Peanuts A Golden Celebration

Title: Peanuts A Golden Celebration
Author: Charles Schulz, artist and writer
Publisher Harper Collins, pub. Date: 1999
ISBN: 0-06-270244-0
Reviewed by: Allen Klingelhoets
www.Jazmaonline.boards.net

Peanuts debuted on October 2, 1950. I loved this book since Charles Schulz was author of Peanuts A golden Celebration. The book goes into detail how Charles created characters of Charlie Brown and rest of Peanuts kids. It also showed how a black and white dog his family was given when he was 13 turned out to be idea behind Snoopy. The book also talks about how Charles got his start in comic industry with plenty of rejection slips. He started out working Timeless Topix, for the publishers of a series of Catholic comic magazines. He lettered dialogue pages for some of Timeless Topix. During one period of time, from 1948-1950. He submitted cartoons regularly to the Saturday Evening Post, and sold 15 of them. In the spring of 1950, he accumulated batch of his better cartoons he had been drawing for The St. Paul Pioneer Press and mailed them off to United Features Syndicate in New York City. The editorial director were interested in his work and Charles went out to New York and talked to publishers about his cartoons. They wanted to publish Charles art in comic strip form and not just individual panel form. That was how Charles got his start as comic strip form of art for newspapers. Charles selected over 1000 comic strips from Peanuts history. He even told how name Peanuts was first used as name for Charley Brown comic strips. It was very informative finding out how characters came into strips like Lucy, Schroeder and even Snoopy. There are many characters in Charley Brown compilation. I liked how even shown Lucy pulling out the football from Charley Brown as he was going to kick ball. A toy piano which Charles had given to his daughter Meridith in the 50’s, eventually became the piano which Schroeder used in his daily practicing. Charles talked about Linus. According to Charles Schulz: “Linus came from a drawing he made one day of a face almost like one had when Peanuts A Golden celebration was wrote. He experimented with some wild hair, and showed the sketch to a friend of his who sat next to him at Art instruction whose name was Linus Maurer. He thought it was kind of funny and both agreed that it might make a good new character for the strip. It seemed appropriate that Charles should call the character Linus. It seemed that Linus would fit very well as Lucy’s younger brother. Lucy had already been in the strip for a year. In the mid 50’s the appearance of Linus’s blanket was shown. The blanket was inspired by the blankets Charles Schulz’s three children dragged around the house.

The book is broke down into sections.

Contents:

The Early Years

The Beginning of Peanuts

The 50’s

The 60’s

Charlie Brown on the Screen

You’re on Broadway, Charlie Brown

The 70’s

The 80’s

The Travels of Charlie Brown

Compliments and Comments

The 90’s

Different Views of Peanuts

The Sunday Colors

Charlie Brown at Work

Conclusion

A Peanuts Chronology

This is a very interesting book told by actual person that created Peanuts characters. Book is for all Young adults and above. I found book in 741.5 section at library. It can also be bought online. The book is fully called Peanuts A Golden Celebration: The Art and Story of the World’s Best-Loved Comic Strip. Charles Schulz said comics entered his life early. When he was two years old his uncle nicknamed him “Sparky,” short for Sparkplug. Barney Google’s horse in the popular comic book strip at that time. The name has stayed with Charles Schulz all of his life. His real father was a barber like Charley Brown’s father.

The book had many insights like why Snoopy’s dog house was always shown from side. How idea for Linus “The Great Pumpkin” came about. I always liked Woodstock. I found another saying from Charles Schulz in 90’s section of book: “In the beginning of the strip Charley Brown used to be a little more flippant, but then he fell into place. I like Charley brown for his kindness and gentleness. He’s certainly the only character who’s all one thing. He’s a caricature. We all know what it’s like to lose, but Charlie Brown keeps losing outrageously. It’s not that he is a loser: he’s really a decent little sort. But nothing seems to work out right. I used to say, he tried too hard, and he wanted everyone to like him too much, but I’ve grown away from that.”

I give very warm 5 stars out of 5 for “Peanuts A Golden Celebration”. The book does not talk about death of Charles Schulz. I feel great way to get updated on Peanuts history with many comic strips included in book. Charles Schulz was born on November 26th, 1922. He died on February 12th, 2000.


Allen Klingelhoets