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Peanuts Treasury
Now, That's Profound, Charlie Brown
Good Grief! A whole year of Peanuts gang! Now, That's Profound, Charlie Brown.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,035 books1,654 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 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 12, 2021
The entire 1991 yearly run of "Peanuts" collected in one volume. Going by the publication date I actually expected this to be the final year of 1999 instead. The later years of ”Peanuts” have a reputation for being lukewarm compared to its classic 1950's-1970's run, but I quite enjoyed this volume.
Anyway, this contains lots of strips where Snoopy during his WW1 flying ace daydreams ends up at Marcie's house, seeing her as a French café owner and Marcie playing along with the fantasy until reality intrudes on the situation. My personal favourites in here have to be the story arcs where Linus gets Snoopy to join him proselytising for the Great Pumpkin, Peppermint Patty tries to teach Marcie how to play American football (with predictably tragicomical results) and Snoopy helps Charlie write an assignment for school all of which I find absolutely hilarious. To say nothing of the storyline about one of Sally's classmates who keeps getting the Bible and ”the Great Gatsby” confused with each other, to the point he expects ”Gatsby” characters to appear in the Bible.
While we are at it, I am certain I recognise one of the strips from an old Danish newspaper: The one about Charlie and Sally reading from the Book of Genesis and Snoopy wondering what happened to the dogs in Sodom and Gomorrah.
That said: I still don't understand the strips about Snoopy's brother Spike who lives in a desert somewhere in the Southwestern United States with only cacti for company. Maybe I would if they were the focus of their own comic strip? The humour in them is just too different from that in the other ”Peanuts” strips.
Anyway, this contains lots of strips where Snoopy during his WW1 flying ace daydreams ends up at Marcie's house, seeing her as a French café owner and Marcie playing along with the fantasy until reality intrudes on the situation. My personal favourites in here have to be the story arcs where Linus gets Snoopy to join him proselytising for the Great Pumpkin, Peppermint Patty tries to teach Marcie how to play American football (with predictably tragicomical results) and Snoopy helps Charlie write an assignment for school all of which I find absolutely hilarious. To say nothing of the storyline about one of Sally's classmates who keeps getting the Bible and ”the Great Gatsby” confused with each other, to the point he expects ”Gatsby” characters to appear in the Bible.
While we are at it, I am certain I recognise one of the strips from an old Danish newspaper: The one about Charlie and Sally reading from the Book of Genesis and Snoopy wondering what happened to the dogs in Sodom and Gomorrah.
That said: I still don't understand the strips about Snoopy's brother Spike who lives in a desert somewhere in the Southwestern United States with only cacti for company. Maybe I would if they were the focus of their own comic strip? The humour in them is just too different from that in the other ”Peanuts” strips.
July 16, 2015
Laughter is the best medicine!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews