Farewell, Charles Schulz

News features:

Charles Schulz dies
Heart attack a day before final comic runs
Feb. 13, 2000
By TIM TESCONI
Santa Rosa Press Democrat Staff Writer

Charles M. Schulz, the barber's son from Minnesota who sketched his way to international fame as the creator of "Peanuts,'' the most popular comic strip in the history of newspapers, died of a heart attack Saturday. He was 77.

Schulz had been battling colon cancer since last fall. His son, Craig, said Schulz died about 9:30 p.m. Craig Schulz said that earlier Saturday his father "was fine -- like he'd been for the last week or so.''

Although Schulz had been seriously ill for many weeks, attorney and friend Ed Anderson said his death was sudden and unexpected.

And it was ironic, he said, that his death came the night before his final new strip was to appear. Anderson said Schulz had been anxious about today's strip and the fact that it signaled the end of his career.

"I think it's been very difficult for him,'' Anderson said.

Schulz' physical condition had been diminished, but despite all that he continued to go to his office and the nearby Redwood Empire Ice Arena that he built.

And he had planned to go to Monday night's performance of the Santa Rosa Symphony.

His speech was impacted, but he continued to talk with friends and well-wishers who phoned him at his home.

A shy and introverted man, Schulz avoided the limelight while making Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus household words and "Peanuts'' a cultural phenomenon. Snoopy went to the moon aboard an Apollo spacecraft and Linus' security blanket is in the dictionary.

"Peanuts'' appears in 2,600 newspapers, with an estimated 350 million people in 75 countries turning to the comic strip each day to glean a simple joke, a dash of philosophy, a dose of dark humor.

Schulz was Sonoma County's most famous resident during the last half of the century, gracing the community with quiet celebrity and the generous gifts his success made possible.

As the creator of the most popular comic strip in history, the unassuming artist enjoyed world acclaim and received many accolades. He won five Emmys, two Peabody awards, the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government and the Cartoonists Hall of Fame. He had his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and even a personal invitation to meet the Pope, who numbered among the millions of Peanuts' fans.

The universal appeal of the Peanuts characters has been attributed to "their sophisticated melding of wry wisdom and sly one-upmanship.'' It was all part of Schulz' quiet genius and a reflection of a personality streaked with melancholy.

"The only thing I really ever wanted to be was a cartoonist,'' Schulz repeatedly said in interviews. "That's my life. Drawing.''

Paola Muggia Stuff, the director of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum, once said in an interview that Schulz's personality was reflected in the ageless characters he created -- characters whose desires proved perpetually elusive. Charlie Brown pines for the Little Red Haired Girl he can never approach. Lucy loves Schroeder, who only cares for Beethoven.

"He (Schulz) would love to say he was Snoopy but he's not often a Snoopy personality,'' she said. "He's got the crabbiness of Lucy; he feels as lonely and out of place as Charlie Brown. He's all of those characters.''

The nickname

Schulz's association with comic strips began in infancy when he was nicknamed "Sparky'' after Sparkplug, the horse in the Barney Google cartoon. The name stuck, and Schulz was called "Sparky'' by friends and family throughout his life.

From the time he could pick up a pencil, Schulz was drawing, driven by an obsession to succeed at his chosen craft. He remembered that visiting his dying grandfather in the hospital he chanced upon a how-to book for wannabe cartoonists.

"I bet I read that thing a thousand times,'' Schulz recalled.

He took drawing lessons from a correspondence school and later taught there, picking up extra money by doing the lettering, turning his jittery pencil scrawl into a firm ink line.

There were the usual rejections from editors and syndicates. They pronounced the strip innocuous and unprofessional. Schulz never forgot those artistic slights, remembering in vivid detail the fruitless trips from his home in Minneapolis to sell his fledgling strip.

Charitable causes

But as Sonoma County's most famous citizen and one of its leading philanthropists during the more than 40 years he lived here, Schulz was respected and admired for his enormous talents, quiet dignity and generosity. He built Santa Rosa an ice arena so kids could have a place to skate and was the benefactor, privately and publicly, to many causes.

His devotion to the county is evidenced by the millions of dollars in charitable contributions given to organizations ranging from Canine Companions for Independence to the Sonoma County Community Foundation. In 1998, he and his wife, Jean, pledged $5 million for a new high-tech information center at Sonoma State University.

While not as easily recognized as Charlie Brown, Lucy and the gang, he imparted his characters' magic and fame to the community nonetheless. Schulz, ever protective of his personal privacy and comfortable among a small circle of friends and loyal confidants, managed to roam his adopted town of Santa Rosa with some level of anonymity.

"I'm a different kind of celebrity,'' Schulz once said in an interview. "Not like Joe Montana or Steve Young. I still can go wherever I want, do what I want and people don't usually come up to me.''

Schulz moved here from his native Minnesota in 1958, eight years after United Feature Syndicate acquired his 3-year-old strip called "Lil Folks'' and renamed it "Peanuts'' -- a name Schulz forever despised for its lack of "dignity.'' He landed in Sonoma County almost by chance after looking at properties in several other California towns, Atherton and Carmel among them. He then drove to Sebastopol just for fun to see a 28-acre artist's estate on Coffee Lane off Occidental Road. His family had grown tired of Minnesota's snow, and they knew the Sebastopol ranch should be theirs as soon as they went up the driveway, Schulz said in a 1997 interview.

Schulz moved to Santa Rosa 15 years later after marrying his second wife, Jean. Schulz was drawn into her active social circle, becoming part of Santa Rosa forever more.

Regular folk

World acclaim aside, Schulz remained a low-key, hard-working guy whose closest friends were mostly regular folk he had come to know as a 40-year resident of Sonoma County.

Asked once if he ever was overwhelmed by fame, Schulz responded simply that he didn't think about it much. He said he didn't think about money much either, but his talents made him a very rich man. Forbes magazine has consistently named him one of the highest-paid entertainers in the country, estimating his worth at more than $55 million.

"The strip is my reason for existence, not the money it brings in. The editor is still my No. 1 client. I never wanted to be another Disney,'' he said in an interview with Gaye LeBaron in 1997.

After 47 years of writing, drawing and lettering every Peanuts cartoon ever printed, Schulz took a five-week break to celebrate his 75th birthday in 1997 and spent much of his vacation just hanging around the Redwood Empire Ice Arena on West Steele Lane, a short walk from the studio where he created his strip.

The ice arena, which Schulz built 30 years ago as a gift for the community, is not profitable, operating at a $1 million annual loss. Ever prepared, Schulz stores 200 folding beds and blankets in the arena just in case the city ever needs an emergency shelter in the event of a disaster.

He knew from childhood that he wanted to be a cartoonist, but said that he could not have predicted the enormity of his or his characters success. There have been animated TV shows, books and magazine covers, even an oft-performed musical.

The Times of London, which profiled Schulz for his profound influence on British life, recently called Charlie Brown and his eccentric beagle international icons of good faith.

But Schulz, in an address before the Sonoma County Press Club, said it's not for the benefit of mankind that he works.

"I just draw what I think is funny,'' Schulz said, "and I hope other people think it is funny, too.''

Sunday February 13, 2000 4:11 PM ET
Clinton Says Schulz, Peanuts Will Not Be Forgotten
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton on Sunday mourned the death of "Peanuts'' comic strip creator Charles Schulz, saying the artist and his characters would live on in the memories of their fans.

"On the day that our newspapers print his very last 'Peanuts' strip, it is especially poignant that we mourn the passing of Charles Schulz himself,'' Clinton said in a written statement.

Schulz, 77, died of a heart attack late Saturday, the day before his final strip ran in newspapers. Schulz had given up the strip to battle colon cancer.

Clinton said, "For 50 years, his keen eye, his good and generous heart, and his active brush and pen have given life to the most memorable cast of characters ever to enliven our daily papers.

"The hopeful and hapless Charlie Brown, the joyful Snoopy, the soulful Linus -- even the 'crabby' Lucy, give voice, day after day, to what makes us human.

"Today, in his final strip, Charles Shulz writes, 'Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them...' We can say with certainty that we will never forget them, or their creator, or the many gifts he has given us all,'' the president said.

Peanuts Creator Charles Schulz Dies of Colon Cancer
Letter from United Features Syndicate
NEW YORK, Feb 13 - Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, creator of the comic strip, PEANUTS, died early today of colon cancer in Santa Rosa, CA(12:30 am. EST). He was 77 years old.

The most successful comic strip in newspaper history, PEANUTS appears in some 2,600 newspaper in 75 countries and is translated into 21 languages. United Feature Syndicate started the strip in syndication on October 2, 1950.

The influence of Charles Schulz on several generations of cartoonists cannot be overstated. "With intelligence, honesty, and wonderfully expressive artwork, Charles Schulz gave the comics a unique world of humor, fantasy, warmth and pain that completely reconfigured the comic strip landscape," Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, wrote in 1989. It was PEANUTS that truly brought the American comic strip into the lives of contemporary readers using innovations such as Lucy's Psychiatric Booth, Linus' Security Blanket(a phrase originally coined by Mr. Schulz), Snoopy's fantasies, and Charlie Brown's baseball team. There will never be another cartoonist quite like Charles M. Schulz.

In accordance with the wishes of Mr. Schulz, United Feature Syndicate will not ask another artist or writer to take over the creation of the PEANUTS comic strip. Rather, United Feature Syndicate, which holds the copyright to PEANUTS, recently began offering its clients classic PEANUTS comic strips, starting with those that Mr. Schulz created in 1974. These strips began on January 4, 2000; today's Sunday comic strip is the last original created by Mr. Schulz.

Nineteen seventy four was chosen because it incorporates the characters of the strips's early days(Charlie Brown, Lucy, Schroeder and Snoopy) with characters who were introduced in more recent years such as Peppermint Patty and Woodstock.

During the 50 years that Charles M. Schulz drew and wrote PEANUTS, his style gradually evolved and matured. The strips that he drew in 1974 united the genius of his comic timing and dialogue with the artwork of a master at the peak of his craft. These classic strips will be new, of course, to at least two generations of readers.

During his lifetime, Mr. Schulz had approved a select group of artists who were allowed, under close supervision, to draw limited art for PEANUTS licensed items. These artists will continue their work under the direction of United Media and Mr. Schulz's family.

"We will be working closely, in the days and year ahead, with Mr. Schulz's family to ensure the continued high quality of all elements of the PEANUTS property," said Douglas Stern, president and chief executive officer of United Media. "We offer our deepest condolences to Jean Schulz, to Mr. Schulz's children, Meredith, Monte, Craig, Amy, and Jill and their families. Nothing was more important to Sparky than family -- it was clear in his work and clear in his life . As millions mourn the man who made us laugh, so do we mourn the loss of a teacher, colleague, and friend."

Mr. Schulz's family kindly request that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the National D-Day Memorial Foundation. And, sent to the following address:

In Memory of Charles M. Schulz
The National D-Day Memorial Foundation
P.O.Box 77
Bedford, VA 24523

'Peanuts' fans mourn death of creator Charles Schulz
Cartoonist dies on eve of his farewell comic strip
February 13, 2000
Web posted at: 2:40 p.m. EST (1940 GMT)

From CNN staff and wire reports

SANTA ROSA, California (CNN) -- "Peanuts" fans and fellow cartoonists are mourning the death of Charles Schulz, the beloved artist who gave us Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy and made phrases like "good grief" and "security blanket" famous.

Schulz created characters with all-too-human foibles -- ostensibly children -- with whom people all over the world could identify. The most widely syndicated comic strip artist in history died Saturday evening in his sleep at his home in Santa Rosa, California. He was 77.

Schulz was diagnosed with colon cancer last fall and suffered a series of small strokes during emergency abdominal surgery in November.

His son, Craig, said his father seemed fine earlier Saturday and had gone to his daughter Jill Transki's home in Santa Rosa. Only his wife, Jeannie, was with him when he died.

After his condition worsened last fall, Schulz announced his retirement. He died just hours before Sunday papers carrying his final strip were delivered.

Last cartoon becomes epitaph for Schulz

The last daily Peanuts strip was published on January 3. But Sunday's papers carried the final cartoon, a strip showing Snoopy at his typewriter, along with other Peanuts regulars. It includes a farewell letter signed by Schulz.

"Dear Friends," the letter opens. "I have been fortunate to draw Charlie Brown and his friends for almost 50 years. It has been the fulfillment of my childhood ambition."

"It's amazing that he dies just before his last strip is published," fellow cartoonist Lynn Johnston, creator of "For Better or Worse," said. Such an ending was "as if he had written it that way."

Schulz ends his farewell letter by saying, "Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them ..."

Other cartoonists think it's Schulz who is unforgettable.

"In a couple of centuries, when people talk about American artists, he'll be one of the very few remembered," said longtime friend Sergio Aragones, an illustrator for Mad magazine. "And when they talk about comic strips, probably his will be the only one ever mentioned."

Schulz's work ethic and endearingly honest way with characters made him the standard by which many cartoonists measured themselves.

"He worked every day. He never ran out of ideas," Aragones said. "He was a cartoonist, a true cartoonist."

Mort Walker, who draws "Beetle Bailey," said that Schulz influenced many of today's cartoonists.

"He brought a whole new attitude toward the comics," Walker said. "He brought pathos and the attitudes you know that all real children have of rejection and failure ... and he somehow made them funny."

'Peanuts' part of popular culture

"Peanuts" debuted on October 2, 1950. The travails of Charlie Brown, the "little round-headed kid," and his pals eventually ran in more than 2,600 newspapers, reaching millions of readers in 75 countries.

One of the strip's most endearing qualities was its constancy.

After nearly 50 years, the long-suffering Charlie Brown still faced misfortune with a mild, "Good grief!" Tart-tongued Lucy still handed out bad psychiatric advice at a nickel a pop, a joke that started as a parody of a lemonade stand. And Snoopy, Charlie Brown's wise-but-weird beagle, still took the occasional flight of fancy back to the skies of World War I and his rivalry with the Red Baron.

The strip was an intensely personal effort for Schulz. He had had a clause in his contract dictating the strip had to end with his death.

"No, the strip will never be turned over to someone else," he said.

While battling cancer, Schulz opted to retire, saying he wanted to focus on his health and family without the worry of a daily deadline.

"Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems?" he once said. "They do it because life wouldn't have any meaning for them if they didn't. That's why I draw cartoons. It's my life."

Cartoon based on real life

Schulz was born on November 26, 1922, in St. Paul, Minnesota. He studied art after seeing an ad, "Do you like to draw?"

Many of his cartoon characters were drawn from Schulz's personal life. When he was a boy, he had a dog named Spike that Schulz called "the smartest and most uncontrollable dog that I have ever seen." Spike became the inspiration for Snoopy.

Schulz's childhood dog Spike was the inspiration for Snoopy

Schulz once told an interviewer that other members of the Peanuts gang also had real life counterparts.

"Mostly friends of mine, like my friend Charlie Brown," Schulz said. "He and I worked together at the art instruction correspondence school."

The little red-haired girl, Charlie Brown's unrequited love, was based on a girlfriend who rejected Schulz's proposal of marriage in 1950, according to his biographer, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, who wrote the 1989 book, "Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz."

"If you're going to draw a comic strip every day, you're going to have to draw on every experience in your life," Schulz once said.

He was drafted into the Army in 1943 and sent to the European theater, although he saw little combat.

After the war, he did lettering for a church comic book, taught art and sold cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post magazine. His first feature, "Li'l Folks," was developed for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1947. In 1950, it was sold to a syndicate and the name changed to Peanuts, a name Schulz said he didn't much like.

Snoopy and Red Baron brought international fame

The popularity of the strip soared in October 1965 when Snoopy turned his doghouse into a Sopwith Camel for the first of many engagements with the Baron. The following year, a group called the Royal Guardsmen had a No. 2 single, "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron."

Although he remained largely a private person, the strip brought Schulz international fame. He won the Reuben Award, comic art's highest honor, in 1955 and 1964. In 1978, he was named International Cartoonist of the Year, an award voted by 700 comic artists around the world.

The 1965 CBS-TV special "A Charlie Brown Christmas" won an Emmy and rerun immortality, and many other specials followed.

There was a hit musical, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," with Gary Burghoff, later Radar O'Reilly on "M-A-S-H," playing Charlie. The book "The Gospel According to Peanuts" explored the philosophical and religious implications of the strip.

Schulz was to have been honored with a lifetime achievement award on May 27 at the National Cartoonists Society convention in New York.

Characters appeared on countless products

The Peanuts characters have appeared on clothes, sheets, stationery and countless other products. Schulz several times was listed as one of Forbes magazine's best-paid entertainers, most recently in 1996, when his 1995-96 income was estimated at $33 million, ranking him 30th on the magazine's list.

In 1990, when the Peanuts gang turned 40, the government of France named Schulz a Commander of Arts and Letters, one of that country's highest awards for excellence in the arts.

Despite the success, Schulz struggled with depression and anxiety.

"He worries a lot, he has anxieties," said Gaye LeBaron with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat before Schulz's death. "It's been his whole life."

But the struggle only improved Schulz's work, as he poured his feelings of rejection and uncertainty into the strip and turned Charlie Brown into Everyman.

"He was Charlie Brown," said Walker.

Correspondents Anne McDermott, Charles Knapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

'Peanuts' Creator Charles Schulz Dies
Charles M. Schulz, 1922-2000
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 13, 2000; 11:00 AM

Charles M. Schulz, whose "Peanuts" comic strip ran for 49 years and featured an immensely popular repertory of blithely neurotic children and a beguiling beagle, died yesterday at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., a day before his final strip appeared in today's newspapers nationwide.

He was 77 and had been diagnosed with colon cancer in November. In his last strip, Mr. Schulz wrote: "I have been fortunate to draw Charlie Brown and his friends for almost 50 years. It has been the fulfillment of my childhood ambition. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to maintain the schedule demanded by a daily comic strip. My family does not wish Peanuts to be continued by anyone else, therefore I am announcing my retirement."

He added he was grateful for his editors' loyalty and the "love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip." The last daily strip ran Jan. 3.

During its run, Mr. Schulz developed a plethora of pop-culture icons seen by hundreds of millions of readers worldwide. His characters included: the dog Snoopy, who fancies himself a World War I flying ace; the hapless Charlie Brown, who can spend a week of strips with his kite entangled in a "kite-eating" tree; young Linus and his ever-present security blanket; Lucy, who tartly dispenses advice at a nickel apiece from a makeshift psychiatrist "booth" that resembles a lemonade stand; and the single-minded, classical-piano prodigy Schroeder.

Mr. Schulz maintained he only wanted to amuse, and to a great extent he kept that simple promise by chronicling the pure joys and traumas of childhood in a tone that was consistently droll, good-natured and without pretense.

But the comic strip, which began in 1950, also successfully captured more disquieting themes, and it is not coincidental that "Peanuts" received its widest attention in the 1960s. There were magazine covers on Time in 1965 and Life in 1967, award-winning television specials and even a trip to the moon; "Snoopy" reached space in 1969 when NASA named its Apollo 10 mission lunar module after the pooch.

Mr. Schulz's friends and associates said the cartoonist captured in "Peanuts" the anxiety of an age underscored by evolving social and political unrest. His innocent children were fraught with adult-proportioned disappointments, yet their perpetual optimism, and such values as faith, friendship and wonder, sustained the strip with a timeless gentle humor and irreverence.

Linus, for example, hopes his limitless sincerity will cause "The Great Pumpkin" to arrive on Halloween; it never comes, but every October, he sits and waits in the pumpkin patch while other children go trick-or-treating.

In the 1960s, there were books explaining the cartoon as a religious parable ("The Gospel According to 'Peanuts' " and "Parables of Peanuts") and a long-running off-Broadway musical ("You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" in 1967 with music by Clark Gesner).

The cartoon's appeal stretched far beyond the 1960s. Mr. Schulz's creations sprung up in locations as varied as The Washington Post funny pages and on the walls of The Louvre museum in Paris for an exhibit in 1990.

Mr. Schulz won the Reuben Award, the cartoon world's highest kudos, from the National Cartoonists Society in 1955 and 1964. His peers at the International Pavilion of Humor in Montreal dubbed him International Cartoonist of the Year in 1978.

Distributed by Scripps Howard-owned United Feature Syndicate, "Peanuts" is the most widely syndicated strip in history, appearing in more than 2,600 newspapers worldwide and 25 languages to an estimated audience of 355 million readers. An Italian priest once translated "Peanuts" into Latin, featuring "Snoopius."

Not only did the cartoon sell hundreds of millions of copies in countless softback books, but several of his television specials won Emmy awards, including "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" (1973), "You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown" (1975) and "Life is a Circus, Charlie Brown" (1980). "What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?," in which "Peanuts" characters discuss D-Day, won a Peabody Award in 1983. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" won the Emmy and Peabody in 1965.

For the broadcast specials, Mr. Schulz paired with animator and director Bill Melendez and executive producer Lee Mendelson. Mendelson wrote in the 1970 book "Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz" that "Charlie Brown has become the symbol of mid-century America not only because of his great humor but also because Charlie Brown is ... a basic reflection of his time. People everywhere have a new awareness of feelings, a need to communicate, and a need to struggle against what often appear to be insurmountable problems."

Or as Time magazine put it: " 'Peanuts' is the leader of a refreshing new breed that takes an unprecedented interest in the basics of life. Love, hate, togetherness, solitude, the alienation in an age of anxiety" put in a format in which "readers who would not sit still for a sermon readily devour the sermon-like cartoons."

Sermon is not an inappropriate word, said Robert L. Short, an ordained Presbyterian clergyman who wrote the bestselling "The Gospel According to Peanuts" and two other later titles that used "Peanuts" to explain religious doctrine.

Short said in an interview that Mr. Schulz was pleased with the attention to religious nuance considering the cartoonist was a deeply religious man – he belonged to the Church of God and called himself a secular humanist – but "did not want to offend" readers with grandiose expressions of his faith.

One cartoon featured Charlie Brown pitching a baseball and saying, "Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the pestilence that walketh in darkness." Then a ball whizzes by, knocking him down. The final frame features Charlie Brown completing the words taken from Psalm 91: "But those line drives will kill you!"

" ' Peanuts, ' " Short added, is "really is a good expression or mirror of Schulz himself. Kind, gentle and decent."

Mr. Schulz said he developed much of his material by listening to his own children. But the content of "Peanuts" also was influenced by his upbringing and early manhood, which was colored by depression, the death of his mother to cancer when he was 20 and losing his first love to another fellow just as his strip began syndication. (His former girlfriend would become Charlie Brown's "little red-haired girl," a figure his biographer, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, likened to "Beethoven's Immortal Beloved and Shakespeare's Dark Lady of the Sonnets.")

In her 1989 volume, "Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz," Johnson wrote of her subject, "Rejection is his specialty; losing is his area of expertise. He has spent a lifetime perfecting failure."

Reflecting on childhood, Mr. Schulz once said: "Being a kid is not easy. It's a fearful world out there, and the playground is a dangerous place. Going to school every day is not easy. If it isn't the teacher, it's the bully. Most adults forget about these struggles and ignore the problems little kids have. As an adult, you learn how to get around these problems and how to survive. But little kids are struggling with that survival."

Yet Mr. Schulz was consistently described in interviews as a charming and gracious man. His biographer noted that his "strongest oath [in times of exasperation] is 'Good grief!' " – a constant lament among his characters, frequently by fall guy Charlie Brown.

One classic Charlie Brown routine has Lucy goading Charlie Brown into kicking a football. Every year, she removes the ball as Charlie Brown is about to kick it, and he falls on his back.

In the film "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Lucy promises not to remove the ball, showing as evidence a "signed document." Charlie Brown says, "I guess if you have a signed document in your possession, you can't go wrong."

When Lucy pulls the ball away, Charlie Brown falls. Lucy says, "Peculiar thing about this document. It was never notarized."

Schulz said in a 1967 interview with Psychology Today magazine that besides being an amusing situation, it was heightened by having the girl one-up the boy. He added: "Charlie Brown will always keep hoping."

"Most of the mileage for humor comes from man's inability to change for the better, making the same mistakes over and over," author Short added. "These are things about all of us that we know from day to day living is true about us, that it's difficult to change for the better."

Mort Walker, whose "Beetle Bailey" strip also started syndication in 1950, said "Peanuts" was quite novel for the era when it first appeared. "Up to that time, in all the strips about kids, the kids were rotten little kids," Walker said in an interview. "They were mischievous and always in trouble with their parents.

"And there was this tragic atmosphere about [Mr. Schulz's] characters," Walker added. "Charlie Brown was a failure. He couldn't win a baseball game, couldn't fly a kite, couldn't get the little red-haired girl. Which I think reflected Charlie's own childhood."

Charles Monroe Schulz was born Nov. 26, 1922, in Minneapolis and grew up in St. Paul, Minn. When Mr. Schulz was 2 days old, his uncle bestowed on him what would become his lifelong nickname, "Sparky," referring to the horse Sparkplug in the "Barney Google" cartoon.

A less-than-average student of parents who did not complete elementary school, Mr. Schulz increasingly felt uneasy in a classroom setting, and he withdrew from his peers.

Years later, his character Peppermint Patty would instruct her pal Marcie that being quiet in school is the way to good grades. "Subdued, Marcie, that's the secret," she says. Only, the teacher gives Marcie a D-minus with the quip, "Student fails to speak up in class."

Inheriting a love of cartoons from his father, Mr. Schulz practiced drawing "Popeye" on school notebooks. But he noted in later interviews that drawings he submitted to his high school yearbook were rejected.

As a high school senior, Mr. Schulz enrolled in Art Instruction Inc., a correspondence art school in Minneapolis. After joining the Army and leading a machine gun squad in Europe toward the end of World War II, he worked lettering comics for Timeless Topix, a Catholic cartoon magazine, and taught at Art Instruction.

In the late 1940s, he contributed drawings to the Saturday Evening Post and started a once-weekly cartoon called "Li'l Folks" for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Although it was in single-panel format, "Li'l Folks" was a precursor to "Peanuts" in its content: It presented children who make sophisticated observations, and there was a character called Charlie Brown, named after one of Mr. Schulz's friends from art school.

Mr. Schulz withdrew his cartoon after the Pioneer Press would not relocate his cartoon from the women's page to a more-visible spot.

He successfully persuaded officials at United Feature Syndicate in New York to accept his work. They did, but renamed it "Peanuts" over Mr. Schulz's objection that the new name sounded dismissive. The syndicate insisted, pointing out that "Li'l Folks" was too similar to United Feature's already-popular "Li'l Abner" comic strip.

"Peanuts" began Oct. 2, 1950, and was featured in seven North American newspapers. The first year was disappointing for "Peanuts" – it ranked last in the New York World Telegram's reader survey of cartoons. But it received wider exposure in 1952 as a book collection thanks to a key "Peanuts" fan, John Selby, the editor-in-chief of Rinehart and Co. publishers.

The strip progressed in popularity rapidly after the first book. Following his first Reuben Award, in 1955, came a consistent stream of marketing; the first toy was a plastic Snoopy doll in 1958. "He's far outdistanced everybody in terms of licensing and popularity and circulation," cartoonist Walker said. "He's probably the most successful cartoonist ever."

Forbes magazine estimated his income in 1995-96 at $33 million, making him one of the top money-making entertainers.

In the earlier years, the strip appeared to be in constant change, with Mr. Schulz adding and subtracting characters. Good Ol' Charlotte Brown, a louder version of her male namesake, came and went in 1954. Sally Brown, Charlie's sister, arrived in 1959 and stayed for good.

Woodstock, a tiny yellow bird who speaks an undecipherable language and is Snoopy's pal, showed up in 1970 and was named for the landmark counterculture music festival. A precursor of Woodstock appeared in 1967, with Snoopy saying to the "bird hippie": "I don't see why he gets so upset. No one understands my generation either."

Among the strip's many permutations, Mr. Schulz's most popular creation was Snoopy, especially when he first appeared as the World War I Flying Ace on April 16, 1966. "It was just because Snoopy looks so funny in goggles," Mr. Schulz explained. "It started as one week's takeoff on World War I movies. You know the great line: 'Captain, you can't send men up in crates like this to die.' Then I discovered I had something good going, and I let Snoopy's imagination go wild. Snoopy is funny. He leads his little life out of his doghouse."

The strip is renown for its accuracy. For example, Mr. Schulz researched Beethoven's music and reproduced parts of the composer's scores when drawing Schroeder, the pianist who believes Beethoven is the president of the United States. "I picked Beethoven because he is sort of pompous and grandiose," Shulz once told Time magazine. "I like Brahms better."

A tall, trim, silver-haired man who was as athletically inclined as Charlie Brown was not, Mr. Schulz was regarded as affable and generous in his community. He played baseball, tennis, golf and hockey, and in 1969 he built Redwood Empire Ice Arena for residents of Santa Rosa.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Schulz also contributed $1 million to the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Fla., said Walker, who helped start the museum there.

Walker said he spoke with Mr. Schulz Dec. 14, the day Mr. Schulz announced he would stop drawing new strips of "Peanuts."

He was crying, Walker said. "He sounded terrible. Just the end of a dream. He always had this dream of being a cartoonist and he was successful and happy, and all of a sudden it's gone."

Mr. Schulz doted on simple pleasures; one of his most abiding aphorisms was "Happiness is a warm puppy," a title he also gave a 1960s cartoon collection. Yet his comic strip, like his life, seemed limned with a deep sadness he never could escape.

Such deep-rooted feelings produced one of his more vivid examples of self-exploration in an essay he wrote for the introduction to a "Peanuts" 35th-anniversary essay collection.

"The most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only a few," Mr. Schulz wrote. "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."

His marriage to Joyce Halverson ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife, Jeannie Forsyth Schulz, of Santa Rosa; and five children from the first marriage.

Sunday February 13, 2000 2:46 PM ET
Schulz Dies on Eve of Last 'Peanuts' Strip
By Michael Kahn

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - "Peanuts'' creator Charles M. Schulz has died of a heart attack, ending an era spanning nearly half-a-century in which the daily trials of an anxious round-faced kid and his dog Snoopy became probably the world's most popular comic strip.

Associates said Schulz, 77, died of a heart attack at his Santa Rosa home on Saturday night after a three-month battle with colon cancer that had forced him to give up drawing the strip.

Tributes poured in from around the world for the St. Paul, Minnesota-born barber's son who's characters -- including Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus -- became household names for an estimated 350 million readers in 75 countries.

"Peanuts becomes part of the family for anyone that reads the comic strip and I still have a lot of sad feelings inside right now,'' said Karen White, who was the voice of Lucy on the first "Peanuts'' television special.

He died on the eve of publication in Sunday papers of his final strip, showing Snoopy seated on top of his doghouse in his role as a writer who invariably starts his stories "It was a dark and stormy night...''

Other scenes in the panel recall typical situations from the cartoon -- Snoopy as a famous World War One fighter pilot, Snoopy making a grab for Linus's security blanket, Lucy snatching a football away as Charlie Brown tries to kick it, Lucy staffing her psychiatry stall, and Woodstock operating a Zamboni on a frozen bird bath.

In a farewell message printed in the strip, Schulz said: ``I have been grateful over the years for the loyalty of our editors and the wonderful support and love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip .... Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them...''

Ron Kirk, news director at Santa Rosa radio station KRSO who interviewed Schulz last week, said the cartoonist told him that surgery and a series of small strokes had left him very weak and unable to draw.

Schulz had lost partial sight in one eye, making it certain he would never draw again.

"He was depressed on the one hand because obviously this was definitely the end,'' Kirk said. "But at the same time he was proud that he did something that he loved for 50 years.''

Schulz moved to Santa Rosa from his native Minnesota in 1958 and became one of the Northern California town's leading philanthropists.

In 1998 he and his wife Jean pledged $5 million for a new high-tech information center at Sonoma State University. He built an ice rink for the community so local children would have a place to skate.

"I never dreamed that this would happen to me,'' Schulz, said of his illness and forced retirement in a recent interview with NBC's Today Show.

"I always had the feeling that I probably would stay with the strip until I was in the early 80s. All of a sudden it's gone, it's been taken away from me.''

"Peanuts,'' which for close to five decades has served as a mirror for the baby boom generation, appeared in 2,600 newspapers in 21 languages. Its daily readership was believed to be the most of any comic strip in the history of cartoons.

Schulz, who's primitive drawing style was criticized in the early years of his strip, was estimated to have made about $55 million. He had his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a standing invitation to meet Pope John Paul.

A shy, gentle, introverted man, Schulz always refused to budge on one point: He and he alone would draw the strip.

"What we are hearing from lots of papers is that they don't want it to stop,'' Mary Anne Grimes, a spokeswoman for United Media Syndicate, the cartoon's distributors, said when he announced his retirement. "But he wants to concentrate on getting better. ... We all must respect that.''

"Peanuts,'' a sly, simple series of stories about a group of childhood friends and rivals, had become a handbook for Americans facing the tiny triumphs and plentiful pitfalls of modern life.

Unpredictable, hopeful, neurotic and nervous, the ''Peanuts'' gang took their behavioral cues from Charlie Brown, whose brave, squiggle smile always was just a shade short of confident.

"I suppose I've always felt that way: Apprehensive, anxious, that sort of thing,'' Schulz told one interviewer in 1989. "I have compared it sometimes to the feeling that you have when you get up on the morning of a funeral.''

He once wrote: "I don't know why there is so much unrequited love in my strip. I seem to be fascinated by unrequited love, if not obsessed by it ... There's something funny about unrequited love.''

Sunday February 13, 2000 2:43 AM ET
'Peanuts' Creator Schulz Dies at 77

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Charles M. Schulz, the cartoonist who delighted the world with the adventures and adversities of Charlie Brown, his friends and a dog named Snoopy, died on Saturday. He was 77.

Schulz, who was diagnosed with colon cancer and suffered a series of small strokes during emergency abdominal surgery in November 1999 and announced his retirement a few weeks afterward, died in his sleep at about 9:45 p.m., his son Craig Schulz said.

His wildly popular comic strip, "Peanuts,'' made its debut on Oct. 2, 1950. The travails of the "little round-headed kid'' and his pals eventually ran in more than 2,400 newspapers, reaching millions of readers in 68 countries.

His death came on the eve of the publication of the last strip he drew, showing Snoopy at his typewriter and other Peanuts regulars along with a "Dear Friends'' letter thanking his readers for their support.

Over the years, the Peanuts gang became a part of American popular culture, delivering gentle humor spiked with a child's-eye view of human foibles.

One of the strip's most endearing qualities was its constancy.

The long-suffering Charlie Brown still faced misfortune with a mild, ``Good grief!'' Tart-tongued Lucy still handed out advice at a nickel a pop, a joke that started as a parody of a lemonade stand. And Snoopy, Charlie Brown's wise-but-weird beagle, still took the occasional flight of fancy back to the skies of World War I and his rivalry with the Red Baron.

The strip was an intensely personal effort for Schulz. He had had a clause in his contract dictating the strip had to end with his death. While battling cancer, he opted to retire it right then, saying he wanted to focus on his health and family without the worry of a daily deadline.

"Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems?'' he once said. "They do it because life wouldn't have any meaning for them if they didn't. That's why I draw cartoons. It's my life.''

In his final daily strip, published Jan. 3, 2000, a thoughtful Snoopy sat atop his doghouse with his typewriter. In a text message signed by Schulz, he thanked fans for their "wonderful support and love.''

"charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them,'' the message read.

The 1965 CBS-TV special ``A Charlie Brown Christmas'' won an Emmy and rerun immortality, and many other specials followed.

There was a hit musical, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown,'' with Gary Burghoff, later Radar O'Reilly on "M-A-S-H,'' playing Charlie. The book "The Gospel According to Peanuts'' explored the philosophical and religious implications of the strip.

When Schulz announced his retirement, Mort Walker, the creator of comic strips ``Beetle Bailey'' and ``Hi and Lois,'' said he and Schulz wept when they spoke on the phone.

"He did something entirely different from what all the rest of us did. I write and draw funny pictures and slapstick; it's a joke a day,'' Walker said at the time. "He delved into the psyche of children and the fears and the rejections that we all felt as children.''

The characters also appeared on sheets, stationery and countless other products. Schulz several times was listed as one of Forbes magazine's best-paid entertainers, most recently in 1996, when his 1995-96 income was estimated at $33 million, ranking him No. 30 on the magazine's list.

In 1990, when the Peanuts gang turned 40, the government of France named Schulz Commander of Arts and Letters, one of that country's highest awards for excellence in the arts.

Despite the success, Schulz struggled with depression and anxiety, according to his biographer, Rheta Grimsley Johnson. But the struggle only improved his work, she found, as he poured those feelings of rejection and uncertainty into the strip and turned Charlie Brown into Everyman.

"Rejection is his specialty, losing his area of expertise. He has spent a lifetime perfecting failure,'' Johnson wrote in her 1989 book, ``Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz.''

Schulz was born in St. Paul, Minn., on Nov. 26, 1922, and studied art after he saw a ``Do you like to draw?'' ad.

He was drafted into the Army in 1943 and sent to the European theater, although he saw little combat.

After the war, he did lettering for a church comic book, taught art and sold cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post. His first feature, "Li'l Folks,'' was developed for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1947. In 1950, it was sold to a syndicate and the named changed to Peanuts, even though, he recalled later, he didn't much like the name.

Charlie Brown, named after a friend at art school, was to some extent the cartoonist's alter ego, and Snoopy was inspired by a dog he had as a child that Schulz recalled as ``the smartest and most uncontrollable dog that I have ever seen.'' The little red-haired girl, Charlie Brown's unrequited love, was based on a girlfriend who rejected Schulz's proposal of marriage in 1950, according to Johnson.

Schulz went on to marry Joyce Halverson in 1951. They divorced in 1972 and he married Jeannie Forsyth two years later.

In his later years, he spent much of his time at his Redwood Empire Ice Arena in Santa Rosa, about 60 miles north of San Francisco, where he frequently played hockey or sipped coffee at the rink's Warm Puppy snack bar.

When "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'' was revived on Broadway in 1999, it had a multiethnic cast that at first concerned Schulz. He said he wasn't racist but, "I thought, 'This is mine. I did this thing. Nobody helped me. I did the whole thing and now you're going to come in and show me how wonderfully open-minded and liberal you are.''

He said he finally was persuaded that unorthodox casting was "a very New York thing to do.''

"So I said, 'Well, if that's what they're going to do, all right,''' he said. ``If ... people are willing to accept it, willing to accept that Lucy's leaning on the piano playing up to a black Schroeder. All right, let's see how it goes.''

Sunday February 13, 2000 5:49 AM ET
'Peanuts' Creator Schulz Dies at 77
By MARY ANN LICKTEIG Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - "Peanuts'' creator Charles M. Schulz died on Saturday, turning his farewell note in Sunday papers into an epitaph for both a comic strip and its creator.

Schulz was 77, and died in his sleep at about 9:45 p.m. at his home in Santa Rosa, said his son, Craig Schulz.

He was diagnosed with colon cancer and suffered a series of small strokes during emergency abdominal surgery in November 1999, and announced his retirement a few weeks afterward.

Schulz had seemed fine earlier in the day and had gone to his daughter Jill Transki's home in Santa Rosa. Only his wife, Jeannie, was with him when he died, Craig Schulz said.

His wildly popular "Peanuts'' made its debut on Oct. 2, 1950. The travails of the "little round-headed kid'' and his pals eventually ran in more than 2,600 newspapers, reaching millions of readers in 75 countries.

His last strip, appearing in Feb. 13 Sunday editions, showed Snoopy at his typewriter and other Peanuts regulars along with a "Dear Friends'' letter thanking his readers for their support.

"I have been grateful over the years for the loyalty of our editors and the wonderful support and love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip,'' Schulz wrote. "Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them ...''

It ended with his signature.

Over the years, the Peanuts gang became a part of American popular culture, delivering gentle humor spiked with a child's-eye view of human foibles.

Sergio Aragones, a Mad magazine cartoonist and friend for more than 30 years, called Schulz ``a true cartoonist.''

"In a couple of centuries when people talk about American artists, he'll be the one of the very few remembered,'' Aragones said. "And when they talk about comic strips, probably his will be the only one ever mentioned.''

One of the most endearing qualities of "Peanuts'' was its constancy.

Schulz was born in St. Paul, Minn., on Nov. 26, 1922, and studied art after he saw a "Do you like to draw?'' ad.

He was drafted into the Army in 1943 and sent to the European theater, although he saw little combat.

He was to have been honored with a lifetime achievement award on May 27 at the National Cartoonists Society convention in New York.

"Peanuts,'' meanwhile, had remained an intensely personal effort. He had had a clause in his contract dictating the strip had to end with his death. While battling cancer, he opted to retire it right then, saying he wanted to focus on his health and family without the worry of a daily deadline.

"Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems?'' he once said. "They do it because life wouldn't have any meaning for them if they didn't. That's why I draw cartoons. It's my life.''

Sunday February 13, 2000 5:09 AM ET
"Peanuts" Creator Charles M. Schulz Dead at 77
By Arthur Spiegelman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Charles M. Schulz, the creator of ''Peanuts,'' a cartoon world of tiny angst-ridden stick figures and a bold beagle that captured the whole world's fancy, died at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Saturday night after a three-month battle with colon cancer that had forced him to give up drawing the strip.

His son Craig, contacted by Reuters in Santa Rosa, said the 77-year-old Schulz's death was sudden and unexpected and that he had been fine for most of the week. His death came on the eve of publication of his farewell Sunday comic strip -- one big panel showing the beagle Snoopy seated on top of his doghouse, typing while other characters -- including Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy -- strike characteristic poses.

Lucy, for example, is seated at her psychiatric advise both offering help for a nickel, while Charlie Brown takes a tumble going for a football and Linus clings to his security blanket as Snoopy tries to run off with it.

In a farewell message to his fans and supporters, Schulz said. ``I have been grateful over the years for the loyalty of our editors and the wonderful support and love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip .... Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them...''

Although he stopped writing and drawing his daily strip early last month, Schulz's friend Ed Anderson said the cartoonist felt bad about the closing of the Sunday panel because it truly signaled the end of his career.

"I never dreamed that this would happen to me,'' Schulz, said of his illness and forced retirement in a recent interview with NBC's Today Show. ``I always had the feeling that I probably would stay with the strip until I was in the early 80s. All of a sudden it's gone, it's been taken away from me.''

"Peanuts,'' which for close to five decades has served as a mirror for the baby boom generation, appeared in 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and 21 languages. It was estimated to have a daily readership of 350 million people -- the most of any comic strip in the history of cartoons and newspaper "funny pages.''

Schulz, who had to endure criticism of his primitive drawing style in the early years of his strip, was estimated to have amassed a fortune of about $55 million. He also had his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a standing invitation to meet Pope John Paul.

The strip introduced dozens of phrases and images that would turn up in dictionaries -- like Linus' security blanket -- or as routine expressions like: "Good Grief,'' ''Aaaaaaaaaaargghh!'' and "You blockhead.''

Only Schulz Would Draw Peanuts

A shy, gentle, introverted man, Schulz always has had one point upon which he would not budge: only he would draw Peanuts.

"What we are hearing from lots of papers is that they don't want it to stop,'' Mary Anne Grimes, a spokeswoman for United Media Syndicate, the cartoon's distributors, said when he announced his retirement, adding: "But he wants to concentrate on getting better. ... We all must respect that.''

"Peanuts,'' a sly, simple series of stories about a group of childhood friends and rivals, had become a handbook for Americans facing the tiny triumphs and plentiful pitfalls of modern life.

Unpredictable, hopeful, neurotic and nervous, the ''Peanuts'' gang took their behavioral cues from Charlie Brown, whose brave, squiggle smile always was just a shade short of confident.

"I suppose I've always felt that way: apprehensive, anxious, that sort of thing,'' Schulz told one interviewer in 1989. "I have compared it sometimes to the feeling that you have when you get up on the morning of a funeral.''

He also once wrote: "I don't know why there is so much unrequited love in my strip. I seem to be fascinated by unrequited love, if not obsessed by it. ... There's something funny about unrequited love.''

A Worldwide Sensation

Charlie Brown's saga as a great American loser has become, perhaps fittingly, a great American success. There have been more than 50 animated Peanuts specials, and fans have snapped up more than 300 million copies of some 1,400 Peanuts books.

It's an empire that generates more than $1 billion per year in global retail sales. In Japan alone, Peanuts sales totaled $550 million in 1997, while greeting card publisher Hallmark has sold more than 1.5 billion Peanuts cards since 1960.

Unlike some recent merchandising phenomena, Peanuts never got lost under the mountain of money it made. Instead, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder and Pig Pen all have struggled on with their lives, stumped by problems, stunned by betrayals or by the ordeal of slogging through another school day.

"The poetry of these children is born from the fact that we find in them all the sufferings of adults,'' novelist Umberto Eco wrote of Peanuts, calling Charlie Brown and his pals ''monstrous infantile reductions of all the neuroses of a modern citizen.''

Saturday February 12, 2000 2:42 PM ET
Final 'Peanuts' Comic Says Goodbye

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) - Good Grief! It's the final goodbye for Charlie Brown and his pals.

Charles Schulz ended his 49-year-old "Peanuts'' comic strip with a poignant letter published in Sunday newspapers across the country. The signed letter also ran when he ended his daily comic strip on Jan. 3.

The 77-year-old cartoonist - beloved for his timeless characters Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and Lucy - is retiring to turn his full attention to fighting cancer.

In several Sunday newspapers, the strip opens with Charlie Brown on the phone saying, "No, I think he's writing.'' In the next panel, Snoopy is shown on his dog house, pecking on a typewriter. "Dear Friends...,'' it reads.

The final panel, decorated with images from the strip, is Schulz's farewell.

"Dear Friends, I have been fortunate to draw Charlie Brown and his friends for almost 50 years. It has been the fulfillment of my childhood ambition.

"Unfortunately, I am no longer able to maintain the schedule demanded by a daily comic strip. My family does not wish Peanuts to be continued by anyone else, therefore I am announcing my retirement.

"I have been grateful over the years for the loyalty of our editors and the wonderful support and love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip.

"Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them ...''

The letter ends with Schulz's signature.

Classic "Peanuts'' images decorate the letter: Lucy pulling away a football as Charlie Brown tries to kick it, Snoopy trying to steal Linus' blanket, and Lucy getting hit on the head by a baseball with a loud "Bonk!''

Schulz's contract stipulates that no one else will ever draw the strip, which debuted Oct. 2, 1950, and reached an estimated 355 million readers daily in 75 countries.

United Feature Syndicate will continue to publish "Peanuts'' reprints.

Sunday February 13, 2000 3:06 PM ET
Quotes From 'Charlie Brown' Book
By The Associated Press

Quotations from Charles Schulz's 1980 book ``Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me.''

"Actually, I don't really know if I was aware (as a child) that there were such things as comic strip artists. I liked the funny papers and I was fascinated by them and read every one, but I suppose I didn't realize that you could make a living drawing until I was in my early teens.''

On early efforts at professional cartooning: ``I must confess that, at the time, I had only a meager interest in drawing little kids. I drew them because they were what sold.''

On the name `'Peanuts,'' picked when he started at United Feature Syndicate: ``I disliked the name then, as I do now, but in spite of my objection, they liked it; thus, the strip was named `Peanuts.' ... Who was I, an unknown kid from St. Paul, to argue with them? I gave in.''

"I have never regarded children as my main audience. The real fans are adults, from high school age on up, for they have memories of what it was like to be a child, and can appreciate `Peanuts' much more deeply than can the youngsters.''

"You can't create humor out of happiness. I'm astonished at the number of people who write to me saying, `Why can't you create happy stories for us? Why does Charlie Brown always have to lose? Why can't you let him kick the football?' Well, there is nothing funny about the person who gets to kick the football.'''

"I like to think of Charlie Brown as being a bit of Everyman. ... He tries to assume a perfect social image, but everything seems to go wrong. There is a lot of myself in his character, too.''

On the inspiration for Snoopy, a childhood pet named Spike: ``He was the smartest and most uncontrollable dog that I have ever seen. ... One day I counted up and realized that Spike had a vocabulary of at least 50 words. You could say to him, `Spike, do you want a potato? Why don't you go downstairs and get a potato?' and he would immediately go down to the basement and stick his head in the potato sack and bring up a potato.''

"Lucy and Linus are the only characters who have tiny half circles around their eyes. Charlie Brown and Snoopy have them when they are confused or surprised, but Lucy and Linus always look as if their eyes were slightly out of focus.''

"Of all the things in the strip, I think that I am most proud of Linus' security blanket. I may not have invented the term, but I like to think that I helped make it a part of our language.''

Sunday February 13 4:21 PM ET
'Peanuts' Fans Reflect on Schulz
By ROGER PETTERSON Associated Press Writer

The coincidence of Charles Schulz's death one day before his final "Peanuts'' appeared in newspapers weighed heavily Sunday on fans of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy.

"It's real sad. He did a really neat strip and it really touched a lot of people's lives. It's really too bad he couldn't enjoy his retirement,'' said Charles Weier, who lives in the house in St. Paul, Minn., where Schulz spent his teen-age years.

Schulz was diagnosed with colon cancer and suffered a series of small strokes during emergency surgery in November 1999, and announced his retirement a few weeks afterward.

In addition to the last appearance of a new "Peanuts'' strip, Sunday was officially Charles ``Sparky'' Schulz Day in St. Paul.

"We will all miss his daily dose of wisdom,'' St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman said Saturday when he proclaimed the observance, before Schulz's death. "In each of his characters, we see a little bit of ourselves.''

About 250 people ignored snow and temperatures in the teens Saturday as Coleman unveiled an ice sculpture of the Peanuts characters.

"It's just ironic that in your last comic strip you're gonna call it all and ... all of a sudden you die,'' said Rick Micheltree, a cook at Mickey's Diner in St. Paul.

Schulz's first feature, "Li'l Folks,'' was developed for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press in 1947. In 1950, it was sold to a syndicate and the name changed to ``Peanuts.''

"Nobody thought he was too good, to tell you the truth, because he had a whole different style,'' Mort Walker, creator of "Beetle Bailey,'' said Sunday from Boca Raton, Fla., in an interview with WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. "He didn't do the traditional solid cartoon, which was kind of slapstick humor. But he brought in pathos, failure, rejection, all that stuff and somehow made it funny.''

"It's sad to think that he didn't get the chance to see his last strip running in the paper,'' Tom Batiuk, cartoonist of ``Funky Winkerbean'' and ``Crankshaft,'' said Sunday from his home in Medina, Ohio. ``It would have been nice to see him bask in the glory of it a little bit more.''

"I am part of that generation of cartoonists that were just devoted to his work,'' Batiuk added. ``Strips prior to his time reflected the world around us, he opened a door to the world inside us and allowed us to share feelings that are common to everyone.''

Mell Lazarus, who draws the ``Momma'' and ``Miss Peach'' strips, knew Schulz for 42 years.

"I think 'Peanuts' has been for most of its existence the best comic strip in history, and nothing's ever approached it,'' Lazarus said. ``He's going to be missed and will clearly never be replaced.''

"He made it possible for new cartoonists to be inspired and get their start. He was a master of timing in every way,'' said Hank Ketcham, creator of ``Dennis the Menace.''

"For 50 years, his keen eye, his good and generous heart, and his active brush and pen have given life to the most memorable cast of characters ever to enliven our daily papers,'' President Clinton said in a statement Sunday. ``The hopeful and hapless Charlie Brown, the joyful Snoopy, the soulful Linus - even the 'crabby' Lucy - give voice, day after day, to what makes us human.''

Charlie Brown was the favorite "Peanuts'' character for Don Tansey, 50, of Short Hills, N.J., because it was so easy for people to relate to him.

"The guy's always trying to do the best for others, and he gets left behind. It's a theme that happens so much in this country. The nice people get left behind,'' Tansey said.