a loser, he’d have no incentive to keep on trying.
The secret is not necessarily to win over adversity, but
never to stop trying. That’s the key, perhaps, to the human
condition. Charlie Brown is the world’s champion tryer. I
think that’s important.”
Charlie Brown rarely caught a break under the pen of
Charles Schulz, and that’s a big part of his universal appeal.
“I know one thing, humor doesn’t come from a happy
situation. Happy is not funny. Funny is when something
happens to someone else and you identify with it and
laugh at the luckless one at the same time. Disasters afflict
Charlie Brown that come to all of us sometime; but to
Charlie, everything bad happens all the time. He never gets
anything right. But a nice kid. I like Charlie Brown.”
opposite: Spot art from strip – Charles M. Schulz
first aPPearanCe
10/02/1950
“
)
”
28 THE COMPLETE PEANUTS FAMILY ALBUM
“I only dread one
day at a time.”
—Charlie Brown
29CHARLIE BROWN
opposite, top left: Style Guide art – PW |
opposite and above: Charlie Brown model sheet
– CSCA
| above center: Style Guide art – CSCA
“
&
”
30
above: Style Guide art – CSCA | right: Spot art from strip – Charles M. Schulz | above right:
Art by Charles M. Schulz – CSCA | opposite: Style Guide art – CSCA | overleaf, left: Style
guide art – PW |
right: Comic-Con postcard, 2010 – CSCA
the Eternal Optimist
“This year has
to be the year I
kick that ol’ ball.”
—Charlie Brown
I
t’s a fall tradition. The football season doesn’t really be-
gin until Lucy convinces Charlie Brown—again—that
she’s going to hold a football in place so that he can kick
it. Each time, he is justifiably skeptical, but she somehow
convinces him that this is the year that she’ll finally let him
kick the football. And each and every year, she pulls the
ball away at the last second, and Charlie Brown flies into
the air and lands flat on his back. And every year, Lucy ex-
plains to Charlie Brown that his trust in her was misplaced,
but both of them know that the cycle will repeat itself the
following year.
This tradition was actually started by Violet, who first
pulled the football away from Charlie Brown before Lucy
moved into the neighborhood. Lucy soon took over the
annual ritual, pulling the football on Charlie Brown’s
second attempt.
THE COMPLETE PEANUTS FAMILY ALBUM
“
&
”
“
Z
”
34
THE COMPLETE PEANUTS FAMILY ALBUM
the baseball manager
“Just what I’ve always been afraid of . . . my team has built up an immunity to losing.”
—Charlie Brown
B
aseball is Charlie Brown’s favorite sport. As his
team’s manager and pitcher, he spends each
off-season analyzing statistics, carefully planning his team
lineup, and studying his opponents. When spring comes
around, he sets out determined to run a winning team.
His teammates, however, have a much more lackadaisical
approach. Each season, they manage to set new records in
futility. Despite their losing record, Charlie Brown’s love
of baseball and his friends fill him with a renewed sense
of optimism every season.
“
Z
”
35CHARLIE BROWN
opposite, bottom: Design by Cameron + Co | above left: Spot
art from strip – Charles M. Schulz | above right: Peanuts lunch-
box, manufactured by King Seeley Thermos, c. 1975 – CMSM
“
X
