My Life With Charlie Brown or, Where Have You Gone, Joe Shlabotnik?

In the Wash Post, Fox News' James Rosen reviews the new book My Life With Charlie Brown, a collection of autobiographical essays by Charles Schulz, arguably the most famous artist of all time. Read about it here.

And read Reason on Peanuts and Schulz here.

And on a grim Monday, when the whole world seems to be a kite-eating tree (hang in there baby, Tuesday's comng), read the first strip featuring good ol' Charlie Brown and Shermy, who was unceremoniously disappeared from the strip without so much as a special inquest.

Sadly the series never got better than this. But then, how could it?

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

In that first strip Chuck seems pretty upbeat for a kid going through chemo.

[.]

Art is a reflection of culture. How Nick hates us!

[Cowdog]

Plenty of gems like the first strip in the 50 years of "Peanuts." Then again, over 50 years, how could there not be?

[Waquoit]

Patty got the gate along with Shermy. No inquest for her either.

[Marcie]

Beats me.

[Peppermint Patty]

Marcie, I hope you're not confusing me with Patty. She was a different character.

[Mike Laursen]

Didn't Marcie hang herself after she and Patty got too deeply into D&D?

[BakedPenguin]

Marcie moved to a commune outside San Francisco after an ugly break up with Peppermint Patty.

Most newspapers refused to show those strips.

[John]

So did Violet, who was such a snotty bitch she made Lucy look like a sweetheart by comparison.

[The Ghost of Norman Rockwell]

Charles Schulz, arguably the most famous artist of all time

HEY!!

[JohnD]

I think we see a little bit of Charlie Brown in all of us. Well meaning but a little insecure and bumbling as we go through life.

[All of us]

That's why we made Schulz a millionaire, of course.

[Citizen Nothing]

I've recently been able to introduce my four-year-old twins to the joys of Calvin and Hobbes (as if they need any more impish ideas.) I'm not too surprised to note that, although much of the strip goes over their little heads, they really seem to enjoy the basic stories and drawings (and Calvin's naughtiness). And Bill Watterson had the rare wisdom to pack it in when the right time came.

[ed]

Yeah. C&H jumped a lot of things, but somehow avoided the shark.

[P Brooks]

Watterson's drawings are awesome. Schulz, on the other hand...

[R C Dean]

No one's library can be considered complete without a Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

[John]

Since most of the Calvin and Hobbes strips were subtle and not so subtle rip offs off Peanuts, I think the complete Peanuts is more important.

[Slut Bunwalla]

You're going to have to work really hard to back up that assertion, buddy.

[John]

Just to give one example, the whole strip sequence where Calvin builds snowmen to go to war or whatever else, which Waterson trotted out like every winter, was totally done before by Schultz having Linus do the same.

[Slut Bunwalla]

Linus made regular snowmen. Calvin made impossibly grotesque snowmen--mutants, monsters, whole tableaus of snowmen committing suicide or murder. Just because they both made snowmen doesn't mean one's ripping off the other. Making snowman is a pretty big cultural touchstone.

[Dan Tee]

There is no successful artist that did not build on the ideas and work of artists before him.

[Slut Bunwalla]

Also true. Watterson was influenced greatly by Schulz. This is not a secret. But I think claiming Watterson ripped off Peanuts is absurd.

[robc]

Just like science.

Or humanity.

[Tulpa]

or porn.

[Isaac Newton]

If I see farther than others, it's because I stand on the shoulder of Peanuts.

[Rhywun]

And Watterson improved on Schulz by being funny.

[robc]

BC also had some funny snowman strips in its early days.

[Kurt]

Linus absolutely mae more than regular snowmen. One example (which I'm not smart enough to be able to find online): Lucy is making snowmen, Linus asks her if he can help, she tells him to bug off. Linus storms off, Lucy keeps building, eventually looks up, sees that Linus has made some giant Godzilla thing poised to devour hers.

[Woodstock]

If that's true, it's awesome.

[Citizen Nothing]

My twins will never even know I own that incredibly beautiful (and pricey) set, hidden away in the library.
They get to paw the old softcovers.

[Cap'n NoStar]

What? No one greives for Pig Pen?
One day, he went missing. Vanished without so much as a cloud of dust.

[Slut Bunwalla]

I think he died of hepatitis.

[Rhywun]

I think I saw him shuffling around on the subway platform this morning.

[ed]

He was politically incorrect and had to die.

[P Brooks]

"C'mon Charlie Brown, kick the football! I PROMISE I won't pull it away, this time."

[Russ R.]

C&H was my favorite for years, and the only part of the Sunday funnies really worth looking at.

Maybe I've grown up, (or just spent a bit too much time in corporate cubicle world), but for my comic strip reading pleasure today, nothing tops Dilbert.

(xkcd is fantastic too, but I fully admit thatn I'm nowhere near smart enough to fully appreciate it.)

[robc]

xkcd is hit or miss. When it hits though, it hits.

[robc]

My favorite xkcd

[kinnath]

Dilbert has become a pale shaddow of itself. Yet, it is still one of the best strips out there today.

[Franklin Harris]

Best strip currently in newspapers: Lio.

Best online strip: xkcd.

Honorable mention: Savage Chickens.

[mr simple]

They never show the strips of when Mohammed came to visit Charlie Brown anymore.

[Harpoon]

I'm not sure which is worse Peanuts or Family Circus.

[ugg factory outlet]

I mean, er, awesome thoughts, Liz - I need some time to think about this!