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Peanuts Coronet #4

Who Do You Think You Are, Charlie Brown?

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Classic Peanuts strips

132 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

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About the author

Charles M. Schulz

3,015 books1,662 followers
Charles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”

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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
Profile Image for Keris.
Author 23 books523 followers
May 26, 2013
Went into a charity bookshop yesterday and they had a whole shelf of Peanuts books. I couldn't pick just one, so I got Joe to pick one for me and this is the one he chose. Read it today and loved it. Brought back so many childhood memories and there were quite a few pages I knew Harry would love, so showed him and he did. Will be saving this for him to read when he's older and will head back to that shop and pick up some more as soon as I can.
Profile Image for Patrick.
Author 4 books20 followers
November 27, 2021
The late 50s and early 60s was Peanuts at its peak. The cast was relatively compact, Snoopy was still more dog than human, Linus and Lucy were at their most contentious, and lines like "The struggle for security knows no season" and "This world is filled with people who are anxious to function in an advisory capacity" put the strip leagues beyond its contemporaries.

This is a selection of Sunday Peanuts from '58 to '61, reproduced in black and white, usually over two pages, with the panels lightly scattered over the pages and the art sometimes outside the panels' borders. It captures the strip at its best, serving as almost a greatest-hits collection; the series where Linus is discovers to his terror that he can make it stop raining is here, as is the legendary "What do you see in the clouds" strip.

If Charles Schulz had followed Bill Watterson's career path and retired after ten years, this would have been one of his last works - and, as with Watterson, he would have been going out on top. The fact that we still had Peppermint Patty, a schoolgoing Sally (she's just a baby here), and the World War I flying ace to look forward to shows how much Schulz gave his readers, and why he's one of the all time greats.
Profile Image for Remo.
2,553 reviews195 followers
May 14, 2022
Mi padre leía pocos tebeos, pero de los peanuts tenía por lo menos quince libros en sus estanterías. En el proceso natural de absorción y descarte de las estanterías de mi padre descubrí a Charlie Brown, el antihéroe, y a Snoopy y a Woodstock, héroes peculiares, y a Linus y su manta, y a Schroeder y su piano, y a Lucy, enamorada de Schroeder, y a Patty y a Sally, y a todos los demás. De trazo simple, con líneas argumentales que oscilaban entre una y doscientas tiras, Charles Schulz creó durante 50 años (solo Ibáñez ha sido más prolífico durante más tiempo) un pequeño universo al que he vuelto alguna vez, para comprobar con gusto que, si bien ya no me llama como antes, no ha envejecido mal.
Hay tantas tiras (más de 18.000 en 50 años, se dice pronto) que, como dicen de los Simpson, toda cosa que pase ha salido ya probablemente en una tira de Charlie Brown. Las leí sobre todo entre mis 10 y mis 15 años, pero cuando me he cruzado con alguna en años posteriores ha seguido aguantando el tipo y, por supuesto, se aprecian má mensajes destinados al adulto. La maravilla de las cosas bien hechas, que apelan a todos los públicos. Altamente recomendable.
Profile Image for Seham.
154 reviews54 followers
Read
February 8, 2020
أيقنت حقيقة كم أنه من السهل على البعض تقمص ما يشاؤون من شخصيات بعدد الاعيبهم واكاذيبهم وسوء افعالهم . تعلمنا الا نتبع مجهولا لم نختبر منه سوى الأذى والكذب واختلاق الترهات. الم تحفر لنا فخاخا، الم تتبعنا وتراقبنا سنينا. الم تصنع من ايامنا واحداثها لبا لقصص ملفقة كل نهاية منها اسوأ من الاخرى. الم تفرض علينا الصمت رغم اننا كنا صامتين بارادتنا سنينا. الم تشا الا ان نقبل تجرع الذل والاسى والهوان وان نتقبل طعمه و ان نستلذ به حتى يصبح طعاما وشرابا لا يستغني عنه.وفوق كل هذا من انت لنخضع لك، من انت لنركع تحت اقدام لا نعرف اين تتجه. من تقاضى راتبا من شركة عنوانها الامر والذل والانصياع في بلد ضاق طعم الحرية يوما فما نساه لم يكن منا. انا لا اتبع من سعى لاذيني، ، ثم ادعى انه يحاول تخليصي مما حل بي، وكل هذا لاحمل جميلا عمرا مديدا وليغسل دماغي وتغمض عيني فلا ارى امامي واعمل بلا مقابل لاشخاص كل همهم في الحياة هو طمس كينونتي وافكاري التي لا تختلف عن افكار اي انسان عربي مسلم معتدل، هذا ما تربينا عليه ونشأنا فيه. لا أقبل نصحك، ادعائك الوعظ او ارشادك....اذهب في سبيلك...وليتق كل عبد ربه فيما راى ويرى....ويعرف.
Profile Image for Thom Swennes.
1,822 reviews57 followers
June 14, 2014
This is a 1958 publication of the Peanuts gang I grew up with. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a drawing by Charles Schultz will certainly double that. Even without the text his doodles can’t help but bring a smile to your eyes and a laugh to your lips. I have read these book innumerable times at different times in my life and the characters remain fresh and inspiring. The brain children of Schultz are guaranteed to cure what ails you, whether it is depression or pain a dose of Snoopy and Charlie Brown is sure to help you recover. This is the perfect toilet companion. It fills your soul while you are emptying your bowels; in with the good and out with the bad. This book is sure to find a special place in your heart and your library
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews