Charles M. Schulz was born November 25, 1922, in Minneapolis. His
destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two
days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the
newspaper strip Barney Google). His ambition from a young age was
to be a cartoonist and his first success was selling 17 cartoons to
the Saturday Evening Post between 1948 and 1950. He also sold a
weekly comic feature called Li'l Folks to the local St. Paul
Pioneer Press. After writing and drawing the feature for two years,
Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily
exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three
counts, he quit.
He started submitting strips to the newspaper syndicates and in the
spring of 1950, United Feature Syndicate expressed interest in Li'l
Folks. They bought the strip, renaming it Peanuts, a title Schulz
always loathed. The first Peanuts daily appeared October 2, 1950;
the first Sunday, January 6, 1952. Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz
retired from Peanuts at the end of 1999. He died on February 13,
2000, the day before Valentine's Day-and the day before his last
strip was published, having completed 17,897 daily and Sunday
strips, each and every one fully written, drawn, and lettered
entirely by his own hand -- an unmatched achievement in comics.
The multi-talented, Hal Hartley is a key figure in the American
indpendent film movement. His credits include Henry Fool, The Book
of Life, and No Such Thing.
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