Black and gray and Charlie Brown

Since I grew up during the period when Peanuts was a comic strip instead of a logo for Metropolitan Life, when reading the funnies was a mandatory part of my day, I am somewhat less than amazing by the news that the strip’s creator, Charles M. Schulz, was a pretty melancholy guy. I mean, look at the strip Schulz used to launch Peanuts and then tell me you’re surprised to learn he wasn’t a big barrel of sunshine. But that’s one of the revelations in Schulz and Peanuts, the new biography by David Michaelis, and it’s provided the peg for reviews like this. No doubt when it comes time for somebody to write an authoritative biography of Garry Trudeau, all sorts of reviewers will be floored by the news that the creator of Doonesbury was interested in politics. Whatever. The book sounds interesting, at any rate.