When Charles M. Schulz was 15, he published his first drawing, a picture of his dog, who later served as the inspiration for Snoopy. [1]
The first Peanuts comic strip featuring Charlie Brown appeared in newspapers on 2 October 1950, beginning a run that lasted 50 years. When he drew those first panels, 27-year-old Charles M. Schulz dreamed of becoming a professional cartoonist, but he never could have foreseen the longevity and world-wide impact of his seemingly simple creation.
Schulz’s drawings were first published in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!. His first regular panel comic, named Li’l Folks, ran for 3 years in his local newspaper, and from time-to-time he sold one-panel cartoons to The Saturday Evening Post. After Li’l Folks was dropped in 1949 Schulz sold it to the United Feature Syndicate, who, concerned about copyright infringement renamed the strip Peanuts. Schulz disliked this title, which remained a source of irritation to him throughout his life.
Peanuts focuses entirely on a social circle of young children, where adults exist but are never seen and rarely heard. The main character, Charlie Brown, is meek, nervous, and lacks self-confidence.
Peanuts ran from 1950 to 2000 without interruption and was published in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and 21 languages, reaching a global audience of 355 million. Schulz alone drew the strip throughout with no assistants, even in the lettering and colouring process.
In late 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke and announced his retirement. Schulz had stipulated in his syndicate contract that no one else could take over his comic and on 13 February 2000, the day after his death, the last-ever new Peanuts strip ran in papers.
The Peanuts characters remain popular today with reprints, books, numerous adaptations for theatre, stage, movie and animation, merchandise, board and video games, and even amusement parks.