Schulz, Charles M. (Charles Monroe Schulz), 1922–2000, American cartoonist, b. Minneapolis, Minn. Creator of the syndicated comic strip Peanuts (1950–2000), one of the world's most popular examples of the genre, Schulz expressed a droll yet tender philosophy through his strip's simply drawn yet extremely expressive large-headed, small-bodied children and animals. Among its principal characters are Charlie Brown, a gentle, puzzled boy, usually failing, yet always persevering; Lucy, his bossy, sarcastic, know-it-all friend; Linus, a philosophical tyke with a security blanket; and Snoopy, a romantic, self-deluded beagle. At the peak of its popularity, Peanuts had a readership of some 300 million in 75 countries, was carried by about 2,600 newspapers, and was printed in 21 languages. The strip, whose characters also adorned hundreds of products, made him the world's wealthiest cartoonist. One of the many collections of comic strips from the series published in book form is Peanuts Classics (1970). Peanuts also has been the basis for a number of cartoon television specials as well as a popular Broadway musical (1971, revived 1999).
See his Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me (1980); biographies by R. G. Johnson (1989) and D. Michaelis (2007); A. Blauner, ed., The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Meaning of Life (2019).
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