Twenty-five years ago today, the last "Peanuts" strip ran in newspapers. I'm taking this occasion to re-up my long piece on Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson in the LA Review of Books, still my favorite essay I've ever published. lareviewofbooks.org/article/sell... - ThreadSky

lukeepplin.bsky.social • 10 days ago

Twenty-five years ago today, the last "Peanuts" strip ran in newspapers. I'm taking this occasion to re-up my long piece on Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson in the LA Review of Books, still my favorite essay I've ever published. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/selling-newspaper-comic-strip/

Comments

decmusicology.bsky.social•8 days ago

One of the best things I’ve read in awhile. Great character profile of the authors of my two most beloved strips from childhood, but also a compelling analysis of the political economy of the comic strip. Thanks for sharing!

lukeepplin.bsky.social•8 days ago

Thanks so much, Dale! Glad you liked it.

asteur.bsky.social•10 days ago

Thank you so much for sharing! I didn’t know how much I needed to read this…

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

Hey, thanks for reading. Probably the closest I'll ever come to writing a book about Schulz....

asteur.bsky.social•10 days ago

Oh man, I hope not!!! Chase that dream!

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

I moved to Cleveland while writing my first book and used to run by Watterson's house every morning. I thought a lot about just ringing the doorbell and asking if he wanted to collaborate on a book. Never did it.

addamschwartz.bsky.social•10 days ago

Great piece. Thanks for sharing it. This passage jumped out at me:

Schulz … seemed to view cartoonists as analogous to the Peanuts character Schroeder — dogged practitioners who, at their best, managed to play expressive music on toy pianos that lacked pedals and black keys.

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

So many people have equated Schulz with either Charlie Brown or Linus, but I've always thought of him as Schroeder, head down at the drawing table, spinning magic out of four equally sized boxes.

jayjaffe.bsky.social•8 days ago

Enjoyed this! I grew up reading Peanuts daily but our paper didn’t carry C&H, so I missed out on it til later. Our daughter (8 1/2) has become a huge C&H fan and a Peanuts fan as well. Very fun to share both.

jayjaffe.bsky.social•8 days ago

My first trip to the Hall of Fame coincided with the posthumous 2000 special exhibit devoted to Schultz’s baseball strips. Turns out I had randomly stumbled on his last one and affixed a copy on my cubicle wall

lukeepplin.bsky.social•8 days ago

Oh man, I would've loved to see that exhibit. My other dream is to write a long-form piece on baseball in "Peanuts."

lukeepplin.bsky.social•8 days ago

Ah, thanks, Jay. It was always my dream to be able to write about Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts together.

cityofbob.bsky.social•10 days ago

Nice piece, thanks!

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

Thanks!

joshdobbin.bsky.social•10 days ago

This was just wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing it.

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

Thanks for reading! Glad you liked it.

aharner.bsky.social•10 days ago

I was a kid when the final "Peanuts" came out. I thought for sure that Charlie was finally going to kick that football.

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

He did end up hitting a homerun.

writeraldaniel.bsky.social•10 days ago

Love this line: "...he sacrificed enough coinage to fill several Scrooge McDuck bank vaults."

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

It's funny--when you put that line in front of me just now, I cringed. Seems a little overwrought, but it works, I guess.

waitingonme.bsky.social•10 days ago

📌

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

The origin of this piece was when I stumbled across a website that collected every public utterance that Bill Watterson had made--not many, as you can guess. I read through them and was surprised by how much he seemed to be in implicit conversation with Schulz, his idol and also his cautionary tale.

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

For anyone who hasn't seen it, this is the final "Peanuts" strip, the only time Schulz ever directly addressed his readers.

michaelgulden.bsky.social•10 days ago

holy cow this is great

lukeepplin.bsky.social•10 days ago

Hey, thanks so much!

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