Peanuts forever

Peanuts forever
Atul Chaturvedi

Charlie Brown will never again try to kick the ball out of Lucy's hands.Schroder will never again play Beethoven on his toy piano. Linus will neveragain carry his Security Blanket, and wait -- year after year -- in thepumpkin patch for The Great Pumpkin to show up. And Snoopy's battles withthe Red Baron are now only history -- no more ``I'm gonna get you, RedBaron!'' The death of òf40óPeanutsòf39ó creator Charles Schulz at No 1,Snoopy Place, in Santa Rosa on February 13 after a brief battle with coloncancer was the last chapter of a love affair between a cartoon strip and aglobal audience that lasted 50 years.

Charles Monroe Schulz was born on November 26, 1922, in Minneapolis, inMinnesota, the son of Carl and Dena Schulz. He was nicknamed Sparky by hisuncle after Sparkplug, cartoon character Barney Goggle's horse. A shy andinsecure boy, Schulz, nevertheless, displayed a talent for drawing. Schulzlater said, ``It seems beyond the comprehension of people that someone canbe born to draw, but I think I was. My ambition from earliest memory was toproduce a comic strip.''

The depression, which hit Minnesota hard, ensured that Sparky did not havea very happy childhood. The Second World War intervened, and Sparky wasdrafted into the army. While not leading a machine gun squad, he could befound sketching anything and everything, at all times of day and night,including on soldiers' letters home, now prized collectors' items.

Post-War, he was saved from a job etching tombstones when a local RomanCatholic paper agreed to let him ink in cartoons. Drawing furiously, he cameup with a cartoon strip called òf40óLi'l Folks,òf39ó which made its debut inthe òf40óSaint Paul Pioneer Press,òf39ó and had a character named CharlieBrown, a tip of the hat to a childhood friend. The comic was spotted byUnited Features, and taken up by them in 1950. A small change was madewithout Schulz's knowledge. òf40óLi'l Folksòf39ó became òf40óPeanuts,òf39óand a legend was born. By 2000, it was appearing in 2,600 newspapers, across75 countries, in 21 languages, and spun-off a merchandise empire rivaledonly by that of òf40óStar Trekòf39ó.

Charlie Brown is the eternal loser, forever and forlornly hoping -- thathis baseball team will win, that the little red-haired girl (a formerfiancee of Schulz) will look his way. Even his hero, Joe Shlabotnik, is abaseball zero. Lucy is a crabby girl, yearning for Schroder, and operating apsychiatric clinic. Linus has a penchant for quoting the scriptures. AndCharlie Brown's dog is Snoopy, the world's most famous beagle. He owns a VanGogh, and leads a fantasy life his owner envies -- explorer, writer, lawyer,ice-hockey champ, nemesis of the Red Baron...

What makes them so special? The fact that they embody all the hopes andaspirations of human beings. The characters are children, but adultchildren. They live in a world whose leitmotif is sadness. Drawing from deepwithin his psyche, and on his own Christian faith, Schulz had leavened thissadness with an inspiring hope -- and a touch of humour. òf40óPeanuts'òf39óability to reflect the human condition in a way comprehensible to peoplefrom age 9 to 90 is uncanny. As Schulz wryly observed, ``I didn't know therewere so many Charlie Browns in the world. I thought I was the only one.''

When Schulz's illness was diagnosed last winter, he took legal steps toensure that after his death no one else would continue the series by writingor drawing it, a task he had been doing single-handedly. The day he died wasthe day that the last cartoon drawn by him was published.

Goodbye, Sparky, thank you for giving us Charlie Brown and the gang, andgiving us so much happiness. R.I.P.