Charlie Brown Is Back

"The Peanuts Movie” hits the big screen soon. We’ll talk Snoopy, Charlie, Lucy and why Charles Schulz’s cartoon is still so appealing today.

Charles Schulz drew 18,000 “Peanuts” comic strips. All on his own. No assistants to color in Charlie Brown or Lucy or Linus or Snoopy. Nobody else to letter in the dialogue. “Good grief, Charlie Brown.” "Five cents, please.” “You’re a blockhead.” It was all Schulz, and still is in the re-runs that have stayed in circulation since Charlie Brown’s creator died in the year 2000. Same with the Great Pumpkin and "A Charlie Brown Christmas", and all the rest. But now comes "The Peanuts Movie." And it’s something new. This hour On Point, the magic and new motion of Charlie Brown.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Chip Kidd, author, editor and award-winning graphic designer. Author of the new book, "Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts." Editor-at-large for Pantheon. (@chipkidd)

Sarah Boxer, writer, illustrator and cartoonist. Creator of the cartoon novel, "In the Floyd Archives."

Michael Cavna, columnist and cartoonist. Creator of the Washington Post's Comic Riff column. (@comicriffs)

The Atlantic: The Exemplary Narcissism of Snoopy — "Peanuts was deceptive. It looked like kid stuff, but it wasn’t. The strip’s cozy suburban conviviality, its warm fuzziness, actually conveyed some uncomfortable truths about the loneliness of social existence. The characters, though funny, could stir up shockingly heated arguments over how to survive and still be a decent human being in a bitter world. Who was better at it—Charlie Brown or Snoopy?"

Washington Post: ‘The Peanuts Movie': Here’s how the new animated film stays true to a beloved comic strip — "Now, to be clear: This is not your typical animated movie. The 'Peanuts' filmmakers were trying to scale a rare peak: They were aiming to convert the warm and fuzzy 2-D strip and TV-special characters beloved by several generations into crisp, state-of-the-digital-art 3-D beings — without losing any of this workd’s profoundly special appeal."

The Wall Street Journal: You’re a Great Man, Charles Schulz — "Funny things happen to these kids, but the emptiness of the panels, the starkness of the drawings and the sketches, leave a slight but indelible sadness. I closed this terrific book with a regretful sigh, both that I’d reached the end and that there wasn’t even more. There is, of course, so much, much more available, so it was a little silly to feel this way. Silly and sad, both at once. Charlie Brown has a good expression for it: Good grief.​"

https://www.scribd.com/doc/286510304/Excerpt-from-Only-What-s-Necessary-by-Chip-Kidd

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