Rocking the Foundation
I found out something yesterday that really just sort of took the wind
out of my sails. Granted, since it seems like everyone else is more
in touch with what's going on than I am, this probably isn't a surprise
to you, but Charles Schultz, creator, writer, and artist of Peanuts is retiring at the end of
the year, to better recover cancer. The last daily is January 4th, the
last Sunday, February 13th. After that, into reruns, starting with
strips from 1971 or something.
For no reason I can think of, that really hit me. The paper my folks
get at home, the Chicago Tribune, had Peanuts as the first comic on
the Sunday comics. Front page, top billing. It's sort of one of those
things that I'd always taken for granted. Sun rises in the east, sets
in the west, water is wet, and the Sunday comics start with Peanuts.
I guess it may have been that Peanuts was one of the first comics that
I could really identify with as a wee tyke. I mean, I understood
Hagar the Horrible and the rest just fine (Andy Capp was way the fuck
over my head, though), but Peanuts was just sort of kids wandering
around, doing sort-of kid type stuff, and I grokked it.
Then I came to Virginia for college, and they just don't do things
right down here. You know what the headliner strip is? For Better Or
Fucking Worse. Well, that's a bit harsh. FoBW isn't a bad
comic, but it's no Peanuts. It's so obviously the creator/writer/artist
just basically writing about stuff happening in her life that it
doesn't have the same creative spark that Peanuts has. I dunno if
creative is the right word, but it's late and I want to get this out
before I go to bed and collapse.
Anyway, they have the courtesy to have Peanuts at second billing, so
they're not complete freaks. Still, it's a gross miscarriage of
justice.
I guess part of what has me in knots over this is I can't understand
why, lately, I only seem to really notice and appreciate some people
after they've died. Wilt Chamberlin? Not until he died. Walter
Payton? After he died. Big time memories of going to Bears-Packers
games with my uncle at Soldier's Field in Chicago for my birthday (late
November is a great time to see some Bears football in Chicago...)
And now Charles Schultz.
I know he's not dead, but the man probably isn't coming out of
retirement unless an immortality serum is invented and he's given
one of the first vials.
So, anyways, go check out the new Peanuts cartoons while they last.
Because the clock keeps on ticking, and there's only a couple weeks of
them left.