Peanuts: Be Thankful

About Charles Schulz

Charles Monroe Schulz (1922 -2000) was a 20th-century American cartoonist best known for his Peanuts comic strip. He was born in St. Paul Minnesota to Dena and Carl Schulz. His nickname Sparky was given by his uncle after the horse Spark Plug in the Barney Google comic strip. He attended St. Paul's Richard Gordon Elementary School where he skipped two half-grades. As a result he was the youngest in his class when he attended St. Paul Central High years later which may have been the reason why he was so shy and isolated as a young teenager. After his mother died in February 1943 he was drafted into the army and sent to Camp Campbell in Kentucky. He was then shipped to Europe two years later to fight in World War II. After leaving the United States Army in 1945 he took a job as an art teacher at Art Instruction Inc. which he attended before he was drafted. First published by Robert Ripley in his Ripley's Believe It or Not! then in a series of chronicles The Saturday Evening Post his first regular comic strip Li'l Folks was published in 1947 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press. (It was in this strip that Charlie Brown first appeared as well as a dog that looked much like Snoopy). In 1950 he approached the United Features Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2 1950. This 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 abandoned that strip due to the demands of the success of Peanuts.