As with most cartoonists, Charles Schultz is one of my heroes. What he could do with a few simple lines, a dot or two and squiggle was just freaking amazing. Half a century has a way of diluting the power of anything, much less a gentle comic strip about philosophizing children, and the overexposure of the "Peanuts" brand has made Charlie Brown and his friends such a staple of our pop culture that it's easy to overlook just how good those comic strips were. Especially in the beginning. Charles Schultz drew "Peanuts" for decades, and his style morphed and his sense of humor changed and to keep up a daily grind, he eventually started resorting to increasingly bizarre stories and totally weird punchlines before he surrendered the strip just prior to his death. Even those later strips, I believe, have value, but I believe his best work was done at the dawn of the "Peanuts" era. In the beginning, the kids all had enormous craniums and wide faces and a fluid look to them that become stretched and pinched as time went on. Personally, I think the early version of Charlie Brown squashes the later one like a grape.
So, here's me as the old school early version of Charlie Brown. The picture is cribbed from the cover of the first volume of "The Complete Peanuts," which features Charlie taken from an early strip panel and then given a shadow by the cover designer (and another of my favorite cartoonists) Seth.
I've heard it remarked that NOBODY but Schultz can draw Charlie Brown and get it exactly right... there's always something off about it. Better men and women than me have tried and failed. But I think I did ok. Not quite up to par, but I've seen worse.
Good grief!
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