Charles M. Schulz

Lore & Background

Schulz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up in Saint Paul. He was conscripted in 1943 and served in the United States Army during the final years of World War II. After returning to Minnesota, Schulz began his comic strip career with Li'l Folks in 1947. In 1950, Schulz redeveloped Li'l Folks as a four-panel comic strip and submitted it to United Features Syndicate, who renamed it Peanuts and began publishing that October. Schulz relocated to Northern California with his family in 1958. Beginning with A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965, he helped write several animated television specials and four animated films based on his characters. He continued drawing Peanuts until his death in 2000. Schulz is regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists in history, inspiring many cartoonists including Jim Davis, Murray Ball, Bill Watterson, Jeff Smith, Matt Groening, and Dav Pilkey as well as animators like Oscar-nominee Don Hertzfeldt and The Peanuts Movie (2015) director Steve Martino. He was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996, and was posthumously inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2007.

Reader's Guide

Schulz was born on November 26, 1922, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up in Saint Paul. He was the only child of a barber and a housewife. He attended Saint Paul Central High School and played baseball, golf, and ice hockey. He loved drawing and sent a drawing of his dog Spike to Ripley's Believe It or Not! in 1937. After graduating, he took a correspondence course from Art Instruction Schools. In November 1942, Schulz was drafted into the United States Army. He served as a staff sergeant with the 20th Armored Division in Europe during World War II as a squad leader on a .50 caliber machine gun team. His unit saw combat at the very end of the war. Schulz said he had only one opportunity to fire his machine gun but forgot to load it, and that the German soldier he could have fired at surrendered. Years later, Schulz proudly spoke of his wartime service. For being under fire he received the Combat Infantryman Badge, of which he was proud. In February 1943, Schulz's mother died at age 50, after a long battle with cervical cancer. In late 1945, Schulz returned to Minnesota, where he did lettering for a Roman Catholic comic magazine, Timeless Topix. In July 1946, Schulz took a job at Art Instruction, where he reviewed and graded students' work. At the school, he proposed marriage to a redhaired accountant, Donna Johnson, who turned him down. Johnson inspired the Little Red-Haired Girl in Peanuts. Schulz's first group of regular cartoons, a weekly series of one-panel jokes called Li'l Folks, was published from June 1947 to January 1950 in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In May 1948, Schulz sold his first one-panel drawing to The Saturday Evening Post. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January 1950. Later that year, Schulz approached United Feature Syndicate with Li'l Folks, and the syndicate became interested. The syndicate changed the title to Peanuts. Peanuts first appeared on October 2, 1950, in seven newspapers. The weekly Sunday page debuted on January 6, 1952. Schulz also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip, It's Only a Game (1957–59). From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a gag cartoon, Young Pillars, to Youth. In 1957 and 1961, Schulz illustrated two volumes of Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things. In 1964, he illustrated a collection of letters, Dear President Johnson, by Bill Adler. In 1962, Schulz published a book, Happiness

Did You Know?

• Schulz was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983.
• Schulz was posthumously inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2007.
• Schulz's first group of regular cartoons was called Li'l Folks.
• Schulz took only one vacation during the nearly 50-year run of Peanuts.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts." — Charles M. Schulz "See also:PeanutsRace for Your Life, Charlie Brown." — Charles M. Schulz "It seems beyond the comprehension of people that someone can be born to draw comic strips, but I think I was. My ambition from earliest memory was to produce a daily comic strip." — Charles M. Schulz "A cartoonist is someone who has to draw the same thing day after day without repeating himself." — Charles M. Schulz