Sparky
Page 4
For the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, in June 1994, Sparky decided to draw a special Sunday strip, because that would allow enough space to tell the story. He started by reading books and articles about the history of D-Day. He studied photographs about the invasion. He wanted to get every detail exactly right. He even studied photographs of English telephone booths!
For almost a month, he puzzled over the best way to portray this important event in U.S. history. Then, during his research, he discovered a wonderful fact: The general in charge of Germany’s forces, the brilliant Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, was leaving Normandy on June 5, the day before the invasion, to celebrate his wife’s birthday at home in Germany. Rommel would not be in France where the secret invasion was to take place. “Aha!” thought Sparky. Now he knew how to tell the story.
Not every strip Sparky created required research. Many of them came to him out of the blue. Sometimes an idea popped into his mind while he walked to his studio after breakfast. Or in the middle of the night. Or in the shower. Or while he was doodling at his drawing board. He could never predict when an idea would hatch. One day he might think of ten good ideas. The next day he might not be able to think of a single idea. “It’s hard to convince people when you’re just staring out of the window that you’re doing your hardest work of the day,” he said.
He liked to plan the strips for the week as a whole. That meant ideas for six strips plus the larger Sunday strip, every single week. Maybe he would use a baseball story or a back-to-school story. He liked to vary the pace in his strips. He felt he could draw a serious subject for one or two days, then the next day Sparky said he might show Snoopy simply watching his friend Woodstock (the bird) bouncing up and down.
“I have a good group,” he said. The characters worked well together. He could choose any one of them to create a story. He said that drawing a strip every single day meant you had to “use everything you know, everything you read, everything that happens to you.” Often he worked on future strips in case he got sick and couldn’t work for a day or two.
Sparky prided himself on always drawing and writing his own strips. He was the only cartoonist who managed to do that for fifty years. He tried to keep his drawings simple and “pleasant to look at.” And always funny. He once told an interviewer that he wanted to be remembered for making people happy.
At first, Sparky felt that his drawing was more important than the writing, but then he changed his mind. He realized that his writing was equally important.
Because he never used swear words, Sparky coined his own unique phrases to show his characters’ strong feelings: A determined Lucy, who was often frustrated, might shout “Rats!” Or a disappointed Charlie Brown might sigh and mutter, “Good grief.” Or a sensitive Linus might wrap himself in his security blanket and say nothing. (“Security blanket” even ended up in the dictionary.)
No matter where Sparky lived, his work was influenced by the changing seasons of his Midwestern childhood. In the spring, the kids were out on the baseball diamond, trying to win a game. At the same time, Charlie Brown was trying to fly a kite, which usually got caught in a tree. Each fall, Lucy would hold up the football for Charlie Brown and pull the ball away just as he was about to kick it. (Good grief!) And of course, each fall in both the comic strip and the Halloween television program, Linus could be found in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear.
The team rarely won a baseball game. Charlie Brown never had a chance to kick the football or fly the kite, and the Great Pumpkin never appeared. But that didn’t mean the kids would stop trying to win or fly or kick or wait. Their determination kept them going and left the reader with the hope that things might change for the better. After all, Sparky had to wait until he was seventy-two to make his first hole-in-one on the golf course.
(ELEVEN)
Drawing on the Wall
Throughout his life, Sparky may have collected insults, but those were outnumbered by his awards. Beginning with the Reuben trophies, he won Emmys for his television shows, a Peabody Award for a 1983 television special, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, induction into the Cartoonist Hall of Fame, and many more. He might have explained that his honors were important, but his insults were funnier.
Sparky once told an Ohio journalist, “I’m a little bit of all the characters because that’s what I draw. I used to be more Lucy than I am now . . . but I’ve learned to temper my sarcastic remarks.” Charlie Brown, the central character, is usually in a quandary. He reflects Sparky’s insecurity and his perseverance. Lucy has his insight and sometimes his anger. Linus has his curiosity and inquisitiveness. Schroeder, his wisdom as well as his love of classical music. Snoopy is the daredevil Sparky wanted to be—the lover, famous author, war hero, and always the dreamer. Readers, too, may find their own personality quirks in the strips. Sparky could control and develop all his characters, but he could not always control his own physical condition. In September 1981, Sparky had open-heart surgery after the doctor told him he had blocked arteries that would prevent him from playing ice hockey, tennis, or golf—all the activities he loved. At first, he was scared just thinking about being cut open and having his heart repaired. He almost decided not to do it. But then he realized he wanted to continue all his activities, and that meant he had to go ahead with the surgery.
For a few days after the surgery, Sparky was quite weak. The doctor told Sparky he had to get out of bed and move around, and he also had to blow into a spirometer to clear out his lungs and prevent any complications, such as pneumonia.
One day, when one of his nurses asked him to draw Snoopy on the wall of his room, he told her he was not strong enough. But Sparky could never turn off his imagination, and in the middle of the night he had an idea. The next morning, he picked up the felt-tip pen his nurse had left on the nightstand, and started drawing a life-sized version of Snoopy on the wall, taking a deep breath and trying to “blow, blow, blow” hard enough to make the small balls in the spirometer rise to the top of the tube. He knew that future patients in that hospital room would share his and Snoopy’s experience: it hurts to exercise your lungs after surgery. Sparky hoped his drawing might inspire them to keep blowing even though it hurt, and to keep laughing, which would also help their recovery.
SPARKY WITH CHARLIE BROWN, LUCY, AND SNOOPY AS HIS STAR IS PLACED ON HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD / JUNE 28, 1996
Gradually, Sparky was able to resume the strips and play tennis and golf and ice-skate. In the ’80s he didn’t have the same energy he had when he was younger, and he complained about that, but he was still able to play rugged ice hockey with his team and to come up with new insights for the kids in Peanuts. In the ’80s he experimented by breaking away from three or four panels to try one long panel. Sometimes he used a single caption instead of speech balloons. And he always worked hard to make the strips better and more interesting.
His own life was changing, too. In 1974, daughter Meredith had a child, Sparky’s first grandchild. Sparky had enjoyed his own children, and now they were all having children. Shortly after his surgery, Craig’s wife gave birth to a grandson. Over the years, Amy and her husband had nine children and brought all of them to visit Sparky. She said he was wonderful for about an hour, drawing Snoopys and playing blocks. Then he had to get back to his life and the strip.
He began including stories about wise grandfathers in the strips, even though they were off the page, just as the parents and teachers had been. Sparky said there “was no room for adults” in his strips. They were too tall to fit in the space, and they didn’t belong to the kids’ world. But he could have Charlie Brown talk about his dad who loved being a barber, or Linus talk about his great-grandfather who always came early to ball games. It was a way he could add the generations and point to the way life used to be.
Sparky himself didn’t like “being old.” He didn’t like having a tremor in his drawing hand, or not being able to keep up with all the young people at the skating rink, or wit
h his busy family.
In mid-November 1999, Sparky, in terrible pain from a blocked abdominal artery, was rushed to the hospital. His doctors discovered that he had advanced colon cancer. He was still in the hospital through Thanksgiving and his seventy-seventh birthday on November 26. He decided to retire from creating the strip so that he could deal with his medical problems. As readers heard about his illness, they sent affectionate fan letters to Sparky. Huge bags of mail arrived in his office every day.
SPARKY DRAWING CHARLIE BROWN / C. 1978
After having created nearly 18,000 strips in more than 2,600 newspapers around the world, Sparky’s final cartoon strip appeared on Sunday, February 13, 2000.
Sparky died in his sleep on the night of February 12, the night before his final strip appeared. He had accomplished his dream by becoming one of the best cartoonists of his time, drawing the funny pictures that made people happy every single day.
SPARKY’S FINAL STRIP, FEBRUARY 13, 2000
SPARKY WITH HIS DOG ANDY / C. 1990
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Bang, Derrick with Victor Lee. 50 Years of Happiness: A Tribute to Charles Schulz. Peanuts Collector Club.1999.
Inge, M. Thomas, ed. Charles M. Schulz: Conversations. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, October 2000.
Johnson, Rheta Grimsley. Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz. New York: Pharos Books, 1989.
Michaelis, David. Schulz and Peanuts. New York: Harper, October 2007.
Schulz, Charles M. Around the World in 45 Years. Kansas City, Missouri: United Feature Syndicate, Inc., October 1994.
——. Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me: And all the other Peanuts Characters. Edited by R. Smith Kiliper. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1980.
——. The Complete Peanuts. Edited by Gary Groth. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2004.
——. Peanuts Jubilee: My Life and Art with Charlie Brown and Others. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.
——. Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz. Edited by Chip Kidd. New York: Pantheon Books, 2001.
Schuman, Michael A. Charles M. Schulz: Cartoonist and Creator of Peanuts. Berkeley Heights, New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., March 2002.
Magazines and Newspapers
Curiel, Jonathan and Pamela J. Podger. “Farewell to Schulz, Peanuts.” San Francisco Chronicle, February 14, 2000, A-1.
Groth, Gary, ed. The Comics Journal, No. 290 (1998): 26-111.
Miller, Johnny. “Charles Schulz Moved to California in 1958.” San Francisco Chronicle, January 20, 2008, N-60.
Author Interviews
Jeannie Schulz (wife of Charles M. Schulz), various interviews, November 11,2006-December 20, 2008.
Monte Schulz (son of Charles M. Schulz), May 14, 2007.
Amy Schulz Johnson (daughter of Charles M. Schulz), January 4, 2008.
Jill Schulz Transki (daughter of Charles M. Schulz), March 6, 2008.
Television Programs
American Masters Series. “Good ’Ol Charles Schulz,” first broadcast on October 29, 2007, by PBS. A Lumiere, tpt, and Thirteen/WNET production, directed by David Van Taylor.
A Charlie Brown Christmas, first broadcast on December 9,1965, by CBS. Directed by Bill Meléndez and written by Charles M. Schulz.
It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, first broadcast on October 27, 1966, by CBS. Directed by Bill Meléndez and written by Charles M. Schulz.
Unpublished Material
Hnidkova, Alena, PhD. “Remembering Charles Schulz,” (undated).
Shanahan, Dan. “Critique of Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis,” (undated).
IMAGE CREDITS
All cartoon strips: PEANUTS © United Feature Syndicate, Inc. PEANUTS is a registered trademark of United Feature Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.
All images are courtesy of The Schulz Family Intellectual Property Trust and the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, Santa Rosa, California, except as noted below:
Cover photo: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images; endpapers and page 49: © Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St.Paul, photo by Earl Seubert; page 32: © Ripley Entertainment, Inc.; page 34: courtesy of Jeff Spear; page 38: photo by Lester Greenig; page 53: © 1948, The Saturday Evening Post magazine, Saturday Evening Post Society, www.saturdayeveningpost.com; pages 68-69: photo by Tom Vano; page 71, bottom photo: courtesy of Jeff Spear; page 80: courtesy United Media; pages 84-85: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images; page 94: photo by Alyce Sheehan; page 109: Getty Images; page 111: © Reuters/Corbis; page 116: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images; page 120: photo by Jeannie Schulz.
Every effort has been made to locate all copyright holders of material used in this book. If any errors or omissions have occurred, corrections will be made in future printings.
INDEX
The index entries below are as they appeared in the print version of the book and are included here for your reference. Please use the search function on your eReader to search for terms of interest.
A
Apollo 10 lunar expedition
Art Instruction Schools
B
Barney Google
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown
Bible
Brazil (ship)
C
Campbell, Camp
Cartoonist Hall of Fame
CBS
Charlie Brown
A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
Clyde, Jeannie
Colorado Springs, Colorado
D
D-Day invasion
E
Emmy Awards
G
Germany, war with
Goldberg, Rube
Great Depression
Great Pumpkin
Guaraldi, Vince
H
Hagemeyer, Elmer
Halverson, Dorothy
Halverson, Joyce
Hiroshima, Japan
Hodges, Meredith
Hollywood Walk of Fame
I
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
J
Japan, war with
Johnson, Donna Mae
L
Li’l Folks
Linus
Lompoc, California
Lost Patrol
Lucy
M
Minneapolis, Minnesota
N
National Cartoonists Society
New York City
P
Paro, Miss
Pasadena, California
Patty
Peabody Award
Peanuts. See also individual characters
book of
characters in
drawing technique for
final strip
first strip
innovations in
inspiration for
newspapers carrying
origins of
planning
on television
uniqueness of
writing for
Pearl Harbor
Pepler, Shermy
Pikes Peak
R
Red-haired girl
Redwood Empire Ice Arena
Rembrandt
Reuben Award
Richard Gordon Elementary School
Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Rommel, Erwin
Rose Parade
Rouen, France
S
St. Paul, Minnesota
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Sally
San Francisco
Santa Rosa, California
Saturday Evening Post
Schroeder
Schulz, Amy
Schulz, Annabelle
Schulz, Carl (Sparky’s father)
Schulz, Charles Monroe (Monte), Jr.
Schulz, Charles Monroe (Sparky). See also Peanuts
birth of
childhood of
in school<
br />
takes art classes by mail
in the army
starts working
sends out cartoons
dates Donna Mae Johnson
marries Joyce Halverson
in Colorado Springs
moves back to Minnesota
wins Reuben Award
moves to California
wins Reuben Award again
wins Emmy Award
gets divorced
marries Jeannie Clyde
as Grand Marshal of Rose Parade
has heart surgery
wins Peabody Award
retirement of
death of
Schulz, Craig
Schulz, Dena (Sparky’s mother)
Schulz, Jill
Sebastopol, California
Shanahan, Dan
Shanks, Camp
Shermy
Snelling, Fort
Snoopy
Spike
T
Tarzan
U
United Feature Syndicate
V
Van Pelt, Fritz and Lou
Violet
W
Warm Puppy Cafe
Woodstock
World War II
About the Author
Beverly Gherman was born curious. She never stops asking questions—a perfect requirement for writing biographies. She has written books about artists, authors, dancers, presidents, and scientists. Each of her subjects changed the way society looks at the world.
Gherman lives in San Francisco, where she reads Classic Peanuts in the newspaper every day.