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PEANUTS Creator Has This Piece of Advice for Aspiring Cartoonists

PEANUTS Creator Has This Piece of Advice for Aspiring Cartoonists

By Movieguide® Contributor

When it came to the inspiration behind the now-famous PEANUTS cartoonstrip, creator Charles M. Schulz kept it simple: “Just draw something that you hope is funny.”

“I always hate to say it, but I drew little kids because this is what sold,” Schulz told the BBC in 1990. “I wanted to draw something, I didn’t know what it was, but it just seemed as if whenever I drew children, these were the cartoons that editors seemed to like the best. And so, back in 1950, I mailed a batch of cartoons to New York City, to United Features Syndicate, and they said they liked them, and so ever since I’ve been drawing little kids.”

PEANUTS began publication on Oct. 2, 1950, but it didn’t look — or sound — the way it does today. 

“The evolution of the drawing in comic strips is something that you’re not even aware of. I’m not aware that Charlie Brown gets a little fatter, he gets a little thinner. Snoopy’s nose gets longer, narrower, fatter or shorter,” Schulz explained, adding that he changed Charlie’s attitude, too — “I used to say he tried too hard, and that he wanted everyone to like him too much, but I’ve grown away from that.”

Today, Schulz’s comic strip is “featured in global online syndication and in thousands of newspapers worldwide; in classic specials and in new streaming series SNOOPY IN SPACE and THE SNOOPY SHOW on Apple TV+; and in mobile apps, stage productions, feature films, and books (hundreds of them),” the PEANUTS website reads. “PEANUTS has inspired theme park attractions, public art projects, and every kind of consumer product from pj’s to popcorn makers.”

READ MORE: SNOOPY IN SPACE IS ENDEARING AND EDUCATIONAL

“You have to kind of bend over the drawing board, shut the world out and just draw something that you hope is funny,” he explained. “Cartooning is still drawing funny pictures, whether they’re just silly little things or rather meaningful political cartoons, but it’s still drawing something funny, and that’s all you should think about at that time — keep kind of a light feeling.”  

Schulz continued, “I suppose when a composer is composing well, the music is coming faster than he can think of it, and when I have a good idea I can hardly get the words down fast enough. I’m afraid that they will leave me before I get them down on the paper. Sometimes my hand will literally shake with excitement as I’m drawing it because I’m having a good time.”

“Unfortunately, this does not happen every day,” he joked. 

READ MORE: NEW DOCUMENTARY SPECIAL TO HONOR LEGACY OF PEANUTS CREATOR CHARLES M. SHULZ


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