Saturday, July 17, 2010

My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan

Charles Schulz


My hero Charles Schulz 

by Jenny Colgan

'He combined artistic talent, a huge sense of being the underdog, a wry, bittersweet sense of humour, and an extraordinary work ethic' 


Jenny Colgan
Saturday 17 July 2010 00.04 BST


Charl Schulz first noticed there was something unusual about his son Charles when he noticed him, aged two, drawing everything he passed with his finger in the condensation of the trolleybus window. Some gifts you're just born with. Charles "Sparky" Schulz combined artistic talent, a huge sense of being the underdog (which he retained well into his first $100m), a wry, bittersweet sense of humour, and an extraordinary work ethic.
Like many others I was raised on Peanuts and adored it. I grew up on Lucy never letting Charlie Brown get a kick of that ball; on kite-eating trees; Great Pumpkins; horrible summer camps; and dogs who get a lot of publishing rejection letters (a concept with which I was to become familiar). It gave me a vision of America – as pleasant and convivial, but with sharp undercurrents – that I am convinced remains accurate.
I didn't know then that Schulz had, in the face of threats and criticism, quietly integrated Charlie Brown's black friend Franklin into school. I didn't know he was one of the first people to mark VE Day (Snoopy always has a root beer with his army friend, Bill). I didn't even appreciate Schulz's mastery of line until much later – just look at his beautifully articulated raindrops. But I knew it was brilliant.
There was only onheir comic strips that day.
His work is touching, funny and sad. Like many overachievers, Schulz lost a parent early – his mother, just as he received his call-up papers; he was 17. She was from a stern Scandinavian family with whom he never felt at home and rarely saw in later life. In fact, he took just one thing from his European roots: the Norwegian term of endearment his mother used for him as a child – Snupie Charles Schulz. When he died in 2000, more than 100 cartoonists paid tribute to him in t

THE GUARDIAN




2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
100 Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill

2012

190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer

2015
2016



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