youthful things that kids do like catching your breath. My character is funny because she just says things and it comes from that innocent place. It's also a fun role because Sally has a big crush on Linus so it makes for some very funny moments in the show," said Jen.

Why does that amuse Jen? Because playing Linus is real life husband, Hunter Foster. Hunter is no stranger to the role having played it before (but in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown) when he was 13. "The Peanuts were one of my favorite things growing up as a kid so I have always loved Linus. I have to tell you though, I don't really remember how I played him - it was the first thing I ever did."

Deven May is also reprising his role as Charlie Brown having portrayed him in, what he politely refers to, as an amalgamation of both YAGMCB and "Snoopy!" back in High School which then toured to middle schools and summer camps. Deven was being quite entertaining as he went into a very "cerebral" type mode during the interview. "When you've done a role before you've already done most of the legwork. So now doing Charlie Brown, it's a little bit -- I wouldn't say easier -- I am just more familiar with the Peanuts gang. I'm also a big Peanuts fan. I collected the books and watched all the cartoons when I was a kid, so I pretty much had it keyed in. Everyone feels down sometimes, or hasn't had the right answer. He's a bit of a depressive guy. He has his moments of joy but they're squashed. You know Charlie Brown is every man. If you think about on a small scale what the Peanuts gang goes through -- on a larger scale we've all gone through."

When asked how they were recruited for their roles in "Snoopy!" by producer, Sutton Foster, Jen, Hunter and Deven (almost like it was rehearsed) gave the same answer. "We had to audition." Deven chimed in that clearly it was "nepotism." Hunter said "Actually she called up and did it very formally. She said 'Hi this is Sutton and I'd like to formally offer you the role of Linus' and I was like 'what's with all the formality -- just ask me to do it." Jen was offered her role at a Christmas party, while Deven was contacted by Sutton having worked together on such projects like the workshop for Wicked.

Sutton's not the only producer -- Jamie McGonnigal, after the very successful "Children of Eden" and "Embrace" events (the latter for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, is also on hand. Hunter and Jen both said that although at this point they haven't worked that much with Jamie specifically (they've been working more with the director, choreographer and musical director at this point) that they really like him and "he really has great things to say. He's really smart and insightful," says Jen, "he's such an easy audience. He makes you feel funny because he just laughs and laughs." Hunter adds that "He's also really positive and supportive." Sutton has been very proactive in organizing the event, but during the actual rehearsals, Jen says that she's had to let go of some of those responsibilities and let Jamie take those on so she can concentrate on being an actress.

"This all happens so quick," continues Jen, "we've been doing a lot of homework because we don't rehearse on weekends and we're only a few days away." Their final dress rehearsal is a couple of hours before they perform in front of the benefit audience. Both Jen and Hunter raved about the costumes having just had their fitting a few days before the interview.

It will be a treat for those attending to see both Sutton and Hunter perform on the same stage here in NYC. Hunter reminded me that they have actually performed together before "We did Grease together for about 2 weeks and Les Mis together for 2 days." Jen and Hunter are quite familiar sharing the same stage having appeared in quite a few shows together -- Urinetown, Grease, and Cats (where they first met). So do they like working together? "I love it!" boasts Jen. Hunter paused, and when I raised an eyebrow to see if he'd disagree, he said "It's both good and bad. It's bad -- not on something like this because something like this is fun -- but doing a long run it gets difficult because the show problems become your problems and I don't like that. I don't like when she gets upset about the show-" Jen continued with " If one of us is mad at somebody in the show and then the other person is like 'how can you talk to that person??'" Hunter then added "But on the other hand, it's nice to go to work and spend time together."

With both of them very active in the Broadway community, how does the happy couple influence each other's decisions on which roles to take? "I think more now we talk about things when it comes down to leaving town. I don't think I would ever leave now for a long period of time. We've been, knock on wood, very fortunate and never had to really make those decisions."

So what can people expect on Monday evening? "A lot of good wholesome fun. A lot of smiling" says Deven, "What we've been able to raise for this children's theater already is fantastic. We have like 50 kids singing as part of the chorus with 8 or 9 acting as doppelgangers to each character. "A really fun evening. We've got John Tartaglia hosting, and kids - we have these 50 kids singing as part of the chorus. So they are part of the performance and also who we are raising the money for...And this one cute 6 year old (McKinny Danger-James) who plays Woodstock" Jen adds with Hunter interjecting "She's just so..so cute!"

So what role would Jen like to take on most? "Thinking ahead to what shows are coming to Broadway, I'd like to be in West Side Story. It's one of those things you grew up on as a kid and to have it play when I'm the right age to do it. Ahh. I would love to play Anybodys. It's my dream"

As for Hunter, he's a little torn. His initial answer was Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar. But then corrected himself "I'd really love to play Georg in She Loves Me - it's just a great show and a great character."

And if they could do a show together? They both responded with "Mack and Mabel," which Hunter appeared with his sister, Sutton, in concert last year.

Deven told me that he has some interesting plans already in the works. After having originated the role of Bat Boy/Edgar both in LA and New York (Off-Broadway) he is currently in discussions with the "powers that be" to take on the role once again - this time in Leeds in the UK under the direction of Mark Wing-Davey. The production would have Deven in rehearsals as early as mid-May. For those curious if that means he's planning shaving his head again, "Oh of course I would. I actually prefer to have my head shaved."

Deven's dream role would be to play Sweeney in Sweeney Todd. And if he could perform with his girlfriend? Well Deven didn't want to answer without first calling Jessica Grove (who is currently in Thoroughly Modern Millie) on her cell. "She's saying Bat Boy. No.. actually we would both love to originate roles in a new Broadway show. So all you lyricists, composers and book writers out there - Jessica Grove and Deven May want to be in your show."

It's not too late to pick up tickets to Monday's event. For more information about the Snoopy benefit, visit www.snoopyconcert.org.


USA Hockey to Continue Relationship with Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament

April 2, 2004

www.sportsfeatures.com

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The family of Charles M. Schulz has once again invited USA Hockey, in conjunction with the Labatt Blue USAdult Hockey program, to continue its involvement with Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament. The annual event, which is considered one of the finest senior tournaments in the country, was introduced in 1975 by legendary cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.

The announcement was made by USA Hockey Executive Director Doug Palazzari (Colorado Springs, Colo.); Vice President and Adult Council Chairperson John Beadle (Holt, Mich.); Director, Adult Hockey Ashley Bevan (Colorado Springs, Colo.); and Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament Event Presenters Jean Schulz and Monte Schulz (Santa Rosa, Calif.).

The Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament is held in July at Snoopy's Home Ice in Santa Rosa, Calif. The facility was solely owned by Charles Schulz and is now operated by the Schulz family. The Snoopy Tournament attracts 60 adult hockey teams from around the world, with players ranging in age from 40 to more than 75. Skill levels span recreational senior hockey to former collegiate and professional players.

"This tournament is a tremendous opportunity to further expand the growth of the Labatt Blue USAdult Hockey program," said Beadle. "The Snoopy Tournament is one of the premier adult hockey tournaments in the country and we are proud to enter into a new relationship with the event hosts."

Tournament hosts, Jean Schulz and Monte Schulz, are committed to continuing the event that has a reputation for friendly competition and fun both on and off the ice.

For registration information, please visit www.snoopyshomeice.com or www.usahockey.com, or call Snoopy's Home Ice at (800) 959-3385.


Good grief

March 25, 2004

By Guy Leshinski
Eye Weekly [Toronto, Canada]

Collecting every Peanuts strip Charles Schulz ever drew, The Complete Peanuts will take 25 volumes and more than 12 years to complete. With the first instalment due in stores in May, its designer -- Guelph cartoonist Seth -- reflects on the gang's legacy, and the grief at its core.

THE PANELIST This is a massive project. How much research was involved before you began designing?

SETH I didn't need to go back and re-read anything because I've been so obsessively interested in Schulz for so many years. Even with this first volume (1950-1952), I knew most of the material before I got my hands on it, just because I'd sought it out years ago. A lot of [the design] just came instinctively. It was a pretty natural expression of my feelings toward Schulz.

TP How so?

SETH I guess I've always been a little disappointed with how Schulz has been presented. In the '60s, his work was considered sophisticated adult humour. But with all the TV specials and merchandising, I think in the public's mind it has been reduced to a children's product. I wanted the book to be something that could lead the reader into Schulz's work and let them judge it for themselves, hopefully removing some of the pop-culture associations.

TP What do you hope they'll find?

SETH It's a quiet strip, you know. It's funny, it's absurd, but it's also really sad. Of all the newspaper-strip [creators], I think Schulz was one of the very few who managed to infuse his work with something of his personality. I think his is a kind of quiet, private personality, [though] pop-culture America never pushed that aspect of it.

In the '60s, Peanuts was very cutting-edge. He was dealing with hot topics at the time -- psychiatry, a lot of "neurosis talk" -- and the characters were very flip and cruel. I think it tapped into a certain adult humour that was common then, by people like Jules Feiffer and Shel Silverstein. I don't think Schulz changed any, but I think as perceptions of the strip changed, and readers saw a lot of the TV specials, a lot of the suffering in the strip just became things they thought were cute gags for kids.

TP Is that how the characters became children's icons?

SETH Schulz made poor choices. He followed the American dream of promoting the product too much. He always went along; I think he saw it as his duty. He didn't completely own the property -- United Features was involved -- and I think he enjoyed being the success who was making millions of dollars and having his characters known worldwide. It didn't actually affect the work in any way. But it did affect the image of the work.

TP Did the strip change much?

SETH It went through definite changes. You could almost say Schulz did several strips, all under the banner of Peanuts. He explored absurd humour at a much higher level in the '70s than he had before. He goes with that Snoopy and the doghouse stuff that he was doing in the '60s and really lets it have free reign. I think even the last 20 years, which people generally look down on, is a very interesting strip. It's an old-man strip. I think even the characters are old in those last 20 years, they're not children any more. Take a good look at Lucy. I always think of Lucy because Lucy transforms from a little girl into an old woman. She's dumpy, she's walking around in sweatpants all the time; it doesn't look anything like Lucy in the '60s. And she's very complaining.

TP Why has Peanuts endured?

SETH You can't undersell cuteness in the North American market. Snoopy specifically has been such a powerful image because he's a pleasing, well-designed cartoon figure that's easily applicable to a million plastic trophies and postcards and beach balls. And I think that has had a huge effect on his popularity. Snoopy, he's the character who represents a brazen sort of self-confidence, an American kind of bravado. Snoopy dancing and saying "Have a good morning" is a very marketable image.

TP That cover image of a scowling Charlie Brown on volume one is quite striking. Why did you choose it?

SETH I think what makes Peanuts different, what makes it important, is that Peanuts had a real human quality that went deeper than all the other stuff, and it was mostly based on sadness. Schulz was a sad person. And that, I think, is really what makes the strip worth reading at this point. I mean, there are lots of strips out there that express joy, and that's a valid thing to be interested in, but I don't think that's the key point of Schulz.

TP You think that was consistent?

SETH I do. I think it becomes less as the strip goes on, and the nature of the sadness really changes. I think the sadness in the early strips is much more visceral; of a young person dealing with those feelings of trying to fit in with the world, the freshness of all the suffering of childhood ... and that really mellows over the years. I'd say, though, by the time he hit the '70s, it's changing into a looking-backwards kind of sadness. And certainly by the time he's an old man, you get that sense of someone who is adding up the details of their life. But it always comes back to a certain sense of disappointment.

TP Despite his success?

SETH Maybe because of it, even. Who knows? He seems to have been a complicated character in that sense.


Good grief!

Charles M. Schulz's 'Peanuts' is getting new recognition as a cutting-edge comic strip and worthy art

March 23, 2004

By Tom Beer
Newsday

On Oct. 2, 1950, an innocuous-looking cartoon debuted, unheralded, in seven American newspapers. In the four-panel strip, a little boy with an egg-shaped head is running against an abstract background.

"Well! Here comes ol' Charlie Brown!" says another boy to the girl seated next to him, watching as the smiling figure dashes past. "Good ol' Charlie Brown ... Yes, sir! Good ol' Charlie Brown..."

And then with impeccable comic timing -- if a cartoon figure can be said to have timing -- he scowls and quips "How I hate him!"

Poor Charlie Brown. Unloved (and endearingly clueless) right from the start.

Thus was Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" born. Who could have predicted from such a modest beginning that this deceptively simple cartoon would prove so popular -- at its peak, "Peanuts" appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries -- and so influential for a new generation of cartoonists? Not to mention enduring. "Peanuts" ran nearly every day for 50 years, until Schulz's retirement and death in 2000. Four years later, 2,400 newspapers (including this one) still run recycled "Peanuts" comic strips.

Now, as often happens with hugely successful pop culture phenomena, "Peanuts" is getting a second, more serious, look.

A Schulz museum

In 2002, a museum dedicated to Schulz and his artwork opened in his longtime home of Santa Rosa, Calif. The same year, editor and designer Chip Kidd brought out "Peanuts The Art of Charles M. Schulz" (Pantheon, $16.95, paper), which presented hundreds of strips, many photographed from their creator's own scrapbooks, along with Schulz's rarely seen pre-"Peanuts" cartoons and photographs of vintage "Peanuts" memorabilia. David Michaelis, biographer of painter N.C. Wyeth, is at work on an authorized Schulz biography for HarperCollins. And next month, Fantagraphics -- a publisher generally known for edgy graphic novels and alternative "comix" -- launches "The Complete Peanuts," a 25-volume, 12-year project that will bring every single daily and Sunday "Peanuts" strip back into print, between hard covers. (The first volume will cost $28.95.) It's the sort of reverential treatment ordinarily reserved for great artists, but to the single-moniker cartoonist Seth, who is designing the series, Schulz has a definite claim to greatness.

"Schulz managed to infuse so much of his personality into the work," says Seth, author of the graphic novel "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken." "A lot of newspaper strips -- there's been some good ones over the years, but mostly they fall short of being a real artistic expression. Schulz took it to a different level. His style totally suited the content, and he had an eccentric sense of humor and a melancholy personality that were just perfect for what he was doing. He gave 'Peanuts' real depth and human feeling."

Kidd agrees. "Schulz did for the comic strip what the Bauhaus did for architecture," he says. "I know that sounds really eggheady, but what I mean is this Visually he pared everything down to its simplest forms. Charlie Brown is a circle with two dots and a squiggle and a line, and all of a sudden it's a person. It's minimal, but Schulz is so in control of the minimalism that the characters almost work like typography -- it's like you're reading them. There's your form. And then for your content He predated Woody Allen's neuroses by a good 20 years. On the comics page!"

"The Complete Peanuts" will allow casual readers to judge Schulz's achievements for themselves. For starters, it eschews the cheerful, candy-colored, mass-market packaging that has characterized most "Peanuts" collections to date. "I wanted to get away from that whole pop culture perspective," explains Seth, "so it didn't look like a children's book. The colors are very low- key, lots of earthy tones, and I used hand-rendered typefaces. I wanted an austere sense of design, something very quiet."

Fantagraphics was able to obtain original proofs for nearly every strip, so the reproductions are clean and crisp. And although the Sunday strips originally ran in color, here they appear in stark black and white -- avoiding the printing problems that historically plagued color sections. Introductions to each volume have been commissioned from such high-class Schulz fans as Garrison Keillor and Walter Cronkite -- "though for all I know, they could be getting Snoop Doggy Dog," jokes Seth.

The early years

Volume I, which covers the years 1950 to 1952, will come as a surprise to those familiar only with the strips of recent decades. In the early years, Schulz was still working out exactly who these sophisticated children were, graphically -- the shape of Charlie Brown's head evolves; Snoopy walks on all fours -- as well as characterwise. "Charlie Brown moves from being an impish little child to someone who is a good vehicle for Schulz to pour all his disappointments into," explains Seth. "And Lucy is just a cute little character in the beginning, but probably within two or three years, she started to become quite cruel."

Perhaps because of their work-in-progress quality, Schulz never collected these first strips in book form, and they have have rarely been seen since their initial publication half a century ago.

For Kidd, who also included many of these early strips in his book, revisiting the origins of "Peanuts" helps put a long career in perspective. "There were some Schulz purists out there who said that he didn't collect a lot of those [early strips] for a reason -- he didn't like 'em! But, OK, now if we are really to look at the career -- it's like these are the scenes that were cut from 'Citizen Kane'! Here's the 'Jitterbug' scene from 'The Wizard of Oz'! I know that sounds overly dramatic, but that's how I look at it. They're historically important."

The artist himself was famously unassuming about his own accomplishments. Born in Minneapolis in 1922, Schulz (nicknamed "Sparky" after a horse in the popular "Barney Google" cartoon) came from German and Norwegian stock and exuded a typically Midwestern unpretentiousness. "I've been trying to figure out whether I'm smart or dumb," he once told an interviewer, "and I've come to the conclusion that I'm just sharp. It doesn't require intelligence to do the strip, but it does take a certain sharpness."

Charlie Brown's archetype

An indifferent student ("I managed to flunk at least one subject a year," he said), Schulz didn't even show great promise as an artist -- the high school yearbook rejected a series of his proposed sketches. At 136 pounds and plagued with acne, the teenage boy certainly didn't have much self-confidence. "It took me a long time to become a human being," he once reflected. "I never regarded myself as being much and I never regarded myself as good-looking and I never had a date in high school, because I thought, who'd want to date me?" Here is Charlie Brown's archetypal insecurity, in tangible, human form.

In 1943, at the height of World War II, Schulz was drafted into the Army and left home for Camp Campbell, Ky. (now Fort Campbell), just three days after his mother's death; for Sparky, childhood was over. During his two years' service he kept a sketchbook of military life, "As We Were," that gained him popularity with fellow soldiers.

Hated the name 'Peanuts'

After the war, he created a regular strip, "Li'l Folks," for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and sold spot illustrations to one of the most widely read magazines of the day, The Saturday Evening Post. But he was still an unproven entity when the United Feature Syndicate signed him to do a strip it insisted on calling "Peanuts"; Schulz himself hated the name ("It has no dignity," he complained) but accepted it as a condition of publication.

Of course, it went on to be a bigger success than anyone -- certainly United Feature or Schulz himself -- could imagine. Now, paradoxically, it's that very success from which Seth hopes to rescue "Peanuts." "I think he's been taken for granted for the last 20 years," says the designer. "Because of the merchandising and the TV shows and the Hallmark books, Schulz's image really declined. He was just as popular -- if not more so -- but his reputation as an artist declined. I'm hoping this book will help people look at the work again with fresh eyes."

Perhaps it's that very combination of universality and artistic integrity that makes "Peanuts" unique in the annals of comic-strip art. Kidd certainly thinks so. "The curious thing about Schulz is that he's the great uniter in the comics world. Pretty much everybody, no matter who they are, can agree that Schulz was really a genius of the form -- whether you're a hipper-than-thou art cartoonist or a Superman artist or what have you." Kidd pauses and laughs. "When I was in meetings pitching our book to the sales force, I said, here's the one cartoonist that is hugely loved by [cutting-edge cartoonists] Dan Clowes and Chris Ware -- and my mother. That's very rare in our culture."


Compilation grows from early 'Peanuts'

March 15, 2004

By Gary Strauss
USA Today

Good grief, Charlie Brown. Fifty years worth of Peanuts?

Schulz fans may be surprised by what they find in the early editions of Peanuts -- for example, a not-so-ambitious Lucy.

Over the next 12-1/2 years, Seattle-based publisher Fantagraphics plans to issue an encyclopedia-size compilation of Peanuts cartoons 25 volumes covering every daily and Sunday strip of the popular comic by the late Charles Schulz. The hardcovers will average 320 pages and be priced at $28.95.

The first volume, The Complete Peanuts 1950 to 1952, will be released in May.

When Peanuts made its debut, the strip's earthiness and humanity were a novelty in a genre ruled by adventure tales and action heroes. Eventually, Peanuts ran in 2,600 newspapers worldwide and evolved into a colossal marketing and TV icon. Four years after Schulz's death at age 77, classic Peanuts strips still run in 2,400 papers in 75 countries, syndicator United Media says.

Even die-hard Peanuts fans may be surprised by the first book. Shermy, who eventually faded into obscurity, is the prime character. Charlie Brown appears in early strips. But like most of the beloved characters, he possesses little of his later existential angst. Chief antagonist Lucy is a toddler, not the mean-spirited, football-grabbing nemesis she evolved into. And Snoopy is just a small, affectionate puppy without his later fantasy life.

"The characters really hadn't found (their) voices," Fantagraphics editor Eric Reynolds says.

Scores of Peanuts compilations have been previously issued in 25 languages, but Schulz's earliest strips have never been reproduced in book form. Fantagraphics began discussing the compilation with Schulz in 1997.

"Schulz's initial reaction was 'Who wants to read that crap?' " Reynolds says. "He was an incredibly modest guy who kept the early strips out of collections because they didn't conform with the strip after it hit its stride."

The early volume, which features an introduction by humorist Garrison Keillor, could be popular with collectors, since current Peanuts collections date only to the early 1960s, says Bob Carter of C. Dickens, an Atlanta-based rare bookseller.

The series "is heartwarming," says Schulz's widow, Jean. "He put his soul into that cartoon."

The Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, Calif., also has begun selling early work by the artist with "Charles M. Schulz Li'l Beginnings," a $30 limited-edition paperback. It contains Schulz's weekly Li'lFolks cartoons -- a Peanuts precursor that ran in his hometown Minnesota paper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press -- as well as cartoons that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post magazine from 1947 to 1950.


Tails of love Heartwarming stories illustrate nonprofit group's work

Sunday, March 7, 2004

By Cathy Hendrie
The North County Times [San Diego, California]

Nick Danger and his blond sidekick, Rica, go everywhere together basketball games, restaurants, the park, the grocery store. But to Nick, the golden retriever's sweet hugs mean the most.

"My favorite command is 'visit,' " explained the Rancho Bernardo resident, who uses a wheelchair. "When I'm sitting down and she's heeling, I say 'Rica, visit,' and she stands up next to me and rests her head on my lap, and her tail is wagging, and we nuzzle. She also gives me a look like 'You're so brilliant.' "

The story of their fateful pairing is one of 30 poignant vignettes described in "Love Heels Tales From Canine Companions for Independence" by Patricia Dibsie (Yorkville Press, $28.95). More than 200 full-color photos complement the book, which illustrates the countless ways the national nonprofit assistance-dog organization -- with a regional center in Oceanside -- has aided people with physical disabilities.

Reprints of a "Luann" cartoon on CCI by San Marcos resident Greg Evans as well as panels by the late "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz; a special message from Jean F. Schulz, his widow and national president of CCI; and a foreword by author Dean Koontz are also featured.

But the anecdotes about selfless volunteers who breed, raise and train their canine charges and the disabled beneficiaries steal the show, says Dibsie. A 30-year newspaper reporter and puppy-raiser, Dibsie was asked to chronicle some of the incredible human/canine relationships forged at CCI.

She and former Southwest CCI Director Judi Pierson agreed the book should center on stories from the hearts and minds of people who shared in those relationships.

In a chapter titled "All My Children," the Flynn family of Santee describes how they've groomed several dogs for companion careers. One by one, the puppies move in with them, learn dozens of commands, and after about 14 months, graduate to advanced CCI training. A few who exhibit behavior problems or are all play and no work become "release" dogs, which means they are placed with new owners who adore them.

The hardest part is letting go, said Janice Flynn, who attended CCI's winter graduation ceremony in February. "But we do this because we know someone out there needs them."

In a photo illustrating "Until We Meet Again," 3-year-old Grant Reed-Plouffe of San Diego wraps his body around his golden Lab, seeking comfort while he battles a brain tumor. Apache, one of CCI's release dogs because his hips can't pull a wheelchair, becomes a pal and helpmate for the fragile little boy. Fast friends, they're soon sporting matching Superman costumes and hugging each other while Grant naps. Apache's paw rests on Grant's chest.

As the tumor claims Grant's life almost two years later, however, Apache's presence reminds the boy's family how much joy the canine companion still provides.

In "New Beginnings," Nick Danger's retriever, Rica, gives the UC San Diego sportscaster and writer many moments of joy, but probably none so dear as the day they graduated together. Nick met Rica when his name came up on the CCI waiting list for a service dog. They trained together until an injury forced Nick to drop out of the course. A few months later, Nick learned there was another opening for a graduate trainee. Believing he had seen the last of Rica, Nick was stunned when Rica was led into the room. A few weeks and 60 learned commands later, Rica sat by Nick as he delivered his graduation speech.

"She's the single greatest thing that ever happened to me," he says of her today. "The last couple of years have been tough, and I don't know what I would have done without her."

The pages of "Love Heels" are replete with endearing stories of the dogs who transform the lives of their human partners.

Dibsie should know, and not just because she wrote the book. Her devotion to puppy-raising continues today, and she has co-founded Paw Pals Assistance Dogs, a company that pairs trained canines with health-care professionals who have disabled clients.

If she had one wish for the book, she said, it would be for readers to gain an appreciation for the unconditional love and respect dogs offer humans.

"Spend an hour with a dog and see how it fills your soul," she said.

Contact Canine Companions for Independence at (760) 754-3300.

Learn more

Paw-signings of "Love Heels Tales >From Canine Companions for Independence" by Patricia Dibsie will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 20 at Petco stores on West Vista Way in Oceanside, Morena Boulevard in San Diego, and in Del Mar and Santee. Puppy-raisers and graduates will be on hand to answer questions while their canine friends "stamp" books.


County airport to land Snoopy

Famed WWI flying beagle chosen as only fitting mascot, leather cap and all

February 27, 2004

By Bob Norberg
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat

The Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport may not have commercial air service, but fear not, Snoopy the World War I Flying Ace is coming.

Snoopy, wearing his leather cap and goggles, his yellow scarf trailing behind him in the wind, is likely to become the airport's new mascot.

"Making the association with flying, Snoopy was pretty much the only choice," said Craig Schulz, son of the late cartoonist and Snoopy creator Charles Schulz. "It is really a coup for the Sonoma County Airport to have a logo like this because of this identifiable character."

County officials welcomed the Snoopy logo, hoping they can use the beloved dog to market Sonoma County and air service when it finally arrives.

"It is a significant value to have a worldwide-recognized character as part of our logo for the airport," county Supervisor Paul Kelley said. "It will enhance the marketability and hopefully help attract commercial air service."

Sonoma County follows other California airports in developing an identity tied to an entertainment figure.

Orange County named its airport for actor John Wayne and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena airport just became Bob Hope Airport.

At John Wayne International Airport, a tall statue of John Wayne in a cowboy costume has been erected inside the terminal.

Bob Hope Airport has a caricature of Hope on banners inside the terminal, but it is still working on producing a new logo since being renamed in December, said Lucy Burghdorf, community relations director.

Sonoma County's logo depicts Snoopy on his doghouse, taking off with the county's distinctive airport tower in the background.

It was drawn by Paige Braddock, creative director of Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates in Santa Rosa, who said it was based on an idea by Craig Schulz.

Braddock said it was a fitting logo for the airport, which was renamed in honor of Charles M. Schulz in March 2000, just a month after the famous cartoonist died.

Despite the new logo, the airport still has no near-term prospects of getting commercial air service.

Seattle-based Horizon Airlines, which has been the county's best hope since United Express discontinued its San Francisco and Los Angeles service in 2001, still believes the Santa Rosa-Los Angeles market is attractive.

But the airline doesn't have aircraft available to expand its route structure until at least the fall schedule, after Labor Day," said Pat Zachwieja, Horizon vice president.

Airport Manager Jon Stout said he made another pitch to Horizon two weeks ago, estimating Santa Rosa-Los Angeles service would attract 58,000 passengers a year and generate revenues of $6.3 million.

The county is betting that if the logo is approved and put in place, the planes and passengers will follow.

Sonoma County paid Creative Associates $250 for the design and will pay the company and the United Features Syndicate 5 percent of the sales of any products bearing the logo, Stout said.

The proposal to approve the logo and marketing agreement will go to the county Board of Supervisors in a month.

The logo will be used in advertising, on business cards and letterheads, on luggage tags and the airport Web page. It also will be used on mugs, hats and shirts, which the airport will sell.

Eventually, the county will re-create the logo on a 30-inch bronze plaque that will be placed on the airport tower.

Schulz and his Peanuts cartoon characters also may be an integral part of a new, 50,000-square-foot, $15 million terminal that is proposed to accommodate future commercial passenger service.

Craig Schulz said there are plans for a suspended, three-dimensional statue of Snoopy chasing the Red Baron, plus a mini-museum of early Peanuts comic strips and memorabilia.

"Sonoma County has a reputation of the Wine Country and that will be the theme of the new terminal," he said. "We hope to have a small exhibit of museum pieces. When you get off the plane, you will see some cartoons from the early days. It is an exciting project, if it ever takes place."


Saint Paul Caps off Final Tribute to Charles Schultz with "Doghouse Days of Summer" Statues

February 18, 2004

St. Paul Convention and Visitors Bureau [press release]

(Saint Paul, MN) The Saint Paul Convention and Visitors Bureau announced that the city will pay tribute to native son, Charles M. Schultz with a fifth and final year of Peanuts statues that will be displayed throughout the city this summer.

The design chosen for the final year, "Doghouse Days of Summer" features a classic pose of Snoopy lying on top of his doghouse daydreaming, with Woodstock perched on his stomach. This year's design is unique from past projects, in that it incorporates two characters, as well as Snoopy's infamous doghouse, creating a broader canvas for artists who creatively decorate each sculpture.

Saint Paul sets up a Doghouse Visitors Center downtown during each Peanuts celebration, which is tremendously popular with children and visitors from around the world. The statues will be sponsored by local businesses, designed and painted by local artists, and will be placed on the sidewalks, plazas, parks and boulevards of the city by early June. Over two million visitors from all 50 states and sixty countries have come to Saint Paul during the past four summers to see statues of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus. Organizers expect at least a half million visitors this summer as well.

"We expect this Peanuts tribute to draw over a half a million visitors to Saint Paul during the summer months," said Brad Toll, vice president of tourism.

"With the international attention Saint Paul received from the Winter Carnival Ice Palace the NHL All Star Game this past winter, combined with the upcoming Grand Excursion 2004 celebration in Saint Paul over the 4th of July weekend, and the final year of Peanuts statues, we are expecting a banner year for tourism for the city."

The "Doghouse Days of Summer" Statues will be on display until September 19, at which time they may be kept by sponsors or auctioned off at the city's Landmark Center. Auction proceeds are dedicated to the Charles M. Schulz Fund that was established to create and maintain permanent bronze sculptures of the Peanuts gang on display in Landmark Plaza, and also to fund scholarships for artists and emerging cartoonists at the Art Instruction School which Schulz attended, and the College of Visual Arts, where he once taught.

The Snoopy Doghouse Information Center will be located at the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown Saint Paul on Kellogg Boulevard, and will be open from 10 am to 4 pm daily. Visitors will be able to pick up brochures which list the locations and descriptions of each statue and will also be able to obtain additional visitor information.

For updated information on Snoopy statues please contact the Saint Paul Convention and Visitors Bureau at 800-627-6101 or www.visitsaintpaul.com or visit www.doghousedaysofsummer.com.


Tim O'Gara leaves legacy

February 16, 2004

By Scott Carlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press

For the past five years, St. Paul restaurateur Tim O'Gara had to stay hooked up to a portable oxygen tank to help him breathe.

But his worsening emphysema never stopped O'Gara, the second-generation owner of O'Gara's Bar and Grill, from going to work nearly every day, according to his wife, Anna. "O'Gara's Bar and Grill was (Tim's) life," she said Sunday.

Even last March, when Tim O'Gara handed the family business over to son Dan O'Gara, he still made his nearly daily visits there for lunch, offering advice on how to keep the place humming.

But O'Gara's counsel and friendly banter at the family establishment are now over. O'Gara, 66, succumbed to his lung disease early Saturday.

O'Gara's death marks the passing of the man who helped turn the bar and restaurant into one of St. Paul's best-known nightlife spots.

Founded in 1941 by his father, James Freeman O'Gara, the business came under Tim O'Gara's ownership in 1972. "He (Tim) made the establishment what it is today," Dan O'Gara said. "When he bought it, it was a small neighborhood bar with a restaurant. Now it is a big entertainment complex."

He said his father expanded the business on the southeast corner of Snelling and Selby avenues in the 1980s, despite a sluggish economy, and also brought in a microbrewery so the bar could serve its own brands.

As O'Gara's Bar and Grill expanded, so did the establishment's reputation in St. Paul. Long a hangout for St. Paul's Irish community, the bar and grill also served as a meeting place for local politicians and business people.

Tim O'Gara's ties with St. Paul were so strong that, four years ago, the "Peanuts On Parade" organizers made an exception to their "no-bar rule" and allowed a Snoopy statue to be displayed at the bar and grill.

Charles Schulz, the cartoonist who created the "Peanuts" comic strip, and Tim O'Gara were friends, Dan O'Gara said, explaining the Schulz family once lived in an apartment above O'Gara's bar. Charles Schulz's father, Carl, also had his barbershop in the same building, Dan O'Gara said.

Born in St. Paul, Tim O'Gara grew up in the city's Merriam Park neighborhood. He graduated from Central High School in 1956, spent two years in the Army overseas and then came back to St. Paul to work at the family business.

"He (Tim) was old-schooled and very strict," Dan O'Gara said. "But at the same time, he was extremely compassionate. People who saw him as a bar owner might have thought he was a hard man. But one of the best things I thing learned from my father was how to take care of family and friends."

Dan O'Gara and sister Kelly O'Gara Boland said their father always had time to help friends.

They noted, for example, that as a recovering alcoholic for the past 26 years, he was always willing to talk with anyone struggling with a drinking problem or any other difficulty.

Jim Thomas, a childhood friend and long-time business associate in the liquor industry, remembered Tim O'Gara as "an honorable guy. His word was his bond. He loved his family, and I respected him for that and the way he ran his business."

Thomas, owner of Thomas Liquors, noted he and O'Gara were past presidents of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association. O'Gara was also active in St. Paul's St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Besides his wife Anna, son Dan and daughter Kelly O'Gara Boland, he also is survived by another son, Timmy; brothers Father Stephen O'Gara and Patrick O'Gara; sisters Kathleen Smith and Anastasia Campbell; seven grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.

A visitation will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the O'Halloran & Murphy Funeral Home in St. Paul. The funeral will be at 10 a.m. Friday at Assumption Catholic Church, 51 W. Seventh St.


'Peanuts' pals will be on parade

February 13, 2004

By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press

St. Paul's annual tribute to hometown "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz will include about 100 statues of Snoopy and Woodstock in a classic pose showing the beagle napping on the roof of his doghouse.

The celebration, "Doghouse Days of Summer,'' will be the city's fifth and final annual celebration of Schulz and his work. The events have drawn thousands to St. Paul and raised about $1.8 million for scholarships and for bronze statues. The bronzes in downtown's Landmark Plaza serve as a permanent tribute to Schulz, who used his St. Paul boyhood for much of the humor and characters for "Peanuts.''

Mayor Randy Kelly said the continuing event adds to the city's reputation as a family-friendly place to live and visit. He said he will sponsor a statue this year at City Hall -- "a stadium doghouse'' -- tying it to his efforts to bring the Minnesota Twins to the city.

Lee Koch, a vice president at Capital City Partnership, which is coordinating the event, said public sentiment had favored Woodstock, Snoopy's little bird friend, as the subject of this year's tribute.

"But he's not a big character. Creating a 5-foot-tall Woodstock would not be true to his character -- this is what he is," she said of the design that shows a contented Woodstock sitting on Snoopy's tummy.

Previous tributes to Schulz, who died of cancer in February 2000 at age 77, featured 5-foot-tall statues of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus. The statues had their arms flung out wide, as if dancing and/or offering a welcoming hug.

Artists will take the basic doghouse/dog/bird design and turn it into creative works of art, said Hart Johnson of TivoliToo, the St. Paul firm that makes the statues. The doghouse format, he said, will give artists four sides to work with instead of just one character, expanding the potential for creative and artistic motifs.

Capital City Partnership president John Labosky said organizers hope to have 100 statues scattered around St. Paul, but with an emphasis on downtown locations.

Officials estimated that in the past four years, 2 million people have come to St. Paul to see the statues, but that is just a guess. Because the event is free and so spread out, there is no way to count attendance.

However, last year visitors from all 50 states and 60 nations registered at the St. Paul Convention and Visitors Bureau's "doghouse" information booth, and anecdotes about the appeal of the statues are endless.

For instance, Brenda Lamb, owner of Candyland in downtown St. Paul, has sponsored a statue for the past two years and will do so again this summer.

"I wish I'd done it the first two years. Then I'd have them all,'' Lamb said. "They are real attractions.''

Lamb said people still stop and comment about the sweet-toothed Lucy with a large candied apple and the chocolate-smeared Linus that stand on the sidewalk outside her Wabasha Street store.

"It's amazing," she said. "At 9 a.m. the Friday after Christmas, a limo pulled up, and two teenagers got out and had their pictures taken with our statues.''


Final 'Peanuts' tribute will feature Snoopy and Woodstock

February 12, 2004

By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press

St. Paul's annual tribute to hometown "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz will include about 100 statues of Snoopy and Woodstock in a classic pose showing the beagle napping on the roof of his doghouse.

The celebration, "Doghouse Days of Summer,'' will be the city's fifth and final annual celebration of Schulz and his work. The events have drawn thousands to St. Paul. They also have raised funds for scholarships and for bronze statues, which serve as a permanent tribute to Schulz, who drew on his St. Paul boyhood for much of the humor and characters for "Peanuts.''

Artists will take the basic design and turn it into creative works of art, said Hart Johnson of TivoliToo, the St. Paul firm that makes the statues.

Mayor Randy Kelly said the continuing event adds to the city's reputation as a family-friendly place to live and visit. He said he will sponsor a statue this year at City Hall -- "a stadium doghouse'' -- tying it to his efforts to bring the Minnesota Twins to the city.

Lee Koch, a vice president at Capital City Partnership, which is coordinating the event, said public sentiment had favored Woodstock, Snoopy's little bird friend, as the subject of this year's tribute.

"But he's not a big character. Creating a 5-foot-tall Woodstock would not be true to his character -- this is what he is,"' she said of the design that shows Woodstock sitting on Snoopy's tummy.

Previous tributes to Schulz, who died of cancer in February 2000 at age 77, included 5-foot-tall statues of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and Linus Van Pelt. The statues had their arms flung out wide, as if dancing and or offering a welcoming hug.

Events scheduled so far for "Doghouse Days of Summer'' include

May 19-14 Artist paint-off at RiverCentre with public hours for watching artists work on the statues.
June 6 Some statues will be on display in the Grand Old Day parade, with the statues positioned in early June.
Sept. 19 The tradition auction of some statues will be held at Landmark Center, like last year.


St. Paul welcomes back Snoopy, plus doghouse

February 11, 2004

By Curt Brown
The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Sculptures of Snoopy on top of his doghouse, that contemplative blend of beagle and architecture, will hit St. Paul street corners this summer as the fifth and final public tribute to hometown "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz.

Woodstock, the little yellow bird, didn't make the cut, for structural and proportional reasons. Mayor Randy Kelly is scheduled to make the formal announcement about the statue selection at a news conference Thursday.

"Snoopy on the doghouse is probably one of the most enduring pictures in the comic strip's repertoire," the cartoonist's widow, Jeannie Schulz, said Tuesday from Santa Rosa, Calif.

Schulz died four years ago of colon cancer. The popular tribute to him, Peanuts on Parade, has featured about 100 5-foot-tall polyurethane statues for the last four summers, each year displaying a different character a dancing Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus Businesses sponsor each sculpture, then local artists paint them before they are placed around the city. They're auctioned off each fall to support various causes.

Schulz said that Woodstock had plenty of popular support, but that delicate details could have been easily broken. And at 5 feet, Woodstock might have looked more like Big Bird from Sesame Street.

"By rights, he should be half the size, and that was one of the problems," she said. "I think Snoopy on the doghouse is a good idea because we've hit the most well-known characters and the whole campaign has held up amazingly well."


'Peanuts' on parade again for 2004

February 11, 2004

By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press

St. Paul will hold a fifth -- and final -- summer tribute to Charles Schulz this summer that will again involve statues of his "Peanuts" characters scattered about the city, but officials today refused to release details until Thursday.

They did say that media reports saying that statues would show Snoopy atop his doghouse were incorrect.

"We are doing this again because the public has said they want it, and the public has also said that Woodstock is the character they like and Woodstock will be involved," said Lee Koch, vice president of Capital City Partnership, which is coordinating the event.

St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly is set to unveil the 2004 "Peanuts" statue at a 10 a.m. news conference on Thursday. Schulz grew up in St. Paul, and much of the humor and pathos of his comic strip is based on his childhood here. Since his death from colon cancer in February 2000, St. Paul has held summertime tributes to the "Peanuts" creator that have drawn thousands of visitors.

Because this will be the final year, Koch said they are expecting even more interest in the displays and events surrounding the statues.

The format will be similar to past tributes, with sponsors for each statue and an auction of most of them at the end of the summer. Proceeds will go to local art school scholarships and to help create a fourth bronze vignette of Schulz characters as a permanent tribute.

The vignette will show Peppermint Patty and her friend Marcie. Three bronze vignettes already are installed in Landmark Plaza city park. They show Charlie Brown with Snoopy, Lucy with Schroeder and his piano, and Linus with Sally Brown.


St. Paul welcomes back Snoopy, plus doghouse

February 11, 2004

By Curt Brown
The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Sculptures of Snoopy on top of his doghouse, that contemplative blend of beagle and architecture, will hit St. Paul street corners this summer as the fifth and final public tribute to hometown Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz.

Woodstock, the little yellow bird, didn't make the cut, for structural and proportional reasons. Mayor Randy Kelly is scheduled to make the formal announcement about the statue selection at a news conference Thursday.

"Snoopy on the doghouse is probably one of the most enduring pictures in the comic strip's repertoire," the cartoonist's widow, Jeannie Schulz, said Tuesday from Santa Rosa, Calif.

Schulz died four years ago of colon cancer. The popular tribute to him, Peanuts on Parade, has featured about 100 5-foot-tall polyurethane statues for the last four summers, each year displaying a different character a dancing Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus Businesses sponsor each sculpture, then local artists paint them before they are placed around the city. They're auctioned off each fall to support various causes.

Schulz said that Woodstock had plenty of popular support, but that delicate details could have been easily broken. And at 5 feet, Woodstock might have looked more like Big Bird from Sesame Street.

"By rights, he should be half the size, and that was one of the problems," she said. "I think Snoopy on the doghouse is a good idea because we've hit the most well-known characters and the whole campaign has held up amazingly well."


'Peanuts' on parade again for 2004

February 11, 2004

By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press

St. Paul will hold a fifth — and final — summer tribute to Charles Schulz this summer that will again involve statues of his Peanuts characters scattered about the city, but officials today refused to release details until Thursday.

They did say that media reports saying that statues would show Snoopy atop his doghouse were incorrect.

"We are doing this again because the public has said they want it, and the public has also said that Woodstock is the character they like and Woodstock will be involved," said Lee Koch, vice president of Capital City Partnership, which is coordinating the event.

St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly is set to unveil the 2004 Peanuts statue at a 10 a.m. news conference on Thursday.

Schulz grew up in St. Paul, and much of the humor and pathos of his comic strip is based on his childhood here. Since his death from colon cancer in February 2000, St. Paul has held summertime tributes to the Peanuts creator that have drawn thousands of visitors.

Because this will be the final year, Koch said they are expecting even more interest in the displays and events surrounding the statues.

The format will be similar to past tributes, with sponsors for each statue and an auction of most of them at the end of the summer. Proceeds will go to local art school scholarships and to help create a fourth bronze vignette of Schulz characters as a permanent tribute.

The vignette will show Peppermint Patty and her friend Marcie. Three bronze vignettes already are installed in Landmark Plaza city park. They show Charlie Brown with Snoopy, Lucy with Schroeder and his piano, and Linus with Sally Brown.


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