Lindsay's review of Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis
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 t...more
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 t...more
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