United they fall

The house that Sparky built is no more. United Media, home of UFS and NEA, has closed. Peanuts had been syndicated by United Feature Syndicate, but is now handled by Universal. From Peanuts to Garfield to Dilbert, United Feature Syndicate was a marketing powerhouse for decades, with NEA carrying a stalwart selection of comics, including its leading strip, Arlo and Janis. But now, Universal has them all.

Technically, King Features was the first syndicate to publish a drawing by Charles M. Schulz. It appeared on February 22, 1937. It was a submission Sparky made to the popular feature Ripley’s Believe it or Not!, about his dog Spike, who wasn’t a picky eater.

The caption reads, “A hunting dog that eats pins, tacks and razor blades is owned by C. F. Schulz, St. Paul, MN.” I don’t know where the “F” came from — his middle name was Monroe — and I doubt any dog would survive eating razor blades. Schulz’s original submission supposedly was, “eats pins, tacks and screws.” The word “screws” was changed to avoid it being taken as a verb.

Author Monte Schulz has a humorous reference to his dad and Spike on page 231 of his novel, This Side of Jordan.

“Jeepers, it must be swell to ride all over in a circus wagon. You ain’t got a sideshow for a kid whose dog eats tacks and razor blades, do you?”
“Naw, we ain’t got nothing like that.”
The newspaper boy lowered his head and kicked at the dirty pavement. “Aw, gee whiz, me and Spike never get a break.”
“Tacks and razor blades?”
The newspaper boy nodded. “Pins, too!”
“Kid, you’re almost as big a fibber as someone else I know.”
The boy’s face reddened. “If you got any tacks or pins on you, we can prove it. He rubbed his dog’s neck. And how!”