Skeeter's Universe: Peanuts, The Art of Charles M. Schultz

In my previous post about my first exposure to cartooning ("How To Draw Cartoons"), I mentioned Charles M . Schultz as an early influence of mine, and I must say, I have not said enough about him. In as much as I was a consumer of his work, I really studied it too. I think I must have read every book of his comic strips in our elementary school library. I was also quite taken by the idea that all his characters had a similar look and feel. His character designs basically had interchangeable parts. All you had to do was change the hair and the clothes, and suddenly you had another member of the Peanuts gang. As an adult now, I understand that the drawings are but one component of the overall character... just watch, or even just listen to, any Peanuts holiday special to get the idea. But in any case, some of my earliest characters were directly inspired by the Charlie Brown characters. For this reason alone, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Schultz and his work.

A few years back, I stumbled upon a stunning art book whose title is also the name of this post. The book features incredible close-up photography of the actual printed comic strips, so that you can see the half-tone dots that are a by product of the printing process used to render Schultz's ink work. Many of the pages show tape marks as they were photographs of scrapbook pages full of strips clipped from newspapers. Scattered throughout the volume are photographs of toys and other memorabilia. The overall effect is one of a gigantic collage that is enjoyable to explore. The book shows Schultz's work in a much more intimate way than it had probably ever been presented before. It's worth noting that the book is designed by Chip Kidd, a world famous book designer. In as much as I find Schultz's cartoons inspiring, I must say I also find Kidd's books to be as much inspiring if not more. They make you want to design your own books in such a compelling way so that people will WANT to read them. I think I'm quite a ways off from doing that, but the direction is there. Of course, when I just want to feel like a kid again, I reach for this book. It's been a welcome and well used member of my collection.