Peanuts, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Charlie Brown

Published by Claudia Meydrech under Comics,Reading Memories on January 3, 2009

These remarkable characters were brought to life by Charles Schultz the year before I was born, in daily Peanuts comic strips in 1950.  They gained world-wide popularity!  Interesting that in my browsing about on the web I find that today marks the anniversary of the publication of the last daily comic strip by Charles Schultz.

This wasn’t the last Charlie Brown comic published, however, he wrote a farewell comic strip that was in the papers the morning after his passing at the age of 77 after battling cancer in February of 2000.  If I remember correctly, this was due to be published that date…was not published just because Charles Schultz had died, just one of those heart-warming coincidences?

I remember reading that last comic, reading Charles Schultz’s goodbye message.  These were unique comic strips, they always had a little message, and Charlie Brown was a charming underdog that many children could relate to.

As I shared in my previous post, there was a little connection to my husband’s family, as his mother was a teacher, and knew the family of the woman who inspired the Lucy character…Lucy Van Pelt..at least that’s how the family story goes.  I always wonder whether she had the same personality…or if she just inspired the name?  Lucy started her “life” in the comic as a baby, but later Schultz decided to make her the same age as the other characters.