I wrote this piece for my column in Iconoclast. I wrote it, and Schulz died the day after I submitted it. The editor asked me if I wanted to revise it in light of schulz' demise, and I declined. I did write an intro, which basically acknowledged Schulz' passing, and noted that Peanuts was my first exposure to the words "sarcasm" and "theology," but that wasn't included in the publication.

++++

After fifty years a lot of people I know just wanted Peanuts to go away, and this year they got their wish. It’s impossible to read Peanuts: A Golden Celebration without mournfully reflecting on Schulz’ recent retirement. A problem with syndication and cultural ubiquity is being taken for granted, which is certainly what happened to Peanuts. That’s why it’s good to have a book like this, to remind how good and how special Schulz’ achievements have been. The tone for the strip is captured in the Sunday strip on the book’s last page, where Snoopy goes to windows barking, only to be rebuffed each time. He retires to the roof of his doghouse, reflecting, “You try to warn them that the world has gone mad, but they won’t listen…” A punch line that’s rueful, and sad, and funny and unfunny all at once.

This strange, sad, melancholy strip is at its heart about facing failure, with the emphasis on facing, not the failure, and that’s why the strangely adult characters are not losers. Sure, Lucy continually violated Charlie Brown’s trust by yanking out the football, but his rationalizations, year after year, are a powerful testament to the vagaries of faith. Or the choice of baseball, as the neighborhood team lost games by insane margins. Baseball in itself is a brilliant choice, as no other team sport offers the opportunity for most of the on-field players to watch in impotent despair as their opponents repeatedly hit the ball out of the park, or straight through Charlie Brown, knocking off all his clothes. But there’s an integrity in continually stepping up to face futility, and Schulz is aware of that. “A real loser,” Schulz writes in one of the many illuminating sidebars, “would stop trying.” I know I’m getting sappy here.

The strips in this book are well chosen, with even the crappy strips becoming worthwhile in the context of the whole. After Schulz hit his stride in the Sixties, the strip lapsed into a two-decade decline featuring innumerable repeated punch lines, Snoopy relatives, and witless encounters with the cat next door. But there was good even in the worst of times, and sub-standard Peanuts was, on the whole, better than just about everything on the comics page.. Luckily, that led to the Nineties. One fan has suggested facing mortality has pushed Schulz to his best work in years. For such an honest, melancholy strip, that’s a natural.

In its last years, we get to see the strip slip out of its formula. Sure, Charlie Brown never did kick his football, but he did kiss a girl, and he won a baseball game. Even Lucy, a Jungian Bitch archetype if there ever was one, developed an almost maternal attitude toward her youngest brother Rerun. Insights like that, as long as Schulz’ surprisingly insightful and self-deprecating commentary, make this A Golden Celebration well worth enjoying. If you think you hate Peanuts, think again.