
The Comics of Charles Schulz
The Good Grief of Modern Life
University Press of Mississippi
Published on 30. July 2017
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-1-4968-1289-6 (ISBN)
Description
The Comics of Charles Schulz collects new essays on the work of the creator of the immensely popular Peanuts comic strip. Despite Schulz's celebrity, few scholarly books on his work and career have been published. This collection serves as a foundation for future study not only of Charles Schulz (1922-2000) but, more broadly, of the understudied medium of newspaper comics.
Schulz's Peanuts ran for a half century, during which time he drew the strip and its characters to express keen observations on postwar American life and culture. As Peanuts' popularity grew, Schulz had opportunities to shape the iconography, style, andphilosophy of modern life in ways he never could have imagined when he began the strip in 1950. Edited by leading scholars Jared Gardner and Ian Gordon, this volume ranges over a spectrum of Schulz's accomplishments and influence, touching on everything from cartoon aesthetics to the marketing of global fast food. Philosophy, ethics, and cultural history all come into play. Indeed, the book even highlights Snoopy's global reach as American soft power.
As the broad interdisciplinary range of this volume makes clear, Peanuts offers countless possibilities for study and analysis. From many perspectives-including childhood studies, ethnic studies, health and exercise studies, as well as sociology-The Comics of Charles Schulz offers the most comprehensive and diverse study of the most influential cartoonist during the second half of the twentieth century.
With contributions by: Leonie Brialey, MJ Clarke, Roy T. Cook, Joseph J. Darowski, Ian Gordon, Gene Kannenberg Jr., Christopher P. Lehman, Anne C. McCarthy, Ben Owen, Lara Saguisag, Ben Saunders, Jeffrey O. Segrave, and Michael Tisserand.
Schulz's Peanuts ran for a half century, during which time he drew the strip and its characters to express keen observations on postwar American life and culture. As Peanuts' popularity grew, Schulz had opportunities to shape the iconography, style, andphilosophy of modern life in ways he never could have imagined when he began the strip in 1950. Edited by leading scholars Jared Gardner and Ian Gordon, this volume ranges over a spectrum of Schulz's accomplishments and influence, touching on everything from cartoon aesthetics to the marketing of global fast food. Philosophy, ethics, and cultural history all come into play. Indeed, the book even highlights Snoopy's global reach as American soft power.
As the broad interdisciplinary range of this volume makes clear, Peanuts offers countless possibilities for study and analysis. From many perspectives-including childhood studies, ethnic studies, health and exercise studies, as well as sociology-The Comics of Charles Schulz offers the most comprehensive and diverse study of the most influential cartoonist during the second half of the twentieth century.
With contributions by: Leonie Brialey, MJ Clarke, Roy T. Cook, Joseph J. Darowski, Ian Gordon, Gene Kannenberg Jr., Christopher P. Lehman, Anne C. McCarthy, Ben Owen, Lara Saguisag, Ben Saunders, Jeffrey O. Segrave, and Michael Tisserand.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Jackson
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
27 b&w illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
530 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4968-1289-6 (9781496812896)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2017
Penguin Random House South Africa
€24.49
Available for download

E-Book
07/2017
Princeton University Press
€150.99
Available for download
Persons
Jared Gardner, Columbus, Ohio, is professor of English at The Ohio State University. He is author of Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787-1845; Projections: Comics and the History of Twenty-First-Century Storytelling; and The Rise and Fall of Early American Magazine Culture.
Ian Gordon, Singapore, is professor of American history at the National University of Singapore. He is author of Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 and Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon and coeditor of Comics and Ideology and Film and Comic Books, published by University Press of Mississippi.
Ian Gordon, Singapore, is professor of American history at the National University of Singapore. He is author of Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 and Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon and coeditor of Comics and Ideology and Film and Comic Books, published by University Press of Mississippi.