Peanuts, 1965-1966

The mid-1960s was one of Schulz's peak periods of creativity. Snoopy has his first "dogfight" with the Red Baron, Charlie Brown and Linus go to summer camp, and Peppermint Patty makes her debut.

We are now in the mid-1960s, one of Schulz's peak periods of creativity (and one third of the way through the strip's life!). Snoopy has become the strip's dominant personality, and this volume marks two milestones for the character: the first of many "dogfights" with the nefarious Red Baron, and the launch of his writing career ("It was a dark and stormy night..."). Two new characters—the first two from outside the strip's regular little neighborhood—make their bows. Roy (who befriends Charlie Brown and then Linus at summer camp) won't have a lasting impact, but upon his return from camp he regales a friend of his with tales of the strange kids he met, and she has to go check them out for herself. Her name? "Peppermint" Patty. With an introduction by filmmaker Hal Hartley.

The mid-1960s was one of Schulz's peak periods of creativity. Snoopy has his first "dogfight" with the Red Baron, Charlie Brown and Linus go to summer camp, and Peppermint Patty makes her debut.

The Washington Post - Douglas Wolk

By the mid-'60s, Schulz had hit his prime—even if you don't read his jokes, the facial expressions and body language of his characters are hilarious…

Charles M. Schulz was born November 25, 1922 in Minneapolis. His destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the newspaper strip Barney Google).

In his senior year in high school, his mother noticed an ad in a local newspaper for a correspondence school, Federal Schools (later called Art Instruction Schools). Schulz passed the talent test, completed the course and began trying, unsuccessfully, to sell gag cartoons to magazines. (His first published drawing was of his dog, Spike, and appeared in a 1937 Ripley's Believe It Or Not! installment.) Between 1948 and 1950, he succeeded in selling 17 cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post—as well as, to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press, a weekly comic feature called Li'l Folks. It was run in the women's section and paid $10 a week. After writing and drawing the feature for two years, Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three counts, he quit.

He started submitting strips to the newspaper syndicates. In the spring of 1950, he received a letter from the United Feature Syndicate, announcing their interest in his submission, Li'l Folks. Schulz boarded a train in June for New York City; more interested in doing a strip than a panel, he also brought along the first installments of what would become Peanuts—and that was what sold. (The title, which Schulz loathed to his dying day, was imposed by the syndicate). The first Peanuts daily appeared October 2, 1950; the first Sunday, January 6, 1952.

Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz retired from Peanuts at the end of 1999. He died on February 13, 2000, the day before Valentine's Day—and the day before his last strip was published—having completed 17,897 daily and Sunday strips, each and every one fully written, drawn, and lettered entirely by his own hand—an unmatched achievement in comics.