A boy in a yellow shirt and a white dog sitting at a desk in front of a black chalkboard. The favorite snack peanut butter cookies all bloblytes! A Peanut Saved is a Peanut not Eaten!

This page was last edited on 20 January 2023, at 09:37. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. This article is about the comic strip. For the edible legume, see Peanut. The characters from Peanuts holding aloft Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Peanuts focuses entirely on a social circle of young children, where adults exist but are never seen and rarely heard. The main character, Charlie Brown, is meek, nervous, and lacks self-confidence. Peanuts was originally sold under the title of Li’l Folks, but that had been used before, so they said we have to think of another title. I couldn’t think of one and somebody at United Features came up with the miserable title Peanuts, which I hate and have always hated. It has no dignity and it’s not descriptive.

Peanuts had its origin in Li’l Folks, a weekly panel cartoon that appeared in Schulz’s hometown newspaper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, from 1947 to 1950. Elementary details of the cartoon shared similarities to Peanuts. The name “Charlie Brown” was first used there.

He visited the syndicate in New York City and presented a package of new comic strips he had worked on, rather than the panel cartoons he submitted. UFS found they preferred the comic strip. Schulz hated the title Peanuts, which remained a source of irritation to him throughout his life. He accused the production manager at UFS of not having even seen the comic strip before giving it a title, and he said that the title would only make sense if there was a character named “Peanuts”. The first strip from October 2, 1950. Schulz decided to produce all aspects of the strip himself from the script to the finished art and lettering.

Schulz did, however, hire help to produce the comic book adaptations of Peanuts. Thus, the strip was able to be presented with a unified tone, and Schulz was able to employ a minimalistic style. While the strip in its early years resembles its later form, there are significant differences. The art was cleaner, sleeker, and simpler, with thicker lines and short, squat characters.

For example, in these early strips, Charlie Brown’s famous round head is closer to the shape of an American football or rugby football. Most of the kids were initially fairly round-headed. The 1960s is generally considered to be the “golden age” for Peanuts. Schulz threw satirical barbs at any number of topics when he chose. His child and animal characters satirized the adult world. Over the years he tackled everything from the Vietnam War to school dress codes to “New Math”.