Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip? is a common question these days since it has been a long time since a new Peanuts strip was published (although Classic Peanuts are still published in many newspapers today).

Charles M. Schultz was the only author and illustrator of the Peanuts comic strip from its inception 1950 until his death in 2000. Not only is it remarkable that a 77 year old man dying of colon cancer could continue to work prolificly, but how is it possible for someone to sustain the same narrative for nearly 18,000 strips? So, it’s kind of a silly to ask the question Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip? because the answer is so simple.

That being said, on another level, Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip? could have a different, albeit, trite answer: You (or really the American public). What made Peanuts so sustaining was that Charles M. Schultz constantly evolved his characters and the narrative. While at the surface, the escapades of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and friends is really just a story about a kid who never seems to get his way. But, if you look a little deeper, there is a ton of social commentary embedded in the narrative:

• He commented about the Vietnam War by getting Snoopy caught up in a demonstration against the enlistment of dogs and tear-gassed with the rest of the crowd.
• He made Peppermint Patty’s independence and Franklin’s (the one African American character) integration with the rest of the “gang” non-issues
• The fact that we never see an adult’s face (and make them incomprehensible in the TV cartoons) demonstrate how adults just don’t “get” kids

At the end of the day, the answer to Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip really only has one answer Charles M. Schultz. And the world (especially the comic strip world) has been somewhat silent without him.

Do you remember when you read the comics every day? I do and I miss it a ton.

I remember tearing open the paper to read the latest Far Side, something that was more important to me than the news itself.

In thinking back to those days, I had this very intimate connection with Gary Larson and the Far side: it was as if it was its own community. Gary, like me and many of my friends who loved the strip, was a math/science geek (I cried during the Calculus epic Stand and Deliver - need I say more?). His humor had a special appeal for those of us who found humor in the absurd which, after all, is what being a geek is about. At a time when geekiness was the butt of most jokes, it was vinidcating to have one of own out there in black and white (and color on Sundays) for the world to see.

(I still laugh with my friends when we talk about classic Far Sides like the one where the wife amoeba yells at her husband “Stimulus, Response! Stimulus, Response! Don’t you ever think?”)

I laughed and knew that others laughed with me. Really, The Far Side was a community gathered around the daily newspapers of the world.

But I don’t do that anymore. Why? Partially time (I’m a Dad now and have little time for anything), partially habits (I don’t read newspapers anymore), but also because I just haven’t found my strip. I haven’t found my new Far Side.

Where has it gone?

Only eight days after Johnny Hart’s death, Brant Parker, the cartoonist behind ‘The Wizard of Id’ passed away last Sunday. The two were co-creators of the strip and longtime friends. Parker also collaborated with cartoonists Bill Rechin and Don Wilder on their comic strips, Out of Bounds and Crock. Let’s hope their days are not numbered now.

Brant Parker started The Wizard of Id in 1964 with the help of Hart (as a co-writer) who was drawing the successful B.C. comic strip. Parker drew the strip until 1997 when he passed the pen to his son, Jeff Parker, who draws today’s strips.

Here are two ‘Wizzard’ strips, the first being an early strip drawn by Brant. I could not read the date on this one. The second is a modern one drawn by Jeff. I like how these two compare. It’s good to see a certain level of consistency across artists and decades.

– Click them to enlarge.

One more thing, will you cartoonists stop dying! We don’t want to have to make this a memorial blog. In the next post, I promise to bring you a thriving strip by a living cartoonist.

Here’s a Mutt and Jeff comic strip from 1913 drawn by the original creator, Bud Fisher who drew it from 1907 to 1932, which at that time it was taken over by cartoonist Al Smith. Here we have Mutt (Jeff is not in this one) applying for a job as a motorcycle cop. What I like about it is that he shows up decked out in his modern 1913 motorcycle gear, goggles and all. What’s he got wrapped around his legs?

Check out the ‘double-take’ that the cop makes. Visual devices like this are common to cartoon language these days but that’s pretty innovative stuff for 1913. The dotted line from the cop indicates his gaze (or is it Mutt’s) and then the question mark indicates his confoundedness. It kind of looks like Mutt shot a question mark out of his eyes and it bounced off of the cop’s head. Hehe. And those are some serious motion lines in the last panel.

– Click to enlarge.