On October 2, 1950, the American Charles M. Schulz published the first strip of ‘Peanuts’. Shermy pronounced the inaugural phrase. Carlitos’ good friend did not seem to show much affinity with him at first. While Patty and he watches him sitting in a … Staircase, the latter says: «Look! Here comes the good of Carlitos! The good of Carlitos … How I hate him!
Simple but effective, served to introduce the protagonist and leave readers wanting more. However, Schulz also synthesized from the beginning a good part of his history. The school was not a pleasant experience for him. He felt a loser And the other children avoided him. Thus he drew Carlitos. when 75 years of their creation are completed, the ‘peanuts’ are still present in our day to day.
As pop idols thanks to a skilled ‘merchandising’ (Schulz appears in the lists of the deceased who generate the most benefits), but also because he knew how to play Universal themes. He embodied loneliness, fear, unrequited love or friendship in some characters «with which we can identify. They are not closed. They have virtues and defects, and that makes them endearing, ”says Daniel Álvarez Cañellas, architect of the selection and translation of ‘Carlitos and Snoopy’, the anthology that reservoir books has taken out on the occasion of the anniversary.
Just two days after the first strip, Schulz presented Snoopywith which he also pulled biography. His family received a black and white dog called Spike. «It was the most intelligent I’ve met. I had a vocabulary of at least 50 words, words that I understood, of course, ”he recalled. Not only was the character inspired. Before ‘Peanuts’ starred in his first published strip and, later, he made him the brother of the famous Mascota de Carlitos, which, like he himself, lived in the California desert.
In this first stage, Snoopy behaved like a common dog: he did not walk two legs, nor was he a world war pilot. Álvarez points out that these years are the least known of ‘Peanuts’. “He humor Schulz is a little more caustic And Charlie Brown (Carlitos) is even more unfortunate if it can be in later years, ”he says to ABC.
Over the years, Schulz was refining his drawings in bottom and form. «In the late 50s and in the 60s it stabilizes. It is already clear how each character has to be and keeps the strokes until the end ». He also outlined the existential archetypes. Capitanened by the boy who fit disappointments like nobody, Linus represents philosophy and doubt, clinging to his mantita as a symbol of our fragility in the face of uncertainty; Lucy distributes sarcasm in her psychiatry consultation for 5 cents, a Schroeder obsessed with Beethoven represents the passion for art …
Social and human mirror
Schulz left Snoopy what he might want to be but could not: someone dreamer who aspires to more, without fear, without the need for external approval. And turned Woodstock into an accomplice of that utopia. He painted a bird for the first time in 1967, but did not name him until 1970. The famous 1969 festival seemed perfect for such a character chaotic and free (In Spain we do not think the same and we translated it as Emilio). The two represent what we would like to be when we get rid of logic.
The cartoonist also projects American society in his comics, incorporates trends and acts in the thread of events, something that Quino always recognized that he inspired him to create Mafalda. Schulz painted the red -haired girl (Peppermint Patty) when he detected a new type of childhood “more independent and spoke higher.” Franklin was the first African -American child in the series and entered in 1968, after the murder of Martin Luther King. The documentary ‘Who are Charlie Brown?’ He tells how his arrival crashed, with the streets still burned.
He is one of the last additions of the little great mirror of humanity that is ‘Peanuts’. There are also the Darkest nights of Carlitos. Who does not feel reflected with his insomnia before starting the baseball season? “It reminds me of the restlessness in which we all live in the moments of uncertainty, not being able to stop turning things through which you cannot do anything, as has happened now with the blackout and as happened in the pandemic,” says the editor.
In 1969 they traveled to the moon. NASA’s Apollo 10 mission called ‘Charlie Brown’ to the command module and ‘Snoopy’, to the lunar. His fame became stellar and his marketing as well. The clocks with the dog that the Omega firm launches on the anniversaries of the missions are the most quoted and have waiting list. Subsequent Swatch adaptations are studied as a case of marketing success in business schools.
At its peak, ‘Peanuts’ was published in more than 2,600 newspapers and reached 355 million readers in 75 countries. In Spain, ABC began with the strips in 1975. When Schulz became ill, he announced his retirement in December 1999. He died on February 12, 2000, one day before his last publication. In 1977, he left a phrase that summarizes his story: «I suppose that one of the solutions is, like Charlie Brown, simply keep trying. He never gives up. And if someone must give up, it is him ».
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