Charles Monroe “Sparky” Schulz was an American cartoonist and creator of the comic strip Peanuts (which featured the characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy).
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He is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists in history and is cited by many cartoonists as a major influence, including Jim Davis, Murray Ball, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, and Dav Pilkey.
“Peanuts pretty much defines the modern comic strip,” states Watterson, “so even now it’s hard to see it with fresh eyes.
The clean, minimalist drawings, the sarcastic humour, the unflinching emotional honesty, the inner thoughts of a household pet, the serious treatment of children, the wild fantasies, and the merchandising on an enormous scale – in countless ways, Schulz blazed the wide trail that most every cartoonist since has tried to follow.”
In 1957 and 1961 he illustrated two volumes of Art Linkletter’s Kids Say the Darndest Things and in 1964 a collection of letters, Dear President Johnson, by Bill Adler.
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Charles M. Schulz Children: Meet Craig Schulz, Meredith Hodges, Amy Schulz, Monte Schulz, Jill Schulz
Schulz adopted Halverson’s daughter, Meredith Hodges. Later the same year, they moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Their son, Monte, was born in February 1952, and three more children were born later, in Minnesota.
By 1969, Schulz had moved to Santa Rosa, California, where he lived and worked until his death.
As a daughter of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, Amy Schulz Johnson (’20) inspired a comic or two.
Like the one in which Linus, proselyting about the Great Pumpkin, gets doors slammed in his face.
Her father signed a personal copy of that strip, “For John and Amy, who know what it’s like,” says Amy—a nod to her and her husband John B. Johnson’s (BA ’88) days tracting as young missionaries in England.
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