Schulz and Peanuts, A Bioghraphy
by David Michaelis
Schulz and Peanuts, A Bio...
by
David Michaelis
|
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| published
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2007
by HarperCollins
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| isbn
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(isbn13: 0978006621393)
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| pages
| 653 |
| date added
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12-02-07
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Luciously readable, fascinating, and flawed account of the life of the creator of Charlie Brown. I first decided to read this book because of a massive roundtable featured in the latest issue of "The Comics Journal," the basic conclusion being that the book does the real-life Schulz no justice. (I read the book, and then read the roundtable.)
Monte Schulz, the son of the great cartoonist, kicked off the roundtable with a massive essay that's divided into three parts: a brief memoir ...more
Luciously readable, fascinating, and flawed account of the life of the creator of Charlie Brown. I first decided to read this book because of a massive roundtable featured in the latest issue of "The Comics Journal," the basic conclusion being that the book does the real-life Schulz no justice. (I read the book, and then read the roundtable.)
Monte Schulz, the son of the great cartoonist, kicked off the roundtable with a massive essay that's divided into three parts: a brief memoir of his time and experience with David Michaelis, in which Monte spent much time and exchanged a number of emails with the biographer, to the point that he thought they had a genuine friendship (proving what should be an old adage, "Do not make friends with your father's biographer."); in part two, he lists the vast amount of grievances he has with the biography, indicating that he has many more and generally despising the entire tone of Michaelis' work; in part three, he provides a minute-by-minute description of his father's battle against, and eventual succumbing to, cancer.
The general theme of Monte Schulz's essay is: His father was not a manic depressive paranoiac with vaguely Freudian issues, he was a kindhearted, swell guy who coached his sons' sports teams, enjoyed playing hockey with his friends at the rink his first wife built, and had a great family he was very close to.
The problem with the Charles Schulz who appears in his son's essay is really the same problem with the Charles Schulz who appears in David Michaelis' book: namely, both Charles Schulz's are based half on reality and half on bullshit, or, more to the point, bullshit conceived by writers with an extremely one-note thesis about the life of Charles Schulz. The difference is that Michaelis' interpretation is interesting, and Monte Schulz's interpretation is almost pointedly boring. Michaelis turns Schulz into an essentially tragic figure, explicitly referencing "Citizen Kane" and "The Great Gatsby" - Monte Schulz turns his father into that particularly American figure, a normal everyday superhero father. Whichever interpretation you believe will probably depend largely on whether you think every man is an Atticus Finch or a Willy Loman.
There are major failings in Michaelis' book, largely because there are so few failings in the books' opening chapters. In incredibly precise (and almost certainly heavily imagined) detail, Michaelis presents us with the youth of Charles Schulz, in the process visualizing a Depression-Era America which reads like an alien planet compared to the world we live in today. The book makes the argument that Schulz essentially wanted to be a cartoonist his whole life, and spent his first few decades following that dream.
The problem is that he achieves that dream relatively early, and indeed, the dream was larger than he could have imagined. As "Peanuts" becomes a megahit, and then a marketing phenomenon, and then one of the real globally recognized brands on the planet, Schulz's life becomes too big, both for Schulz (who, even his son agrees, was somewhat agoraphobic) and for Michaelis. The later chapters present intriguing snippets - how "Peanuts" became a global brand, in the process radically altering advertising and practically inventing the notion of multimedia.
The problem is that Michaelis is really just interested in Schulz, and his interior life, so all of this wild tumult fades to the background at the exact point when we want to learn more about it. Michaelis essentially brushes it all off by saying that Schulz was never really interested in all the other stuff, besides the strip, but that in itself needs more exploring. What did it feel like for this essentially lonely man to see his work everywhere, on everything - in blimps, on T-shirts, in advertisements, on TV and stage? Maybe the problem is that Schulz's life plays like a surrealist melodrama.
However, there's another great failing with Michaelis' book, and this is also a failing shared by Monte Schulz's portrayal - it never takes us to Schulz's drawing table. Earlier in the book, Michaelis wonderfully describes the first time young Sparky Schulz saw original comic strip art, with all of the obvious corrections and blue ink marking where the word balloons should go, but curiously, after taking us within and behind the art form, Michaelis provides only a cursory examination of what cartooning is once Schulz becomes successful. We see how Schulz took incidents from his life and turned it into the strip, but we never quite get the sense of how and why and what it felt like.
At one point in the book, Schulz engages in an affair with a much younger woman. Monte Schulz, and others in the panel, find it distasteful that Michaelis dwells for so long on this affair (it takes up much more space than the description of Schulz's second marriage, which took up about 5 billion percent more of Schulz's life.) The problem is that the younger Schulz doesn't really talk about it at all. This is understandable, since what kid wants to talk about his dad cheating on his mom, but it also proves that, as a biographer, Monte Schulz is just as unqualified AS Michealis, and with vastly less of a sense of what makes for an interesting read.
Michaelis juxtaposes the affair against a series of strips in which Snoopy dreams about his sweetheart. The use of the strips to explicate and explore aspects of Schulz's life is an easy device which reaps huge dividends. At times, it's far too easy. At other times, it's genius. Yet even when it clearly reflects aspects of Schulz's life, there's an essential link in the chain missing. We're told that Schulz claimed to be not all that self-reflective - refusing to see a therapist, rarely talking about himself, claiming that he never used any aspects of his own life in his own writing. Yet clearly, Michaelis concludes, his own life was all over his writing. Okay, but then what about things that weren't taken directly from his life?
Someone on the roundtable notes that Michaelis directs his gaze to just a few characters in the "Peanuts" case, and uses this fact to note Michaelis' forced perspective - purposefully leaving out details in order to prove his case. Okay, fine, but who really wants to read a book about Rerun, Franklin, Pig Pen, Spike the mustached Dog, and Frieda? Even if Michaelis' literary analysis is essentially one-note - Snoopy's in love, JUST LIKE SCHULZ! Charlie Brown plays baseball, JUST LIKE SCHULZ! - he gives a wonderful portrait of the creative evolution of the strip in its first few decades.
Really, there are three biographies here, one excellent, one good, one awkward yet fascinating. The excellent one is the life of young Charles Schulz; the good one is first twenty-five years of Schulz's cartooning, juxtaposed against the rise and development of "Peanuts"; the awkward yet fascinating one is the story of Schulz beginning in his middle age, when he carried on a couple of affairs of the mind (and perhaps one genuine affair), lost one wife, gained a new one, slowly became happier and less interesting in the manner of all great artists who age away from their greatest creative spark. Michaelis' problem is that he mashes the three biographies together. His detractors' problem is that his story is much better, and feels far truer, than theirs....less
Read in March, 2008
This is a pretty good book considering it’s about a person who was boring; lonely, distant, anxious, depressed, sad, religious, melancholy, and a teetotaler too. Charles Schulz did not drink, did not smoke, and did not swear. Picasso or F. Scott Fitzgerald he was not.
On his honeymoon, Charles Schulz looked at his bride and said, “I don’t think I can ever be happy.”
David Michaelis has achieved something truly remarkable and impressive with this work, a fascinating examination of a...more
This is a pretty good book considering it’s about a person who was boring; lonely, distant, anxious, depressed, sad, religious, melancholy, and a teetotaler too. Charles Schulz did not drink, did not smoke, and did not swear. Picasso or F. Scott Fitzgerald he was not.
On his honeymoon, Charles Schulz looked at his bride and said, “I don’t think I can ever be happy.”
David Michaelis has achieved something truly remarkable and impressive with this work, a fascinating examination of a creative process and a brilliant man by intertwining an exhaustively researched biography with close, careful criticism. Under the guise of a biography about a truly unique and Great American Artist, Michaelis masterfully illuminates the unassuming, poignant brilliance that is Peanuts. More than Schulz himself, it is his strip, his life work for which he was fiercely competitive and exceedingly committed to, that emerges as the topic worth reading; and reading about.
Michaelis has chosen an unexpected subject for such a long (566 pages!), serious work: a cartoonist. We can only hope that the likes of Matt Groening, Chris Ware, and Bill Watterson eventually get the same treatment. Michaelis’ choice of subject proves to be a subversive one in that Charles Schulz, as the artist behind Peanuts, has had as much, if not more, influence on the culture and psyche of the world as political leaders, sports heroes, or Hollywood socialites. And Michaelis’ book is an impressive, meticulously researched work, methodically revealing Schulz’s life and art to a degree usually reserved for Presidents, War Heroes, Actors, and Rock Stars.
As a man, Schulz was deeply melancholic (if you’ve read his strips, surprise!) and lacking the confidence you’d expect from someone who achieved such an extremely high level of success. As an artist, Schulz was a master of the minimal gag and displayed confidence with simple lines. And thusly Schulz did what most great artists do I think: make the most of their failures, shortcomings, foibles, and mistakes by resolving them in their art. Despite Schulz’s infuriatingly melancholic disposition, he was quite aware of the source of his talent and even went so far as to refuse to see psychologists for fear it would take away his talent. He even insisted that, “Unhappiness is very funny.”
Still four years away from his infamous Harvard-sponsored ‘Study of Clinical Reactions to Psilocybin Administered in Supportive Environments,’ even Timothy Leary asked permission to reprint one of Schulz’s strips in a forthcoming book because it illustrated a common psychological phenomenon: “the tendency to say one thing about oneself and to act in a way which may be quite different.”
Things do manage to get a bit more interesting when Schulz has a few affairs and loses a bit of his hardcore, Church of Christ religiosity, at one point even saying that, “I don’t think God wants to be worshipped. I think the only pure worship of God is by loving one another, and I think all other forms of worship become a substitute for the love that we should show one another.” Even in that well-known story of the Great Pumpkin, Schulz displays a compelling awareness and penchant for commentary: “Linus is keyed to the highest pitch as he marches out with his placard: WELCOME GREAT PUMPKIN! His willed mania demonstrates that people would rather live drunk on false belief than sober on nothing at all, at whatever cost in ridicule. Schulz is saying: be careful what you believe.”
Though we as a culture have been spoiled with fascinating, absorbing artists, this book reminds me that we shouldn’t ask that artists be interesting. Their art should be enough. As it is with Peanuts. As it is with Michaelis’ mighty book....less
bookshelves:
non-fiction
Read in May, 2008
Strong, informative, authoritative biography of the creator and sole mastermind of Peanuts, a comic strip that ran for nearly 50 years and well, supply your own hyperbole and it will likely be true. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Pigpen, Violet, Sally, Woodstock, Schroeder, the Great Pumpkin, the Red Baron, the Little Red-Haired Girl, the woe, the joy, the endless stream of daily and Sunday strips, the TV specials, books, toys, phrases, clothing, feature films, theme mu...more
Strong, informative, authoritative biography of the creator and sole mastermind of Peanuts, a comic strip that ran for nearly 50 years and well, supply your own hyperbole and it will likely be true. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Pigpen, Violet, Sally, Woodstock, Schroeder, the Great Pumpkin, the Red Baron, the Little Red-Haired Girl, the woe, the joy, the endless stream of daily and Sunday strips, the TV specials, books, toys, phrases, clothing, feature films, theme music, and the list goes on and on. All sprung from the imagination of one man from St. Paul, Minnesota, one lonely, painfully shy, painfully insecure, and as painfully sure that he was destined to do one thing—be a cartoonist. Michaelis does a great job researching and telling Sparky’s life, the details of which we’ll be surprisingly familiar to readers even if all they’ve done is read the strip and not read any interviews or books about Schulz’s life. Why? Because as Michaelis makes clear much of Sparky’s life made it into the strip, disguised or not, from his dad’s barber shop—name and motto—to the names of his characters (there were three people Schulz knew named Charlie Brown, some Van Pelts, a Sherman, and even Snoopy was the name of the next dog Sparky’s mom was going to have if cancer didn’t take her agonizingly away after a long, traumatic battle as her newly adult son was leaving for military service in WW II; Spike was the name of the dog they did have), to the disguised agonizing Sparky did over falling in love in the early 70s with several women other than his wife. (Charlie Brown: “I wonder if it’s possible to be in love with two different girls at the same time…” Snoopy: “I remember once when I had two cookies…A chocolate chip and a peanut butter…and I loved them both.”) His first wife, Joyce, was the primary inspiration for Lucy, which may be all you need to know about why their long marriage was not destined to last forever. Michaelis effectively illustrates biographical and aesthetic points with an abundance of evidence from the strip—though oddly none of his other illustrations (beyond a few photographs of a decorated envelope and the like), which might have been not only helpful but fascinating. Schulz, a religious man, particularly in his last post-war years in Minnesota, drew cartoons for his church magazine. Also, before he became successful with Peanuts (originally titled Li’l Folks and changed by the syndicate to Peanuts due to a name conflict; Schulz hated the name Peanuts all the days of the strip’s life, by the way) he tried a number of different kinds of strips, including adventure series. Seeing how he illustrated and approached the writing to those would have been interesting. But, that aside, Michaelis does a great job of investigating and bringing Schulz and want made him and his strip unique to the page. There may be no definitive answer as to how Schulz could be determined and wishy-washy, shy and flirtatious, insecure and arrogant, humble (he knew he wasn’t Andrew Wyeth) and proud (he knew no one was a better cartoonist) sensitive and casually hurtful, a nervous wreck who showed up to his drawing board with a steady hand and brilliant imagination day after day until death and retirement arrived almost simultaneously fifty years after he began Peanuts. No definitive answer, lots of clues, and a strong biographical narrative by Michaelis gets us a close as we’re likely to get...less
Read in February, 2008
Heroes are a mixed bag. My hat's off to David Michaelis for showing me just how mixed, and mixed up, was Charles Schulz, a lifelong hero of mine. Given that nothing you've ever read before about Sparky Schulz was deeply researched or blunt, or had escaped the marketing factories that rumbled along in his wake, this book is a literal revelation.
The best parts for me were when Michaelis showed the word-for-word correspondence between comic strips and events in Schulz's life. His first wife WAS...more
Heroes are a mixed bag. My hat's off to David Michaelis for showing me just how mixed, and mixed up, was Charles Schulz, a lifelong hero of mine. Given that nothing you've ever read before about Sparky Schulz was deeply researched or blunt, or had escaped the marketing factories that rumbled along in his wake, this book is a literal revelation.
The best parts for me were when Michaelis showed the word-for-word correspondence between comic strips and events in Schulz's life. His first wife WAS Lucy. Snoopy's hot crush was also his creator's ("she had the softest paws!"). The second-best part was learning about the model for the Little Red-Haired Girl, the small-town Donna who turned Sparky down ... and deep in the book I realized for the first time that she had made the right decision! Like all unrequited loves, especially ones brooded upon by men for half a century, there turns out to be an instinctual reason why it didn't work out. The Little Red-Haired Girl knew what she was doing, but oh how it hurt ...
Also wonderful: this is Snoopy's biography, too. He was just as important to "Peanuts" and to Schulz as you ever imagined. He was born a mere dog, lived a scintillating life doing everything Sparky ever dreamed of and never did (Snoopy got tear-gassed during a '60s protest!), and finally diminished back into himself. The last strip Schulz ever drew shows Snoopy as a dog once again. "The dog realized that his father had never taught him to throw a snowball," reads the caption under a frustrated-looking Snoopy. This from the World War I Flying Ace?
The author is thorough, yes, to the point of exhaustion, but he pulls away from day-to-day charting of the strip during its last 25 years or so. This may sound like an omission, but it corresponds perfectly to the quality of the strip as read, and lived, by fans like me. It peaked in the mid-'50s to late 1960s. Its long halflife, as its vitality drained away, is best passed over quickly. Better, as Michaelis did, to focus on the points of genius: "A Charlie Brown Christmas," which is even more scriptural than Linus's speech from the Book of Luke. The incredible machine that transformed art into money -- perhaps "Peanuts"'s most lasting innovation. And the multifaceted, shifting, restless, aching imagination and ambition of Charles Schulz himself. Who, by the way, was a damn good athlete as a child.
There's a wonderful debate in here about whether, as romantics believe, a little mental illness helps creativity, or whether an unhappy soul like Schulz could have continued to feed his genius while also saving himself. Me, I would have slipped the man some Prozac. He would have been just as brilliant, just as disciplined, just as quirky. You don't have to live in hell to imagine it ... or to remember it. After all, Charlie Brown's creator was heard in a very late interview to remark, "You know, that poor kid, he never even got to kick the football. What a dirty trick." I wish Sparky could have kicked that football, too....less
bookshelves:
non-fiction
Read in May, 2008
Schultz and Peanuts has been sitting on my bookshelf since Christmas. I'm only getting around to it now because while I recognize the enormity of what Charles Schultz brought to the comics page and his undeniable impact on American culture... I never really loved Peanuts growing up. Oh I liked Peanuts... but I was growing up during the wonderful if all too brief boom period for American newspaper strips: The Far Side, Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes.... these strips really molded me as a comic...more
Schultz and Peanuts has been sitting on my bookshelf since Christmas. I'm only getting around to it now because while I recognize the enormity of what Charles Schultz brought to the comics page and his undeniable impact on American culture... I never really loved Peanuts growing up. Oh I liked Peanuts... but I was growing up during the wonderful if all too brief boom period for American newspaper strips: The Far Side, Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes.... these strips really molded me as a comic strip reader. Peanuts... well, it was good, but it was also omnipresent on commercials, bed sheets, school supplies and so on. I never really latched on.
In fact while I was growing up, I never understood why people loved Peanuts so much until a few years ago when Fantagraphics started releasing The Complete Peanuts collections- those terrific books really put me in my place and showed me Schultz's genius... although I do think I grew up reading Peanuts the strip's lesser days. The acidity that distinguished Peanuts in its heyday was all but gone from the strip. I remember joking with my comic friends in high school that it seemed like Peanuts was, for weeks on end, a kid talking to a basketball. Literally, Schultz did a half month of Rerun talking to a basketball.
That's one of the great things about Schultz and Peanuts- it puts those strips in context. Hell, the biography puts every strip in context, which is absolutely fascinating considering ol' Sparky was pretty staunchly opposed to people reading his comics as proxys for his own life... but Michaelis presents a really good argument for the way certain storylines were shaped by Schultz's life and times. Certainly this is a great, gripping read with exhaustive documentation and interviews from just about every person that could speak with knowledge on Charles Schultz and his life.
If I had to pick one thing that slightly bothered me about the book, I'd have to go with Michaelis' constant use of quotes from interviews that the cartoonist did over his forty-plus years producing the strip. Michaelis uses these quotes to underscore a lot of Schultz's inner turmoil and anguish... the very things that drive his artistic ability. I buy that completely but at the same time... I don't know. I would imagine that Charles Schultz is probably the most interviewed cartoonist in the history of comics. More, he seems like he genuinely didn't like to be interviewed. Putting that together, it seemed strange to me to hold so much stock in what Schultz said in these numerous interviews, especially since there was so much contradictory material there. Again, it's a virtue that Michaelis doesn't shy away from this fact but at the same time... I don't know. I just didn't enjoy that aspect of the book.
Small quibble, great book.
...less
Read in January, 2008
Charles Schulz was the polar opposite of his canine alter ego, Snoopy. The boisterous beagle throttled through life with playful self-confidence and gleefully flirted with Lucy despite her well-known revulsion when it came to dog lips. In contrast, Schulz—Sparky to friends and loved ones—spent his many years convinced no one truly loved him and falling to pieces in the presence of beautiful women.
The Schulz portrayed in David Michaelis’s stunning 655-page biography SCHULZ AND PEANUTS...more
Charles Schulz was the polar opposite of his canine alter ego, Snoopy. The boisterous beagle throttled through life with playful self-confidence and gleefully flirted with Lucy despite her well-known revulsion when it came to dog lips. In contrast, Schulz—Sparky to friends and loved ones—spent his many years convinced no one truly loved him and falling to pieces in the presence of beautiful women.
The Schulz portrayed in David Michaelis’s stunning 655-page biography SCHULZ AND PEANUTS is a complex and frustrating character. How can a man who achieved such recognition and acclaim for his art—not too mention incalculable riches born of television specials, plush toys and advertising deals—drift through life burdened by a heavy sense of failure? If Michaelis’s portrait is accurate (the Schulz family have criticized the book for the depressing portrayal of its subject), Schulz was incapable of finding happiness anywhere but at the drawing board.
Schulz was living any artist’s dream: Getting paid well to do what he was truly passionate about. Unfortunately, he seemed to possess no passion for the simple pleasures of everyday living. He had no desire to travel and wished only to sleep in his own bed at night. He found little happiness, according to the book, in his family. Honeymooning with his first wife, he told her, “I don’t think I can ever be happy.” Years later, while taking a trip with his second wife, the doting Jeannie, he told her he was lonely. Happiness simply eluded him like it did Charlie Brown.
As a young boy he faulted others for not seeing his artistic potential or recognizing his creative genius. When he got older, he dismissed those who sought to heap praise on him. He was too afraid to approach women, yet basked in the glow of their attention when they approached him and enjoyed flirting once the risk of rejection had passed. Schulz was an exercise in contradictions. Michaelis’s biography jumps from one Schulz neuroses to the other, at times making the reader want to reach inside the pages, grab Schulz by the shirt collar and scream, “Get over it!”
Any fan of the Peanuts strip (I’ve been one since childhood) knows Schulz suffered from self-doubt and the occasional bout of melancholy—but the true extent of his misery, as revealed in this book, is a great surprise. He refused to see a psychiatrist, fearing a cure of his various phobias might diminish his talents. In the end, Charles Schulz -- if the book is to be believed -- was happy being miserable....less
Read in February, 2008
Upon reviewing the completed manuscript, Charles Schulz's children berated his official biography, "Schulz and Peanuts," as being a bleak, unfairly miserly baring of the cartoonist's soul.
Indeed, Mr. Schulz seems never to have had a happy moment in his life which was not stolen from him, even in the face of extreme success. For instance, on his way to his honeymoon, Schulz was quoted as having said "I don't think I can ever be happy." And for his happiest memory (his ho...more
Upon reviewing the completed manuscript, Charles Schulz's children berated his official biography, "Schulz and Peanuts," as being a bleak, unfairly miserly baring of the cartoonist's soul.
Indeed, Mr. Schulz seems never to have had a happy moment in his life which was not stolen from him, even in the face of extreme success. For instance, on his way to his honeymoon, Schulz was quoted as having said "I don't think I can ever be happy." And for his happiest memory (his honoring by the National Cartoonists Society) being "the lonliest triumph of his life." In fact, one would be hard-pressed to open this 656-paged tome to a single random passage wherein the author describes the happiness of Charles M. Schulz.
Not that the book is without humor, of a sort. Much beloved is the anecdote about one of Mr. Schulz's final get-togethers with friends. Upon meeting an older lady for the first time, she remarked that it was interesting how Charles "Sparky" Schulz shared the same name with a cartoonist, not realizing him to be one in the same. Before parting company, though, the woman asked a nearby friend of hers whether or not the Peanuts creator Schulz had died.
Also fascinating is the inclusion of selected Peanuts strips throughout the years. Not merely placed for the sake of illustration, each included strip is given a wholly new context based upon the preceeding text. A sample: "It was the tenderness of the moment, Sir...Knowing that we were going off to camp..." says Marcie to her friend Peppermint Patty, on the subject of parting ways with Charlie Brown for a time, "And we may never see each other again..." However, immediately before this four-paneled strip, author David Michaelis described the manner in which Schulz parted ways with his dying mother in order to go to his army barracks for the first time.
It wasn't that the strip developed weak punchlines, but that the underlying depression made the palens that much more poignant.
All in all, though, Schulz is arguably portrayed as a gloomy, unhappy little man, and reading the book without being infected by some of this is extremely difficult, and in places laborious. It is by no means a "fluff" piece on the cartoonist's life, but unblinking and a little stark in places.
Charles Schulz truly was a master at taking the disappointments and depressions of life and making the world laugh at them for a time. It took a book of this magnitude to show exactly how miserable the poor bastard really was....less
bookshelves:
biography,
comics
Read in March, 2008
recommended to Chadwick by:
Bill Watterson
recommends it for:
people who love biography, people who love Peanuts
This may really be the first critical biography ever written about a comics artist. The format is revolutionary, actually using the strips to highlight the events of Schulz's life and how he expressed what he felt and thought in the day to day unfolding of Peanuts. If Michaelis is right, and his extensive, exhaustive research seems to support him in this, Schulz may have been one of the most autobiographically transparent artists of the 20th century. Some of his strips are downright cr...more
This may really be the first critical biography ever written about a comics artist. The format is revolutionary, actually using the strips to highlight the events of Schulz's life and how he expressed what he felt and thought in the day to day unfolding of Peanuts. If Michaelis is right, and his extensive, exhaustive research seems to support him in this, Schulz may have been one of the most autobiographically transparent artists of the 20th century. Some of his strips are downright creepy after reading this.
This book is flawed by the fact that Michaelis seems to lose interest in his subject when he attains relative happiness, skipping through the last 20 years of his life in a fraction of the space given to the first 60 or thereabouts. He also does a disservice to the quality of his strips in his later years, in my opinion. They are less cruel, true, and a little more cute or gimmicky at times. But they also have the formal clarity of an artist at the very peak of his abilities, an almost calligraphic purity that I feel makes up for the lack of pain and reflection, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. But otherwise, this is a damned fine biography.
I understand that some of Schulz's family were unhappy with Michaelis's portrayal of their Sparky, and I can certainly see that. What we see of him is a bitter, vengeful, terrified man who had real difficulties showing and receiving affection. We don't really get to see the parts of him that made up to his family for all of that, we just have to take their word for it. Honestly though, I can understand it if Michaelis raced to the end on this one. I mean, this doorstop is researched down to the molecular level. All in all, a grand achievement, and a book that really enriches my appreciation of the subject's body of work....less
Read in May, 2008
A good read, but a tough read. Sparky Schulz led a charmed, albeit, imperfect life. It's funny how a man who touched so many people with his colloquial wisdom didn't leave much for himself. He was a good person, whatever that means, but he battled with depression, self-doubt and old-fashioned crankiness. Michaelis does an excellent job of picking apart Schulz's life from cradle to grave, painting an intimate portrait of a very private man.
I picked this book up because I love Peanuts ...more
A good read, but a tough read. Sparky Schulz led a charmed, albeit, imperfect life. It's funny how a man who touched so many people with his colloquial wisdom didn't leave much for himself. He was a good person, whatever that means, but he battled with depression, self-doubt and old-fashioned crankiness. Michaelis does an excellent job of picking apart Schulz's life from cradle to grave, painting an intimate portrait of a very private man.
I picked this book up because I love Peanuts and I heard that Schulz's family was pissed off about how much Michaelis was able to glean from hundred's of interviews, some of them with Sparky himself. Schulz lived a life I can only dream of now. He did what he loved and had the pleasure of other people loving what he did. He never understood why, not until after he retired, when he realized that the emotional connection that he made with his readers is what made the experience worthwhile. Still, happiness was always fleeting for Sparky. His first marriage was rich with children, however his first wife was the inspiration for Lucy. His second marriage was full of love, but there was friction there too. Nothing was perfect for Sparky, except for his work.
There was a lot to be gained from reading and digesting this bio, but it can be summed up with a quote from Schulz at the end of the book...
He was putting together a best of collection of strips just after his retirement (due to colon cancer). When all of the strips for the book were assembled, he had a realization: "Charlie Brown never got to kick that football." Fifty years of strips and not once did Lucy let Charlie Brown have his day. "What a dirty trick!" Schulz exclaimed.
What a dirty trick indeed. ...less
Read in February, 2008
I think the reason I had trouble getting through this is because I think Peanuts is depressing on the whole. It is a world where you lose your voice as an adult, girls screw with boys and a beagle's dream world is much more thrilling than reality.
The writing was stellar, and the hook of following the man from his first strip to his last was a great framing device for a man who is made out to be such an iconic figure. A true product of the Midwest's flat landscape, you have to look ...more
I think the reason I had trouble getting through this is because I think Peanuts is depressing on the whole. It is a world where you lose your voice as an adult, girls screw with boys and a beagle's dream world is much more thrilling than reality.
The writing was stellar, and the hook of following the man from his first strip to his last was a great framing device for a man who is made out to be such an iconic figure. A true product of the Midwest's flat landscape, you have to look hard and close at him to see the fractures and character. As Michaelis looked at how Schulz' mother's death and experiences in World War II, the reader can see where the melancholy tone of the comics came from and why that tone never wholly went away. His wounds were deep and could not be completely hidden in the simplicity of his work.
Peanuts seems so much richer to me now, which shadows of death and war in every strip. And as I, like many, like the earlier work better than where the strip ended, I liked how the book did not shy away from how much looser and less focused the strip became as Schulz' life moved from the Midwest to new life he led in California. To quote Rich Cohen in the LA Times, "He got better at being human right up to the moment he ceased to exist, but he lost his talent as he lost his rage and became less of an artist as he became more of a person."
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bookshelves:
biography,
on-the-shadow-side
Read in May, 2008
I loved the latter parts of this biography--i.e. once Michaelis got to Schultz's own life. Were I rating its second half alone, I'd give Schulz a 5-star review. To me, the book read much more slowly during its account of the cartoonist's family of origin and youth, however. So I have to settle for a 4-star rating after all (i.e. taking into account its 3-star beginning).
As we all know, Schultz was enigmatic and extremely complex. Michaelis writes with discerning wisdom about Sc...more
I loved the latter parts of this biography--i.e. once Michaelis got to Schultz's own life. Were I rating its second half alone, I'd give Schulz a 5-star review. To me, the book read much more slowly during its account of the cartoonist's family of origin and youth, however. So I have to settle for a 4-star rating after all (i.e. taking into account its 3-star beginning).
As we all know, Schultz was enigmatic and extremely complex. Michaelis writes with discerning wisdom about Schultz's life and work through his Peanuts comic strip. The book is rife with incisive insights about Schultz, this country, and his impressive legacy as a cartoonist and social commentator.
Rather than giving up or discarding the book if you don't find it engrossing at the outset, I'd encourage similarly inclined readers to persevere. But do feel free to skim the slower, earlier parts. The latter chapters will surely reward those of us who reach 'em.
They were full of surprises about his unlikely personal life. Not surprisingly, there is plenty of autobiographical material about Schultz and his own experiences and relationships in Peanuts. Yet it's especially interesting how Michaelis weaves the strips so seamlessly, provocatively, and revealingly into his (mostly chronological) prose narrative about the enigmatic cartoonist....less
Read in March, 2008
One of the most extensively researched, indepth artist biographies I've read...with the hundred-odd pages of source notes to back it up. Schulz delivers on the intimate portrait its subject that is promised, using scores of interviews and years of research to cobble together an indepth look into the psyche of the father of Peanuts. Michaelis seriously spends a solid chapter talking about the whole Lucy-pulling-away-the-football gag, and how it and Lucy at large are representative o...more
One of the most extensively researched, indepth artist biographies I've read...with the hundred-odd pages of source notes to back it up. Schulz delivers on the intimate portrait its subject that is promised, using scores of interviews and years of research to cobble together an indepth look into the psyche of the father of Peanuts. Michaelis seriously spends a solid chapter talking about the whole Lucy-pulling-away-the-football gag, and how it and Lucy at large are representative of Charles Schulz's fear of domineering, strong women that exists concurrently with a need to have those women in his life (a massive oversimplification from the interpretation the author posits). This insight, along with many others throughout the book, shows how heavily autobiographical Peanuts was, a point further demonstrated by the placement of many strips from across it's five-decade run throughout the biography at the rough chronological point when the strip's events are occurring. For some readers, it may destroy the perceived innocence of the characters and the strip to see how certain panels reflect, say, his marital infidelity and divorce. But to paraphrase a point that Schulz himself often makes, it is hugely naive to presume his characters are innocent....less
bookshelves:
books
Read in November, 2007
I, for the most part, found this book to be an enjoyable read. I loved how honestly Michaelis portrayed Schulz as basically an asshole, because, it seems, that he actually was. My only gripe with the book is how repetitive it can get. Michaelis regurgitates a lot of what he already establishes earlier on in the biography (i.e. Sparky's insecurities and self pity and etc.) He even repeats comic strips even though Schulz had made 18,000 to choose from. There were also segments in the book whe...more
I, for the most part, found this book to be an enjoyable read. I loved how honestly Michaelis portrayed Schulz as basically an asshole, because, it seems, that he actually was. My only gripe with the book is how repetitive it can get. Michaelis regurgitates a lot of what he already establishes earlier on in the biography (i.e. Sparky's insecurities and self pity and etc.) He even repeats comic strips even though Schulz had made 18,000 to choose from. There were also segments in the book where instead of Michaelis describing a strip I would have rather seen it for myself, like Schulz's last strip. Michaelis also showed no restrain whatsoever in introducing so many people, most being unimportant, in my opinion. I could never keep straight who was who in Schulz's family such ashis cousins and what not. I did, however, like a lot of the family dynamic, with Schulz's kids, that Michaelis brought up. I wish he stayed more with Schulz's life and what as happening rather then dissecting Schulz's psyche over and over again. The book could have seriously been two hundred pages shorter, easily....less
bookshelves:
biography,
pop-culture
Read in January, 2008
I originally rated this book four stars (really 3.5, rounded up), but the more I think about it, the more irritated I get. I'm knocking it down to a three.
This was another of those biographies that crossed the line from comprehensive to bloated. It could easily have been edited down by 100 or 200 pages and it would have been a much better book. And since I have so many other books lined up that I'm eager to read (before they're due back at the library), the extra day or two it cost me to ...more
I originally rated this book four stars (really 3.5, rounded up), but the more I think about it, the more irritated I get. I'm knocking it down to a three.
This was another of those biographies that crossed the line from comprehensive to bloated. It could easily have been edited down by 100 or 200 pages and it would have been a much better book. And since I have so many other books lined up that I'm eager to read (before they're due back at the library), the extra day or two it cost me to wade through inconsequential details and repetitive analysis of Schulz's psychological quirks really aggravated me.
I'm old enough to remember when Peanuts was a huge pop-culture phenomenon. I read the daily comic strip, bought the books, watched the TV specials, and owned a stuffed Snoopy. I came to this book as a fan; after reading this book, I still love Peanuts, but I found less to admire in Charles Schulz as a person than I thought I would. That's not necessarily the author's fault, but his incessant harping on Schulz's more annoying traits sure didn't help....less
bookshelves:
comic-strip
Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who ever loved Snoopy
I was hesitant to read this book, upon learning that the Schulz family was upset by the author's choices in the biography. But after reading Bill Watterson's (creator of Calvin & Hobbes) review of it in the Wall Street Journal, I reconsidered - requested it from my local library - & plunged in.
I found the first few chapters a little dry, as is the case with a lot of biographies. Learning about so-&-so's grandparents can be a little long-winded.
Michaelis can be a litt...more
I was hesitant to read this book, upon learning that the Schulz family was upset by the author's choices in the biography. But after reading Bill Watterson's (creator of Calvin & Hobbes) review of it in the Wall Street Journal, I reconsidered - requested it from my local library - & plunged in.
I found the first few chapters a little dry, as is the case with a lot of biographies. Learning about so-&-so's grandparents can be a little long-winded.
Michaelis can be a little repetitive in his renderings of Schulz, but as a whole I found his analysis & conversations with people in Charles Schulz's life to be very informing. Interspersed throughout the book are comic strip selections that offer surprising glimpses of his life's content emerging through.
Learning about Charles Schulz & seeing more directly into the world where he lived was really fascinating to me. I'm glad I'm my current age, though - if I had read this as a teenager, I might have been totally crushed....less
bookshelves:
biography
Huh. I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. It was tremendously well researched and written -- if a bit repetitive. What bugs me is that Michaelis doesn't seem to like Charles Schulz at all. Schulz comes off as a passive-aggressive jerk. Michaelis doesn't seem to find any redeeming features in his subject. But having read this, I don't think I would have been able to deal with Schulz and his emotional manipulation -- maybe that's how Michaelis felt while revising!
The best part...more
Huh. I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. It was tremendously well researched and written -- if a bit repetitive. What bugs me is that Michaelis doesn't seem to like Charles Schulz at all. Schulz comes off as a passive-aggressive jerk. Michaelis doesn't seem to find any redeeming features in his subject. But having read this, I don't think I would have been able to deal with Schulz and his emotional manipulation -- maybe that's how Michaelis felt while revising!
The best part of the book is how the author uses Peanuts strips to illustrate what was going on in Schulz's life. It's kind of amazing to note how MEAN Lucy was when Schulz was unhappily married, and how she mellowed out when he was happily remarried.
Is there a Jim Henson biography? I think all I need at this point is to read he was womanizer who kicked puppies and my childhood will be ruined....less
bookshelves:
audio-book-on-hard-drive
Read in December, 2007
This is the biography of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, or Sparky, as I learned in the book was his lifelong nickname. I enjoyed the view this book afforded into his life, and was fascinated by some of the parallels between his messed up life and mine (hey, maybe I'll be making $4000 a day soon (if only I could draw), like he was back in the 70's!!!).
I did feel that this biography was way too superficial. At one point the author skips 25 years in the course of a couple of paragraphs. I cou...more
This is the biography of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, or Sparky, as I learned in the book was his lifelong nickname. I enjoyed the view this book afforded into his life, and was fascinated by some of the parallels between his messed up life and mine (hey, maybe I'll be making $4000 a day soon (if only I could draw), like he was back in the 70's!!!).
I did feel that this biography was way too superficial. At one point the author skips 25 years in the course of a couple of paragraphs. I could also have appreciated more discussion of Sparky's cartoons and how his life situations influenced them. There is a little of this in the book, but only a handful of instances.
Still, I very much enjoyed it but due to the above I cannot give it 5 stars. I hope someone else either complements this book or publishes a more complete and better researched one....less
Read in May, 2008
David Michaelis did a good job illuminating the true story of a person who, no matter how well known he became, never really let anyone get to know him. This biography is obviously well-researched, and Michaelis must have had unprecedented access to the people in Charles Schulz's life. The other great point of this is the use of Peanuts strips to illustrate points from Schulz's life--it's really fascinating to see how these beloved strips were truly taken almost word for word from moments that...more
David Michaelis did a good job illuminating the true story of a person who, no matter how well known he became, never really let anyone get to know him. This biography is obviously well-researched, and Michaelis must have had unprecedented access to the people in Charles Schulz's life. The other great point of this is the use of Peanuts strips to illustrate points from Schulz's life--it's really fascinating to see how these beloved strips were truly taken almost word for word from moments that really happened. With that said...how many times can you tell me that Charles Schulz was depressed and felt that no one loved him? And are we supposed to excuse some of his nastier behavior because he was lonely as a kid? I did like the book, but it was kind of sad to learn that one of the world's beloved cartoonists was actually kind of a jerkface....less
bookshelves:
biography
Read in November, 2007
A fine, exhaustive text is well-organized and knowledgeable....Michaelis offers considerable insight into the semiotics of comics and the psyche of a master of the craft. All that's needed about a prodigy of American cultural history
To great effect, Michaelis mixes his text with 130 reprinted b&w comic strips, each of which drives home his points better than a full page of words could. There are also two 16-page photo inserts. This is important in a book like this one where Schulz's g...more
A fine, exhaustive text is well-organized and knowledgeable....Michaelis offers considerable insight into the semiotics of comics and the psyche of a master of the craft. All that's needed about a prodigy of American cultural history
To great effect, Michaelis mixes his text with 130 reprinted b&w comic strips, each of which drives home his points better than a full page of words could. There are also two 16-page photo inserts. This is important in a book like this one where Schulz's graphic art took the place of words.
The LA Times had an article recently saying that the family is all a-twitter over this book. From what I have been reading lately that's always the way with biographers and family, i.e. Shoot The Widow (Meryle Seacrest) and Biography (Nigel Hamilton)
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Read in June, 2008
I'm always hesitant to read biographies of people I admire, afraid of risking becoming disenchanted with a hero. I knew before reading Michaelis' work that Schulz was a conflicted man, but aren't we all? The Schulz family's disputes with Michaelis over the portayal of their father are probaly partially founded, but I can only imagine it's difficult to see someone so close to your heart in an objective light.
I walked away from this read still loving Sparky Schulz and seeing new layers of ...more
I'm always hesitant to read biographies of people I admire, afraid of risking becoming disenchanted with a hero. I knew before reading Michaelis' work that Schulz was a conflicted man, but aren't we all? The Schulz family's disputes with Michaelis over the portayal of their father are probaly partially founded, but I can only imagine it's difficult to see someone so close to your heart in an objective light.
I walked away from this read still loving Sparky Schulz and seeing new layers of richness to the Peanuts strip that I hadn't before. Schulz said that he never intended Peanuts as a strip for children and revisiting them as an adult opens them in a whole new way to me. Cheers to Sparky and long live the WW1 Flying Ace!...less
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