Editorial Notebook: The Passing of Peanuts

You're a good man, Charles Schulz.

The 77-year-old creator of the comic strip Peanuts announced two days ago that he will be retiring from the comics business after 49 years of drawing Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Linus and Lucy. He decided this after undergoing treatment for colon cancer, realizing he wants to spend more time with his family.

Peanuts' first incarnation was as a single-panel strip named "Li'l Folks" in The St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1947. It first appeared as a syndicated multi-panel strip Oct. 2, 1950, in seven daily U.S. newspapers; it now appears in over 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and 21 languages worldwide. The comic has spun off television specials, memorabilia and a Broadway play. Schulz' final daily strip will run Jan. 3, and his last Sunday strip will run Feb. 13.

In that span, Peanuts has entered our nation's collective conscience. Mention Charlie Brown and everyone in the room knows his round head with scarcely a hair on it. Connect the words "football" and "funny" and you'll probably picture Peppermint Patty pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown yet again. And you can't imagine the concept of a security blanket without recalling images of Linus.

I read the first syndicated Peanuts strip yesterday (for the first time or for the first time in a long time, I'm not sure which) and was surprised at how good it was. The strip has three characters--Charlie Brown, who is walking down the street, and an unidentified boy and girl who are sitting together on a step. The first panel has the boy saying to the girl, "Well! Here comes ol' Charlie Brown!" In panel two, as Charlie Brown walks past, the boy says, "Good ol' Charlie Brown...yes, sir!" In panel three, the boy says, "Good ol' Charlie Brown..." But the final panel is the kicker: "How I hate him!"

Throughout the run, Schulz stuck to the theme first visited in that initial strip. Charlie was the Everyman who just couldn't get kites off the ground, footballs through the uprights or respect from his friends. We recognized his failures and sympathized with him because we had experienced many of the same failures in our own lives.

I was shocked yesterday at the news of Schulz' retirement. When I was young, his strip was the first stop on my morning run through the newspaper. I collected the books and watched the specials. In my heart, I will always hold a special place for the Great Pumpkin, especially at this time of year.

Yesterday, I chastised myself for being a blockhead. I haven't read the strip often enough in recent years, and it made me sad when I realized I had been neglecting what used to be an important part of my day. I haven't had time for the Peanuts gang since coming to college. With the meaty issues we weigh every day in section, a Harvard student can't possibly expect to have time for such a simple pleasure.

Schulz' announcement has put things in perspective for me, though. Peanuts' passing shows that even the most venerable of cartoons can end, and we should appreciate the ones that we still have.

For the rest of the run, I'm going to make a point of reading the strip every morning. I just hope nothing has changed in Charlie Brown's world while I've been away.