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Charles Schulz, Grandfather

The Comics Journal has reposted the audio of Gary Groth’s interviews with Charles Schulz.  This comes at the perfect time for me, as I finally got around to reading Charles M. Schulz: Conversations, a collection of interviews with the Peanuts creator spanning his 50-year career.

The interview with Groth is included in the book, and it’s by far the most in-depth and original interview we’re given.  The interviews were all conducted independantly over 50 years, and yet they all seem to cover the same information and not reveal anything new—Sparky hated the title Peanuts, he once taught Sunday School to adults, he considers what he does to be a low form of art.  It began to feel like I was reading the same interview over and over again.

One of the surprises in Groth’s interview is finding out that, vulgarity aside, Schulz actually likes the work of Robert Crumb.  When Groth, however, asks Schulz if he ever thought of using his strip to combat sexual frustration in the same direct way as Crumb, Schulz reminds him, “these are just little kids.”

Reading the interviews really makes you feel like you know Charles Schulz.  It’s perhaps how grandfatherly he sounds (even in his earlier interviews when he was in his 30s!).  For someone whose life work has been studied and philosophised (and in the process made him a multimillionaire) he is undoubtedly a simple man.  In a darkly-titled interview with Sharon Waxman called Charlie Blue: The Fragile Child Lurking Inside the Cartoonist, he opines on the bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln that adorns his office: “I bet he was fun to be with.” Of all that could be said or written about the Great Emancipator, that’s what Charles Schulz has to say on the matter.

I went for drinks with a bunch of cartoonists once and several of them shared stories of the first time they met Charles Schulz.  Meeting Sparky always seemed like the goal of any aspiring cartoonist—once you’ve shaken the hand that draws Snoopy you’ve made it.  I, of course, never got to meet the man, but I still feel like I know him.  After all, he’s shared all his insecurities, secrets, fears, and joys with us for 50 years via his little round-headed alter egos.  (He says it’s Snoopy that doesn’t like coconut, but it’s really him, isn’t it?)

Listen to the interviews and you’ll listen to the slow, soft-spoken voice of someone who, though maybe not one of the world’s great thinkers or even someone comfortable in their celebrity skin, is undoubtedly one of kindest people who ever lived—A kindness you wish you were able to wrap yourself up in like Linus’s blanket.  He really is like a grandfather I never met—the kind who would sneak you a quarter when your parents weren’t looking, or listen to all your stories with unparalleled attention, and read comic books with you on a Saturday afternoon.  I bet he was fun to be with.