From peanuts to cult comics

In the great family of comics, the most media representatives are of course the superheroes. From Spider-Man to Superman, including Batman, Hellboy, Invincible and even the anti heroes of The boys, they are everywhere and flood the market with a whole lot of adventure. However, the comics are not limited to that and from Calvin and Hobbes to The Walking Dead or Y the last man, a whole universe exists outside of these huge franchises. If here we adore people in clingy handing out pif stuff, it is saving to take a little break and talk about a mainstay of comics, and even of global comics: Peanuts. 

It all starts with an author: Charles Monroe Schulz. Son of immigrants (his father is German, his mother Norwegian.), He was born in 1922, then once his "classical" schooling was completed, his parents registered him by correspondence at the Federal School of art. 3 years later, he graduated, but was immediately called by the army to go and fight in Europe. At the same time, her mother died of cancer. Once back, he decides to work in publishing and works for timeless topix (a catholic publishing house) under the signature of Sparky.

Between 1947 and 1950 he also wrote (still under the name Sparky) a weekly strip titled Li'l Folks for the Saint-Paul Pioneer Press, a newspaper in his hometown. Paid $ 10 a week, Schulz will ask for a raise after two years, even refuse it and therefore quit the newspaper.

That same year 1950, UFS (United Feature Syndicate) contacted him and expressed his interest in the artist's work. Schulz then moved to New York and offered a reworked version of Li'l Folks. On October 2 the first Peanuts strip is published. For the record, Schulz wanted to call his comic "Good Ol 'Charlie Brown" but United Feature imposed the name Peanuts on the author, a name he hated above all, having the impression that it insulted his humor while finesse.

From the start, a space-saving 4-compartment format was imposed on Schulz due to a shortage of paper and space saving. If Snoopy does not appear in the first story, he made his appearance on October 4, 1950

Schulz goes strip after strip to refine his universe, revealing at the end of the year the black indentations on Charlie Brown's T-shirt, then Violette and Schroeder in 1951 and Lucy and Linus in 1952. 1952 is also the year in which Schultz publishes his first Sunday sheet which occupies half of a newspaper page and therefore allows him to free himself from the constraint of 4 boxes.

Published in more than 40 newspapers, Peanuts gradually became known to the general public to the point that Kodak made the characters the stars of a photographic manual: The Brownie Book of Picture Taking

We are now in 1965, the series is published in more than 350 newspapers, but also abroad (for example Peanuts was published in Spirou from 1962.), won many prizes including that of "best humoristic strip of the 'year' by the National Cartoonist Society and the Peanuts even made the front page of Time Magazine (before making it to Life Magazine two years later)

1965 was also the year in which the Peanuts' first TV special (A Charlie Brown Christmas) landed on the small screen, winning an Emmy awards and more than fifty million spectators.

In 1975, Snoopy and his friends celebrated their 25th anniversary and appeared in over 1,400 newspapers with a total of approximately 90,000,000 readers.

In the mid-1980s, the series entered the Guinness Book after having sold to the 2000th newspaper although the competition began to stiffen with the appearance of Garfield (1978) and Calvin & Hobbes (1985).

Victim of a heart attack and then of cancer Schulz announces to withdraw from the drawing in December 1999. The last daily strip published will be on January 3, 2000. Charles M Schulz will die 40 days later.

There has been no new Snoopy story on paper since. On the screen, on the other hand, things move a little more with several TV films inspired by comics, but also a pleasant film released in 2015 at the cinema as well as two new series on Apple TV + in recent months.

What about figurine level? Well let's start with the Snoopy VCDs that delight young and old with a very sweet price and many details

GET THEM HERE

Then let's continue with the range of reaction figures dedicated to the series which offers you, in a sublime vintage packaging, all your favorite heroes.

GET THEM HERE

At Leblon Delienne, Schulz's work also has the right to be highlighted with several sublime statuettes.

GET THEM HERE

Finally, Medicom Toy also took over Peanuts to make several Bearbricks, each more charming than the next.

GET THEM HERE