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.
