Book: SCHULZ AND PEANUTS - A BIOGRAPHY ~ David Michaelis
Although I purchased this book last September, I wasn’t really ready to read it until this month. I had read The Comics Journal #290 which featured a long response to the book written by Monte Schulz and several other prominent cartoonists, and was a bit shaken up by it. Monte claimed that the book didn’t capture his father at all. (Read my thoughts on TCJ #290 here.)
However, now that I’ve read the biography, I have to say it was a fair, if at times unflattering portrait of a man who never really experienced any sort of satisfaction until very late in is life, when he finally felt established and comfortable. Even then, he still worried, “Do people like me?” Admittedly, it was a bit disturbing to see some of the more unpleasant aspects of his life (such as his affair with a woman about half his age) covertly reflected in strips of the time.
It was an exhaustive, and I feel worthwhile read. I’ll eventually write a longer post on SPCHQ about it, after I have time to review TCJ #290 again.
