Charles Monroe Schulz-Creator of Peanuts

Charles Monroe Schulz-Creator of Peanuts.(Post_01)
Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) 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.

Early life and education

 Born in Minneapolis,Minnesota , Schulz grew up in Saint Paul. He was the only child of Carl Schulz, who was German, and Dena Halverson, who was Norwegian .His uncle nicknamed him "Sparky" after the horse Spark Plug in the Barney Goole  comic strip^. 

Schulz loved drawing and sometimes drew his family dog, Spike, who ate unusual things, such as pins and tacks. Schulz drew a picture of Spike and sent it to Ripley's believe It or Not; his drawing appeared in Robert Ripley's syndicated panel, captioned, "A hunting dog that eats pins, tacks and razor blades is owned by C. F. Schulz, St. Paul, Minn." and "Drawn by 'Sparky'" (C.F. was his father, Carl Fred Schulz.)

Schulz attended St. Paul's Richard Gordon Elementary School, where he skipped two half-grades. When he was in first grade, his mother helped him get valentines for everybody in his class, so that nobody would be offended by not getting one; but he felt too shy to put them in the box at the front of the classroom, so he took them all home again to his mother.
He became a shy, timid teenager, perhaps as a result of being the youngest in his class at Central High School. One episode in his high school life was the rejection of his drawings by his high school yearbook

Military service

In 1943, he was drafted into the United States Army  and served as a sergeant with the20th Armored Division in Europe. The unit saw combat only at the very end of the war. Years later, he proudly spoke of his wartime service.
After discharge in late 1945, he returned to Minneapolis where he took a job as an art teacher at Art Instruction,Inc .—he had taken correspondence courses before he was drafted. Before having his comics published, Schulz did lettering for a Roman Catholic comic magazine, Timeless Topix, while still teaching at Art Instruction.

Career as cartoonist

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 (1957–59), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Younger Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.

Charlie Brown, the principal character for Peanuts, was named after a co-worker at the Art Instruction School; Schulz drew much more inspiration from his own life:

• Like Charlie Brown's parents, Schulz's father was a barber and his mother a housewife.
• Schulz and Charlie Brown were shy and withdrawn.
• Schulz had a dog when he was a boy, although unlike Snoopy the beagle, it was a pointer.
• References to Snoopy's brother Spike living outside of  needles, California were likely influenced by the few years (1928–1930) that the Schulz family lived there; they had moved to Needles to join other family members who had relocated from Minnesota to tend to an ill cousin.
• Schulz's "Little Red -haired Girl " was Donna Johnson , an Art Instruction Schools accountant with whom he fell in love. Schulz was planning to propose to her, but before he got an opportunity to do so, she agreed to marry another man.
• Linus and Shermy  were both named for good friends of his (Linus Maurer and Sherman Plepler, respectively).
• Peppermint Patty was inspired by Patricia Swanson, one of his cousins on his mother's side.The name came from the candy "Peppermint Patty's..........Continue Next Post..... :)