Has it been 2 years already??

[Colin]

Doesn't feel like it... but it was two years ago today (Jan. 4) when the world saw this in the newspaper:

http://www.toonzone.net/colin/lastpeanuts.gif


...and pages upon pages of goodbyes: http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/peanuts/

[Romanesque]

And don't forget some reactions from back in the day...
http://www.toonzone.net/cgi-bin/wbcbb/wwwthread.cgi?action=show&board=wbcbb.archive13&bnum=13&num=2617&bg=wbcbb.archive13

--Romey

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

I have that strip posted on my fridge...

...yuh know, I really do miss Snoopy. It was a comic strip that spoke from the heart, and honored people who deserved to be honored. I was pleasantly surprised to learn Shultz personally checked over every new peice of merchandise...THAT'S a good cartoonist right there! No wonder PEANUTS was a success.

Bless you, Shultz, Snoopy, Charlie Brown...I will never forget you all myself.

[Captain Caps]

it was all too painful to read the comic strip. I've seen so many collections of it, and I don't like how they treated Charlie Brown. Even his friends and his dog thought he was stupid. Being as I've dealt with so much of that crap in my life, I couldn't bear to read it in comic form.

Sincerely,

John "Captain Caps" Kilduff

[don Jaime]

Wow, I can do a book recommend. I found a Peanuts collection put together from archival '50s strips and Schultz's own original art. The '50s strips are almost surreal, they're so different. Charlie Brown has a lot of spunk, there were kids with fairly bland personalities who faded away fast, and most of the final cast began as mute babies - Schroeder, Lucy, Linus, Sally. You get to see Snoopy evolve. There are a few rarities, like doodles in friends' yearbooks and army papers, Lil Folks one shots from Minneapolis, a rare Sunday strip with adults in it, the only known drawing of the little red-headed girl.. Really neat read, too bad I couldn't afford to buy it. But I sat in the store for a long time looking at it. Someday I hope to buy it.

[TuffyCatt]

Yeah, I have a really great biography on Charles Schulz...It tells a lot of interesting information about him and all his characters. The interesting thing is, it was written before he retired and there are many interviews with his friends saying that Charles Schulz would never retire...that he would die before he would retire...

[Joe Tully]

Well, it was pretty close. He died less than a month later. He probably knew that he was getting pretty close to the end and decided to spend the rest of his time resting and trying to fight cancer.

I should go find some of the old collections I have lying around here. Like don Jaime said, it's really interesting to look at the really old ones, notice the different designs and all. I don't think that I've seen the really early ones with those surreal designs and first appearances though, I'll have to look into that.

[don Jaime]

I looked it up for you, Tully. It's Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375420975/qid=1010295089/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_11_1/002-1505442-1404036).

[Vin]

I can't believe it's really been two years. It seems like just yesterday I was watching an interview on WNBC which had Al Roker interviewing Chuck Schulz about leaving "Peanuts." It was so sad to see the poor man in such a bad condition. I loved Mr. Schulz.

[Nftnat]

We are indeed fortunate in my area that the Texarkana Gazette has been running Classic Peanuts ever since, mostly from the '70's. Tho admittedly it isn't the same. And I treasure my copy of The Gospel According to Peanuts. It has some strips from the '50's & '60's with chars like Shermy, Patty (not Peppermint), Violet, Frieda, etc. And Mom still laughs every time I mention Harriet's famous angel food cake with seven minute frosting (she married Bill, you know). I find it appropriate that Schulz died on the same day as Tom Landry; I'm as sure as I can be about people who are not me where they both are today.