I’ve been working my way slowly through Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis, alternating with reading strips from The Complete Peanuts, to keep things in perspective. For nearly a week I’ve been drafting a post with more commentary on the biography from the family of Charles M. Schulz. It’s been my intent to speak out more firmly in favor of the position that has been expressed by Monte Schulz and his sister Amy. Monte has forced my hand by commenting on a previous post of mine.
Actually, I just want to thank the hosts here for posting my comments on this site to sort of set some of the record straight on what we thought of the biography on my dad. The internet has been much more beneficial to us than the mainstream media which filtered our objections or ignored them entirely. By the way, I didn’t hate the documentary. I just wanted David Van Taylor to tell a more complete story and to give some clarification to a story my brother tells regarding “us” riding our dirt bikes on the roads and not being bothered by the cops — none of us except him either owned or rode dirt bikes, and David only used that clip to “show” how pampered we were back then, and privileged, neither of which was true. I agree, too, that his and Michaelis’s use of “Citizen Kane” was odd, trying to tell my dad’s story analogically to Welles’ movie, given that Dad’s own life story is so unusual: the child given a comic strip character’s name almost at birth, then growing up to be the most famous cartoonists of the 20th century, and dying on the night before his last strip runs in the newspapers. Why not just say that? It’s odd.
Thank you, Monte, for writing, especially for your comment about the PBS program. I immediately thought of my own brother, who rode dirt bikes around town with his friends.
The deeper I’ve gotten into the book Schulz and Peanuts, while discussing it with my friend Dennis Rogers, whose opinion I value highly, the more I understand and appreciate what Monte and Amy are talking about. First, regarding ‘Citizen Kane’, I agree completely with Monte. Why try to enhance one fascinating story by force-fitting it into another? There’s just no need for it.
Further, given the obvious wealth of material that was provided to the author, and the vast amount of detail that is in the book as a result, why did Michaelis feel the need to inject so many his own interpretations? I’m reminded of Donald Spoto’s biography of Alfred Hitchcock, The Dark Side of Genius. Hitch always wiped up bathroom sinks after using them, and somehow Spoto turned that into his central thesis about Hitchcock’s dark obsessions. I thought it was a ludicrous premise, and I feel that Michaelis has taken a somewhat similar approach in his writing. “Just the facts” would have served his subject well.
Schulz himself was the first to broach the subject of his moods and panic attacks, in his biography by Rheta Grimsley Johnson. Given that, there’s no point in pulling out his bouts of melancholy like a club, to bludgeon home a point. Sparky wasn’t an unknown figure working in obscurity, and his story is one that can tell itself, given a full presentation of the facts and events.
Finally, Rheta Grimsley’s ex-husband, cartoonist Jimmy Johnson, has a very funny anecdote about Sparky, over at his Arlo and Janis site. He doesn’t use Permalinks, so you may have to scroll down to find it.
