The Peanuts Papers

A one-of-a-kind celebration of America's greatest comic strip--and the life lessons it can teach us--from a stellar array of writers and artists Over the span of fifty years, Charles M. Schulz created a comic strip that is one of the indisputable glories of American popular culture—hilarious, poignant, inimitable. Some twenty years after the last strip appeared, the characters Schulz brought to life in Peanuts continue to resonate with millions of fans, their beguiling four-panel adventures and television escapades offering lessons about happiness, friendship, disappointment, childhood, and life itself. In The Peanuts Papers, thirty-three writers and artists reflect on the deeper truths of Schulz’s deceptively simple comic, its impact on their lives and art and on the broader culture. These enchanting, affecting, and often quite personal essays show just how much Peanuts means to its many admirers—and the ways it invites us to ponder, in the words of Sarah Boxer, “how to survive and still be a decent human being” in an often bewildering world. Featuring essays, memoirs, poems, and two original comic strips, here is the ultimate reader’s companion for every Peanuts fan. Featuring: Jill Bialosky Lisa Birnbach Sarah Boxer Jennifer Finney Boylan Ivan Brunetti Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell Rich Cohen Gerald Early Umberto Eco Jonathan Franzen Ira Glass Adam Gopnik David Hajdu Bruce Handy David Kamp Maxine Hong Kingston Chuck Klosterman Peter D. Kramer Jonathan Lethem Rick Moody Ann Patchett Kevin Powell Joe Queenan Nicole Rudick George Saunders Elissa Schappell Seth Janice Shapiro Mona Simpson Leslie Stein Clifford Thompson David L. Ulin Chris Ware

Despite--or because of--its huge popular culture status, Peanuts enabled cartoonist Charles Schulz to offer political commentary on the most controversial topics of postwar American culture through the voices of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the Peanuts gang. In postwar America, there was no newspaper comic strip more recognizable than Charles Schulz's Peanuts. It was everywhere, not just in thousands of daily newspapers. For nearly fifty years, Peanuts was a mainstay of American popular culture in television, movies, and merchandising, from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to the White House to the breakfast table. Most people have come to associate Peanuts with the innocence of childhood, not the social and political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. Some have even argued that Peanuts was so beloved because it was apolitical. The truth, as Blake Scott Ball shows, is that Peanuts was very political. Whether it was the battles over the Vietnam War, racial integration, feminism, or the future of a nuclear world, Peanuts was a daily conversation about very real hopes and fears and the political realities of the Cold War world. As thousands of fan letters, interviews, and behind-the-scenes documents reveal, Charles Schulz used his comic strip to project his ideas to a mass audience and comment on the rapidly changing politics of America. Charlie Brown's America covers all of these debates and much more in a historical journey through the tumultuous decades of the Cold War as seen through the eyes of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang.

From the backyard to outer space, Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts has been charming the world for more than 70 years. In this celebration of Schulz and his beloved work, explore rarely seen sketches, influential comic strips, and collectors' artifacts. Pore over evolving artworks of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the gang. Chart the rich history of Peanuts as it grew to become the world's favorite comic, and travel from 1950 to the present day, from California to Japan. Every page of this visual guide is an exhibition to treasure. Discover the enduring and nostalgic charm of Peanuts in this stunning anniversary book. With a foreword by Stephen Colbert. © 2020 Peanuts Worldwide LLC

What¡¯s to Love: No one can deny the cultural impact of Charles M. Schulz¡¯s Peanuts, and it has been a singular honor for us to be able to continue his legacy. In 2015, Peanuts celebrates its 65th anniversary, so we thought there was no better way to recognize Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the rest of the gang than to invite some of the world¡¯s best-known names in comics, children¡¯s books, comic strips, cartoons, and webcomics to come together and show their love for Schulz. What It Is: Peanuts: A Tribute to Charles M. Schulz is a giant love letter from creators new and old from comic strips to webcomics, children¡¯s books to comic books. Unprecedented at this scale, it is very rare for the Schulz estate to allow other cartoonists to illustrate the Peanuts gang in their own signature styles. This collection of original stories, pin-ups, and strips pay tribute to Schulz and the world of Peanuts, and includes contributions from Raina Telgemeier (Smile), Jen Wang (In Real Life), Patrick McDonnell (Mutts), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Terry Moore (Rachel Rising), Mike Allred (Silver Surfer), Paul Pope (Battling Boy), and many more. Features an introduction by Lincoln Peirce (Big Nate).

This fully authorized, one-of-a-kind illustrated book celebrates the 60th anniversary of the world's most beloved comic strip characters. A compendium of rare materials from the Charles M. Schulz Museum and family archives comes in a sturdy slipcase and features high-quality reproductions of original sketches, comics, and photographs from the world of Peanuts.

Charles M. Schulz, the most widely syndicated and beloved cartoonist of all time, is also one of the least understood figures in American culture. Now, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis gives us the first full-length biography of the brilliant, unseen man behind Peanuts: at once a creation story, a portrait of a native genius, and a chronicle contrasting the private man with the central role he played in shaping the national imagination. Schulz and Peanuts is the definitive epic biography of an American icon and the unforgettable characters he created.

While best known as the creator of Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000) was also a thoughtful and precise prose writer who knew how to explain his craft in clear and engaging ways. My Life with Charlie Brown brings together his major prose writings, many published here for the first time. Schulz's autobiographical articles, book introductions, magazine pieces, lectures, and commentary elucidate his life and his art, and clarify themes of modern life, philosophy, and religion that are interwoven into his beloved, groundbreaking comic strip. Edited and with an introduction by comics scholar M. Thomas Inge, this volume will serve as the touchstone for Schulz's thoughts and convictions and as a wide-ranging, unique autobiography in the absence of a traditional, extended memoir. Inge and the Schulz estate have chosen a number of illustrations to include. With the approval and cooperation of the Schulz family, Inge draws on the cartoonist's entire archives, papers, and correspondence to allow Schulz full voice to speak his mind. The project includes his comics criticism, his introductions to Peanuts volumes, his essays about philanthropy, his commentary on Christianity, his newspaper articles about the creation of his characters, and more. My Life with Charlie Brown will reveal new dimensions of this legendary cartoonist.

Drawn from the archives of the Charles M. Schulz Museum, an in-depth look at Peanuts with a “wealth of original art” (The New York Times). Charles M. Schulz believed that the key to cartooning was to take out the extraneous details and leave in only what’s necessary. For fifty years, from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, Schulz wrote and illustrated Peanuts, the single most popular and influential comic strip in the world. In all, 17,897 strips were published, making it “arguably the longest story ever told by one human being,” according to Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. For Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts, renowned designer Chip Kidd was granted unprecedented access to the extraordinary archives of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California. Reproducing the best of the Peanuts newspaper strip, all shot from the original art by award-winning photographer Geoff Spear, Only What’s Necessary also features exclusive, rare, and unpublished original art and developmental work—much of which has never been seen before. “Glorious...equal parts museum and monument, a masterwork of curatorial rigor and an affectionate homage.”—Brain Pickings