Cartoonists Unite To Celebrate ‘Peanuts’ Creator in New Collection

When Abrams approached Mark Evanier to author a book timed to the 75th anniversary of Peanuts appearing in newsprint, he only needed “half a second” to think it over before accepting the job.

“I didn’t even know what the money was or what the deadline was,” the veteran writer of comics and television remembers over Zoom. “I said, ‘Whatever it is, I’ll do it!’” How could he not accept when Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Linus, and the rest were one of the main reasons he wanted to become a professional writer in the first place? Even at 73-years-old, he’s “never turned loose this love of comic strips.”

The end result became The Essential Peanuts (now on sale), which Evanier describes as “a festival of great Peanuts strips.” One could also characterize the carefully curated collection as the definitive tome dedicated to late great Peanuts mastermind himself, Charles “Sparky” Schulz.

“If you only had to have one book on Peanuts and Charles Schulz, this is probably the book,” proclaims Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell, who touches on his friendship with Schulz in the book’s introduction. “It covers all 50 years of the strip, it has some great photographs of Charles Schulz, and it has the entire history of him and his creation.”

Sparky, McDonnell adds, “was everything you’d want the guy who drew Peanuts to be. He was just so funny, kind, and nice. He was the cartoonist’s cartoonist. He lived for cartoons. He loved nothing more than to sit around and talk about his favorite comic strips and how you draw. Cartooning was his life.”

“He was a very humble guy,” echoes Evanier. “I certainly wouldn’t have been that humble if I had that much money and that much reach.”

Living up to its name, Essential Peanuts serves as an anthology of the 75 most important Peanuts strips ever released. Evanier, who bravely sifted through half a century’s worth of cartoons — “I think I averaged about four years a day” — decided whether a strip was worthy of inclusion if it fulfilled very specific requirements.

“It would be something which either was the first time Schulz did something innovative that he later built upon, or it was just a strip that got so much attention,” explains the author. “The [debut] strip is essential. The first strip where Snoopy appeared is essential. The first strip where Snoopy climbed on top of the doghouse [to fight] the Red Baron is essential. The first time Charlie Brown tried to kick the football is essential.”

But if you’re expecting a ho-hum collection of reprinted material, think again!

Evanier continues: “[There’s] all sorts of supplementary material where we show how Mr. Schulz expanded on the idea, took it in different directions, modernized it as time wore on, perfected his way, found new variations for why Charlie Brown couldn’t kick the football, and so on.”

As the strip evolved, one character in particular began to capture readers’ attention like no other — that, of course, being Snoopy. Charlie Brown’s canine companion is to the Peanuts brand what Pikachu is to Pokémon; an adorable, beloved, and instantly recognizable mascot known all over the world.

“He has a anthropomorphism that we wish our own pets did,” muses Evanier. “We like to believe that our pets are thinking the way Snoopy thought.”

Says McDonnell, “Like our dogs, he’s very open to the universe. It’s funny, when the strip started out, he was more of a dog. He walked on four legs. He was part of the strip, but not a big part. But boy, I think Sparky really came on to something when he started [giving] the dog thoughts and seeing the world from a dog’s point-of-view. He really caught some magic [with that].”

Essential Peanuts also boasts a number of written pieces from Sparky’s widow, Jean Schulz; cartoonist Robb Armstrong, the creator of Jump Start; NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, who brought a Snoopy figure into Earth’s orbit during a 2009 mission to service the Hubble Telescope; and Essential Peanuts art director, Chip Kidd.

“The design of the characters, to me, is like emotional typography, if that makes any sense. You can tell what the characters are feeling, even if, say, it’s in a language you don’t know. There’s just something about it that people can relate to,” notes Kidd, who, among many other accomplishments, famously created the iconic cover design for Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park (a logo that has since become synonymous with the entire multimedia dinosaur franchise). “It’s the one comic strip I think everybody can agree on. Whether you’re 95 or a sulky teenager, you’re probably touched by Peanuts in some way. What [Schulz] produced in his lifetime is truly a startling work of art.”

“Everybody can identify with at least one character,” echoes Evanier. “Either you know someone in your life who’s like Lucy — or you are like Lucy. And we all have had our Charlie Brown moments. I have about three a day on average.”

Take a look inside The Essential Peanuts

The Essential Peanuts is now on sale from Abrams Books