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I'm interested in making a list of, and classifying, the artwork that (1) was done by Schulz alone, (2) is Peanuts Decorations, and (3) is
not the daily newspaper strip. Here's my first stab. a. Comic book stories. Most of these were not done by Schulz and so
fail criterion (1) above, but we know that a few were. b. Ads. Ford Falcon, of course; any others? c. Illustrations. Recall criterion (2); I exclude "Two By Fours"
for this reason, but the single-panel comics in "An Educated Slice"
count, as do those from the Billie Jean King tennis book. Short's
books fail criterion (3). Nat's book list has a section for
illustrated books. d. Special strips. These are my favorites; strips that stand alone just
like a newspaper strip, but aren't newspaper strips. The strip in Look
magazine that I mentioned in a recent article on this website is one
example. Any others? Any other categories? Did Schulz design any Hallmark cards? The Christmas
Countdown doesn't count if Schulz didn't compose the dialogue. |
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-I've always presumed that the major Met Life pieces were by him.
But you will also find things that meet this criteria other
places. Schulz drew two of the animated adaptations and the
cover to a third, and he also drew original storybooks
and aphorism books (Happiness is a Warm Puppy, things like
that), which are on different pages of the AAUGH.com book
guide. Favorite overlooked item here: Charlie Brown's
Christmas Stocking, a booklet bound into a magazine in
the 1960s with fifteen single-panel gags that make a larger
story. -Interesting that you should bring this up. Today, as my wife and I were
unboxing our Christmas decorations, I ran across a little star-shaped
candy tin decorated with a signed illustration of Snoopy and Woodstock.
This got me wondering yet again if Schulz did indeed draw everything
that bears his signature. I used to believe so, perhaps naively, but
eventually began to think otherwise. Some of the greeting cards,
although very nicely rendered, seem to me to be drawn in a different
style from Schulz's. It's kind of a subtle thing; the characters look
right, but the "staging" often strikes me as a bit odd and
uncharacteristic, and I'm not just referring to the fact that the text
is sometimes rather...well, lame (others, especially the ones with bad
puns, are quite in line with the sorts of things Snoopy used to type
while writing fiction: "I have it on Great Authority," "he's out waxing
Eloquent," etc.). Also, although I don't keep close tabs on the
Hallmark cards, it seems that new ones -- at least, I don't remember
seeing them before -- have continued to come out since Schulz's death -What I understand from seeing Tom Everhart's lecture/slideshow at the
Schulz museum two weeks ago is that by the 1980s, Schulz was pretty
much only drawing the strip, and so little if any of the Met Life
artwork would have been by him. (Everhart showed off quite a bit of
his "Peanuts" commercial illustration work, including some Met Life
drawings, in addition to his paintings.) |
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