Charles M. Schulz wanted us to take care of ourselves, our communities, and the Earth. Through his daily comic strip, Peanuts, readers have laughed together worldwide at the fun and foibles of the Peanuts Gang as they grapple with some of life's biggest questions and ideas.
Taking care of oneself has many aspects. Schulz addressed these ideas in many ways in Peanuts. Not only in regular exercise, but in other respects, like having a healthy diet, considering one's mental health, and even in getting vaccinations.
Schulz enjoyed playing and competing with friends. Being active was a meaningful way for him to bond with others; the golf course, the tennis court, or the hockey rink were places where a man who felt at ease in few places could relax and enjoy.
Schulz also loved his community in Sonoma County, California. Taking part in community activities in big ways and in small, more personal ways, he gave back.
Schulz also believed it's up to all of us to take care of the Earth. By staying current through reading and personal contacts, he learned more about taking care of the Earth, lending his creation to remind us all to take care.
Born to Carl and Dena Schulz on November 26, 1922, Charles Schulz's connection to comic strips started early. Coincidentally, when he was two days old, an uncle nicknamed him *Sparky" after the cartoon horse Spark Plug, in Billy DeBeck's popular comic strip of the day, Barney Google. The name remained with him throughout his life.
Schulz grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota and dreamed of drawing his own comic strip. His parents encouraged his interest, and when he was in high school they enrolled him in two correspondence courses in cartooning at what is now Art Instruction Schools in Minneapolis. A shy student in public school, Schulz excelled in the cartooning courses.
He continued to hone his artistic talents until 1943, when he was drafted into the United States Army during World War Il. Even during his years in the service Schulz found time to draw. He sketched snapshots of army life and decorated envelopes with drawings for his buddies. Schulz worked his way up to tha rank of Staff Sergeant with the 20th Armored Division.
Following his discharge in 1945, Schulz returned home and began his first job lettering cartoons for Topix, a Catholic comic magazine. Later, he began a second job as an instructor with this alma mater, Art Instruction Schools. There he met fellow art instructors Charlie Brown, Linus Maurer, and Frieda Rich... and a red- haired girl who broke his heart. Schulz later used these names for characters in Peanuts.
Charles M Schulz:To take a blank piece of paper and continue drawing with the same pen and materials as when I started in 1950 is a real privilege. To draw characters that people love and worry about is extremely satisfying.
Schulz's first break as a professional cartoonist came in 1947 when his single panel cartoon, Li'l Folks, became a weekly feature in the local newspaper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press; it featured prototype versions of Charlie Brown and Shermy. He also sold 17 panel cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. Hoping to break into the national comic strip market, Schulz sent samples of his cartoons to United Feature Syndicate in New York in 1950; they offered him a five-year contract for a four-panel strip.
On October 2, 1950, Peanuts debuted in seven newspapers nationwide. From these humble beginnings Peanuts achieved great fame and notoriety - by the benchmark year of 2000 the strip appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries, was translated into 40 languages, and had 355 million readers per day!
After 50 years of creating the Peanuts comic strip, Charles Schulz officially retired in December 1999. For many years prior, he repeatedly stated that the strip would retire with him. Prophetically, Schulz died in his sleep on February 12, 2000, just hours before his last original strip appeared in the Sunday newspapers.
The Peanuts Gang has long considered our relationship with the environment. During the early years of the strip, Schulz's characters ponder various aspects of Earth and space with wonder and delight. Many of the characters' misguided understanding of the world, including how many suns rotate around the Earth and whether the Earth is flat, provided Peanuts' readers an opportunity to learn the truth in a fun way.
By the 1970s, Schulz began addressing environmental issues more directly as Americans increasingly understood the lasting effects of air and water pollution. Starting in the early 1970s, Schulz lent Peanuts' popularity to environmental education campaigns sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of the Interior. In 1977, Schulz produced a hilarious multi-day storyline in which Charlie Brown fears he is in trouble with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for biting a tree. With his animation partners, Schulz also created the animated television special, It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown (1976). Schulz's warm and witty humor and the Peanuts characters' innocence help make his observations about the human impact on the environment relatable for a global audience.
Explore Schulz's unique interpretation of the "web of nature," trees, and other ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Charles Schulz was an avid reader, so it is not surprising that he thought about the balance of nature as early as the mid-1950s. Part of Schulz's genius lay in his ability to incorporate serious, timely, and significant issues into Peanuts in educational but funny ways. Schulz gently reflects many people's growing knowledge of and, perhaps, anxiety on ecological matters. Early in the environmental movement, many people were captivated by the idea of a "balance of nature." This recognition that human activities can disturb ecosystems in irreversible ways encouraged environmental conservation.
Ecologists have found that natural ecosystems are quite complex and continuously changing in response to natural disturbances that occur over time, such as storms, wildfires, and earthquakes. So, there is, in fact, not as much balance or stability as previously thought. But people should be conscious of their activities to slow the speed of change since human disturbances are more severe and more frequent than nature can adapt to readily.
Charles Schulz frequently included trees in Peanuts. The reasons for this may be many: trees are fun to draw they provide an interesting vertical perspective in the comic strip; and children, like the Peanuts Gang, are naturally drawn to playing in or around trees. Also, Schulz may have recognized the critical role trees play in a healthy environment.
Trees (and all plants) play an essential part in the cycles of nature. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil. They use energy from the sun and the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen they have absorbed from the air and water to make sugars to feed themselves and build complex carbohydrates that make up their trunks, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits. The waste products from these processes are oxygen and water vapor, released from their leaves back into the environment.
Humans breathe the oxygen that trees make and eat the fruit that the trees produce. We then return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when we exhale - and the cycle begins again.
