By Andrew Quin, Reuters, 01/02/00
SAN FRANCISCO -- In newspapers around the world, the funny pages were a little sadder Monday.
"Peanuts", which for close to five decades has served as a mirror for the baby boom generation, came to a close as cartoonist Charles Schulz retired to fight colon cancer.
"I never dreamed that this would happen to me," Schulz, 77, told NBC's Today Show on Monday in a taped interview. "I always had the feeling that I probably would stay with the strip until I was in the early 80s. All of a sudden it's gone, it's been taken away from me."
And taken away, as well, from hundreds of millions of fans around the world.
Fellow cartoonists paid tribute to Schulz in their panels and fans wrote to newspapers expressing their grief over the departure of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the gang.
"I cannot imagine a day without Charlie Brown failing a feeble task, Lucy making one of her wisecracks or Snoopy living the life any dog would dream of," Rafael Rodriguez Jr of Daly City, Calif., wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle.
"The strip may end, but I can still hear their voices. If you sit quietly you can hear Chuck ...'Aaarrrggghhh!"'
Schulz, a laconic Midwesterner nicknamed "Sparky" by his friends, debuted "Peanuts" in seven newspapers on Oct. 2, 1950. It became the most widely syndicated comic strip in history, running in more than 2,600 newspapers around the world, reaching 355 million readers in 75 countries and 21 languages.
Last month, however, doctors discovered the colon cancer while operating on Schulz for a blocked abdominal aorta. Shortly thereafter, he announced his plans to retire with the first daily strip of the new millennium.
Although some newspapers may try to fill the gap by running old strips from the 1970s, there will be no new installments --Schulz has always insisted that only he could draw the comic.
With attention focused on his health, Schulz told NBC he was feeling better but realized that his fight against cancer could be long and hard. "The only thing I care about is tomorrow. I want to feel better tomorrow," Schulz said. "I have good doctors. (I'm) doing the best I can. It's a struggle," he said.
The final "Peanuts" strip featured a picture of Snoopy atop his doghouse, pondering a typewriter. The rest of the panel was taken up by a letter from Schulz to his fans in which he expressed his gratitude for "the wonderful support and love" shown by fans of the comic strip.
Schulz said it had taken time for him to realize that this strip would indeed be the last in the series, and that Charlie Brown -- who made a career as one of life's most lovable losers -- would never get a chance to succeed.
"All of a sudden I realize, he never got a chance to kick the football," Schulz said, laughing. "What a dirty trick!"
Charlie Brown's brave but futile attempts to kick the football joined a host of other "Peanuts" jokes which have worked their way into modern pop culture, ranging from Snoopy's imaginary battles with the evil Red Baron to Linus' unswerving devotion to his security blanket.
Along the way the Peanuts characters hunted for the Halloween "Great Pumpkin", watched Charlie Brown's entire collection of kites get eaten by a tree, and learned that it was OK to love a Christmas tree, no matter how scrawny.
Schulz' seemingly effortless ability to convey both a joke and a lesson with almost every "Peanuts" strip has long held other cartoonists in awe, and several devoted their own strips to saluting the retiring master.
Cathy Guisewite's "Cathy" strip featured the title character reeling in shock after learning that "Peanuts" was ending, while Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" showed what purported to be an early version of the strip featuring Zonker, sporting Charlie Brown's trademark zig-zag sweater, lying forlornly atop Snoopy's doghouse.
In a commentary in the Washington Post, Trudeau called "Peanuts" "the first (and still the best) postmodern comic strip."
"While the public at large regards 'Peanuts' as a cherished part of our shared popular culture, cartoonists also see it as an irreplaceable source of purpose and pride, our gold standard for work that is both illuminating and aesthetically sublime."
Schulz, who is due to be nominated for a Congressional Gold Medal for his contribution to American culture, had his own, typically understated, assessment of his career. "When I looked back ... I wish I was a better drawer," Schulz told NBC.
"I frequently think about what kind of a comic strip I could have done with some other, real characters, rather than the funny ones with the big round heads."
