[.ca] Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography (ISBN 0066213932)

Reflections of Charles M. (Sparky) Schulz Based on Peanuts Panels:
Did you ever sit in one of those old-time barber shops (like the one Mr. Schulz's dad ran)? To make it easier for you to see how the hair cut was going, there were mirrors everywhere. If you looked to the left and the right, the mirrors would multiply the images so you would see hundreds of yourself. I was reminded of that optical illusion while reading Schulz and Peanuts. When a person pens as many comic strips as Sparky Schulz did, it's inevitable that much of is in the strips will come from his life . . . and enter into his life. Author David Michaelis clearly reflected on that point and did his best to tie his book's reporting of the Schulz life to the Schulz strips. As a result, the book is literally brimming with strips and the text connects the strips back to the Schulz life or family. Seeing those strips and getting more insight into how the strips connected to the man and his family was certainly interesting. That's the strength of the book. The weakness of the book is that this focus puts a great deal else about Mr. Schulz's life into a dark background from which little emerges. As a result, this is as flawed and incomplete a biography as you could have while having vast access to so many people and so much material. I found the first half of the book to be much more interesting than the second half. In the book's beginning, you learn about how Mr. Schulz became a cartoonist, established Peanuts, and the inspiration behind many of the characters and situations. You also find a good description of Mr. Schulz's Christian faith. From there, the story bogs down into too much speculating about Mr. Schulz's psychology and his relationship with his first wife, Joyce. You'll also learn vastly more than you ever wanted to know about the commercial success of the Peanuts empire (after all, you probably lived through it) and various building projects by Mrs. Schulz. Having seen this book, I think a better concept for Mr. Michaelis would have been to have written a history of the Peanuts strip and how Mr. Schulz developed the strip. The author's writing and analytical abilities didn't seem to be up to much more than that . . . while missing elements that would have been included if the scope had been narrower (such as a discussion of more of the characters and their origins). If you don't want to get bogged down, feel free to stop reading at page 286. You'll probably like the book better if you do.