Peanuts

This article is about the comic strip. For the edible legume, see Peanut. For other uses, see Peanut (disambiguation).

Peanuts
The characters from Peanuts holding aloft Charlie Brown and Snoopy.
The Peanuts gang
Top row left to right: Woodstock, Snoopy, Charlie Brown
Bottom row left to right: Franklin, Lucy Van Pelt, Linus Van Pelt, Peppermint Patty, Sally Brown
Author(s)Charles M. Schulz
Websitewww.peanuts.com
Current status/scheduleConcluded, in reruns
Launch date
  • October 2, 1950 (dailies)
  • January 6, 1952 (Sundays)
End date
  • January 3, 2000 (dailies)
  • February 13, 2000 (Sundays)
Syndicate(s)
Genre(s)Humor, gag-a-day, satire, children

Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. Peanuts is among the most popular and influential in the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all,[1] making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being".[2] At the time of Schulz's death in 2000, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of roughly 355 million across 75 countries, and had been translated into 21 languages.[3] It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States,[4] and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion.[1] It got a movie adaptation in 2015 by Blue Sky Studios.[5]

Peanuts focuses on a social circle of young children, where adults exist but are rarely seen or heard. The main character, Charlie Brown, is meek, nervous, and lacks self-confidence. He is unable to fly a kite, win a baseball game, or kick a football held by his irascible friend Lucy, who always pulls it away at the last instant.[6] Peanuts is a literate strip with philosophical, psychological, and sociological overtones, which was innovative in the 1950s.[7] Its humor is psychologically complex and driven by the characters' interactions and relationships. The comic strip has been adapted in animation and theater.

Schulz drew the strip for nearly 50 years, with no assistants, even in the lettering and coloring process.[8]

  1. ^ a b Bethune 2007.
  2. ^ Boxer 2000.
  3. ^ Podger 2000.
  4. ^ Walker 2002, p. [page needed].
  5. ^ The Peanuts Movie. Retrieved September 13, 2024 – via movies.disney.com.
  6. ^ The World Encyclopedia of Comics, edited by Maurice Horn, published in 1977 by Avon Books
  7. ^ "comic strip :: The first half of the 20th century: the evolution of the form". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  8. ^ Yoe, Craig, Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings. San Francisco, Calif.: Last Gasp, 2007, p. 36; Michaelis, David, Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. New York: HarperPerennial, 2008, p. ix.