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Tenavat #43
There Goes the Shutout
Charlie Brown and his friends celebrate the seasons with baseball games, summer vacations, kites, snowmen, and a few healthy quarrels
200 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1977
8 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,029 books1,623 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 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 20, 2023
Ya know you can finish these in a day or even an hour or two and they never ever fail to lift me out of whatever rut I happen to be in. Every page is a guaranteed laugh or if not a laugh a smile, this book is part of a set which is itself a collection of the strips throughout the years. This one specifically is the first years due to everyone looking just a bit different and Charlie Brown standing his ground and not being so passive ( not a detriment to him of course I love him in all ways of life ) it's amazing that even after 70+ years these little strips can be euphoric and live on. I'll admit in life I get bogged down by many things that I know I should not let get the best of me....these books help me see that light. Thank you for reading.
October 7, 2020
Luin tämän uudelleen monien vuosien jälkeen. Enpä muistanutkaan, että näissä vanhoissa, alunperin -50-luvulla tehdyissä stripeissä Eppu vasta opettelee kävelyä ja että vauvamainen Ressu-koira liikkuu neljällä jalalla ja on ihan pentu.
August 12, 2022
Got this from a free little library and I love having more Snoopy in my life.
May 5, 2021
Kyllä nämä varhaisemmat ovat vaan parempia kuin myöhemmät.
August 4, 2016
I have always enjoyed the really early Peanuts comic strips. They all looked so different. Linus was just a baby and didn't even talk and Lucy was defiantly smaller than Charlie Brown in height. Patty and Sally were main characters, which fades over time where you rarely saw them. And then there is Sherman. What ever happened to Sherman, Charlie Brown's best friend? He is all over this book with his two different hair styles, but seems to disappear when Peanuts hits the 1960's. Patty's wears pig tails sometimes too, so I find it interesting that Schulz would change the hair styles of two of his characters all the time. That definitely did not happen in later comic strips. Snoopy is so much cuter when he was a puppy. I love the way he looks in this book, and he rarely ever had thoughts, so he was pretty much a silent character. Charlie Brown's head was more oval in shape when he was younger. Plus, he wasn't quite so wishy-washy. S
Since I love the early comic strip the best, There Goes the Shutout was a great read for me. I didn't remember most of the strips, so I had a blast reading them. So, if you are looking for really early Peanuts comic strips, There Goes the Shutout is the book for you.
Since I love the early comic strip the best, There Goes the Shutout was a great read for me. I didn't remember most of the strips, so I had a blast reading them. So, if you are looking for really early Peanuts comic strips, There Goes the Shutout is the book for you.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews