Sad news today folks. We take this time out in the Sonic newswire to tell you that Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip featuring Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Schroeder, Linus, Lucy, and a host of characters that have been in American culture since its heyday has passed away at the age of 77.
Mr. Schultz died, ironically, on the eve of his final Peanuts announced a while ago. In his final strip, showing Snoopy seated on top of his doghouse in his role as a writer who invariably starts his stories “It was a dark and stormy night…”
Other scenes in the panel recall typical situations from the cartoon — Snoopy as a famous World War One fighter pilot, Snoopy making a grab for Linus’s security blanket, Lucy snatching a football away as Charlie Brown tries to kick it, Lucy staffing her psychiatry stall, and Woodstock operating a Zamboni on a frozen bird bath.
In a farewell message printed in the strip, Schulz said: “I have been grateful over the years for the loyalty of our editors and the wonderful support and love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip …. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy … how can I ever forget them…”
“Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems?” he once said. “They do it because life wouldn’t have any meaning for them if they didn’t. That’s why I draw cartoons. It’s my life.”
Ironic, yet poetic and poignant, he always said that his strip would die only when he died. It was as if he wrote his own death. And with him goes that Good Ol’ loser Charlie Brown.
Farewell Charles Schultz – the cartoon and comics world mourns its loss. Happiness truly is a warm puppy…
The Final Strip:
