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Peanuts Coronet #53
They're Playing Your Song, Charlie Brown
Peanuts Book #2-3364-2.
125 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1974
51 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,023 books1,636 followersCharles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 18, 2017
Do people laugh at The Peanuts today or do they just go "Aww" when something cute happens? This particular collection of strips (oddly, the second half of the previously published "Win a Few, Lose a Few, Charlie Brown") has a lot of those type of moments. I found the complete anthropomorphism of Snoopy strange and I was unfamiliar with Rerun, younger brother of Lucy and Linus. Having grown up with the cartoons, these four panel versions feel like they're missing something... action!
November 26, 2015
Read in memory of my sister, a big Snoopy fan, who passed away 12 years ago today.
Another winning Peanuts collection, this features selected cartoons from “Win A Few, Lose A Few Charlie Brown vol 2” and was published in 1979 (the Coronet edition I read) with comics from 1973 and 1974. Running from just before Christmas and into a New Year, this is amusing (Snoopy features a lot) and quite melancholic, especially when Charlie Brown struggles to understand the need to have a snow league that prohibits kids randomly building snowmen in their back garden (“why can’t kids just do things on their own?”). My highlights include the rosebud spoiler; Woodstock and his tree full of Christmas stockings; Snoopy hugging Woodstock, “Merry Christmas, little friend of friends”; Sally and schoolwork; Snoopy writing a horror story “The Monster And The Bunnies”; Lucy not buying Snoopy’s book but offering to take a free authors copy; Snoopy suffering from anxiety; Rerun on Mrs Van Pelt’s bike (“she’s getting better!” says Linus); Snoopy taking a downtown bus to chase cars because his neighbourhood is quiet and Marcie breaking it to Peppermint Patty that Snoopy isn’t ‘a funny looking kid with a big nose’ - “A beagle?” asks an incredulous Patty. There’s also a lovely little arc (which apparently ran from 29th December 1973 through to 3rd January 1974) where Snoopy and Woodstock hide under a blanket from a “strange light” in the sky, which Linus informs them is comet Kohoutek (which was real). Amusing, poignant and as warmly nostalgic as you could want, this is a great read and I would highly recommend it.
Another winning Peanuts collection, this features selected cartoons from “Win A Few, Lose A Few Charlie Brown vol 2” and was published in 1979 (the Coronet edition I read) with comics from 1973 and 1974. Running from just before Christmas and into a New Year, this is amusing (Snoopy features a lot) and quite melancholic, especially when Charlie Brown struggles to understand the need to have a snow league that prohibits kids randomly building snowmen in their back garden (“why can’t kids just do things on their own?”). My highlights include the rosebud spoiler; Woodstock and his tree full of Christmas stockings; Snoopy hugging Woodstock, “Merry Christmas, little friend of friends”; Sally and schoolwork; Snoopy writing a horror story “The Monster And The Bunnies”; Lucy not buying Snoopy’s book but offering to take a free authors copy; Snoopy suffering from anxiety; Rerun on Mrs Van Pelt’s bike (“she’s getting better!” says Linus); Snoopy taking a downtown bus to chase cars because his neighbourhood is quiet and Marcie breaking it to Peppermint Patty that Snoopy isn’t ‘a funny looking kid with a big nose’ - “A beagle?” asks an incredulous Patty. There’s also a lovely little arc (which apparently ran from 29th December 1973 through to 3rd January 1974) where Snoopy and Woodstock hide under a blanket from a “strange light” in the sky, which Linus informs them is comet Kohoutek (which was real). Amusing, poignant and as warmly nostalgic as you could want, this is a great read and I would highly recommend it.
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June 13, 2011My copy of this seems to have gotten a bit macerated at some point. I don't think it was actually chewed by a dog, but SOMETHING roughed it up.
These strips are from the early 70s, and thus it surprised me somewhat to learn that Rerun had been introduced that early. For some reason I thought he came later.
This book contains the strip in which Lucy spoils the suprise for Linus about Citizen Kane. If you haven't seen the movie, you're advised to skip this one.
These strips are from the early 70s, and thus it surprised me somewhat to learn that Rerun had been introduced that early. For some reason I thought he came later.
This book contains the strip in which Lucy spoils the suprise for Linus about Citizen Kane. If you haven't seen the movie, you're advised to skip this one.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews