Category: Charles M. Schulz

Ya know, sometimes you can take great pains to be thoughtful and fair, only to say something that backfires in an unexpected way.

Animator Gerard de Souza has read Schulz and Peanuts and he considers it be a good and balanced biography. He suggests another book as an example of character assasination — Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince, by Marc Eliot.

Believe me, I’ve read “sensational”, I own a paperback copy of Marc Eliot’s Walt Disney, Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Unlike Eliot’s total raping of Uncle Walt’s image, Michaelis doesn’t have an agenda but more of thesis; Charles Schulz was a red blooded human being with ups and downs and frailties as the rest of us mere mortals; multi-faceted more than the warm puppy we believe we knew.

This was spotted by Mr. Eliot, who fired back with…

I know you’re trying to be a writer, or a critic even, but try not to kill the messenger in your comments. I hardly raped Walt Disney’s “image,” whatever that might possibly mean.

Thanks.

Marc Eliot

I hope De Souza isn’t about to get embroiled in a controversy other than the one he intended to be a part of. De Souza says of the Michaelis book and the comments on Cartoon Brew:

What I found ironic this past October reading the Cartoon Brew posts is that while many disqualified the author for not knowing Schulz, many posters hadn’t even read the book choosing to sycophant with the Schulz friends and family posters, proverbially wanting to storm Michaelis’ residence with pitchforks and torches, verbally skewering any positive reviewer including the genius of Bill Watterson for a balanced objective academically critical review of the book. I choose not to judge films based on trailers as is common in cyber- nerddom; I chose not to discuss a book which I haven’t yet read.

At this link you can hear me tell Monte Schulz that when I first read about the complaints that members of the family had with Schulz and Peanuts, my sentiment was, “Well, yeah, of course they’re not going to like it!” But as I got into the book I could see that Michaelis was indeed determined to drive home a certain characterization of Sparky. Call me a flip-flopper if you must, but I changed my mind and decided that Monte and Amy and Jeannie have reasons to be upset.

One of the things I can’t stand is when somebody reveals something about themselves, and they do it with honesty and in sincerity, then later somebody uses it against that person. It’s analogous to somebody saying, “Give me a stick so I can beat you with it.” Charles M. Schulz openly broached the subject of his moods and anxiety in Good Grief! by Rheta Grimsley Johnson. That admission seemed to be the stick that Schulz handed to Michaelis.

The divorce and affair were off-limits to Johnson when she wrote her authorized biography. Fair enough. That was personal business, and it would keep until Schulz was no longer with us. But that’s not what bugs me about how Michaelis has presented Schulz. He has taken the 80/20 rule and reversed it, so that 20% of the man became his single most defining characteristic.

Something that I must acknowledge about Schulz and Peanuts that impressed me is that it’s obvious Michaelis did nothing else but work on this book for more than five years. I can also tell from the last half — especially the last third — being so rushed, that the original manuscript must have been much longer. Monte Schulz says it was 1800 pages! I’m looking forward to reading Monte’s essay in The Comics Journal #290, which should be out in a few weeks.

What has cartoonist Jimmy (Arlo & Janis) Johnson’s ex-wife, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, been up to? That’s the subject of her new book, Poor Man’s Provence: Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana. Rheta is the author of the only authorized biography of Charles M. Schulz published in his lifetime.

For over a decade, syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson has been spending several months a year in southwest Louisiana, deep in the heart of Cajun country. Rheta fell in love with the place, bought a second home, and set in planting doomed azaleas and deep roots. She has found an assortment of beautiful people right on the edge of the Atchafalaya Swamp.

These days, much is labeled Cajun that is not, and the popularity of the unique culture’s food, songs, and dance has been a mixed blessing. Poor Man’s Provence helps define what’s what through lively characters and stories. The book is both personal odyssey and good reporting, a travelogue and a memoir, funny and frank.

An editorial cartoon last week, by Jeff Stahler.

Personally, I think Congress has no business investigating steroids in Major League Baseball. Another waste of time and taxpayer money was the 1954 Senate investigation into comic books and their claimed cause-and-effect influence on juvenile delinquency.

Progress! Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis has been read in Dubuque, IA. The Telegraph Herald has a review. Now that the book has received attention in Dubuque, perhaps this means we’re getting closer to the end of its lifespan. The reviewer questions nothing in the book, and in fact he concludes that the book had a positive effect on his view of Schulz.

I gained an even greater appreciation of the man who drew each and every one of the 17,897 “Peanuts” comic strips. He was a genius, yet filled with anxieties and insecurities. As one of my personal heroes, there’s something reaffirming to know that even people like Charles Schulz are only human.

He also says,

Perhaps the biography’s greatest controversy comes through a revelation that Schulz had an affair near the end of his first marriage.

A little more online research would have led him to realize that Schulz’s affair is actually one of the less controversial aspects of the story, because it was on the table for inclusion from the outset. I would have added a comment to the review, but it required an online account, and I have enough online accounts.