"PEANUTS" AND MELANCHOLY

Recently, I started re-visiting a childhood obsession. As a parent to two “Gen Z” kids (Whatever the hell that means), it is fascinating to observe what my children’s generation is fascinated about. YouTube, Japanese Anime, Japanese Video Games, and Streamers are the popular things in my house. For me, growing up in the 80s, I was fascinated by Voltron, GI Joe, the NFL, Oingo Boingo, and PEANUTS (Many of these things are now culturally iconic). While at Catholic School, our teacher would give us library time (If my memory serves me, it was once every two weeks) to check out books. At the time, reading classic American and Russian novels, Sci Fi blockbusters by creators like Heinlein, Clarke and Dick, and political screeds about the Reagan era were not my cup of tea. I was fascinated by two things: World War II history and comic strips. Generation X is the generation long tied to making the superhero comic books of Marvel and DC famous. In the present day, these properties have taken over modern-day cinema. But despite reading lots of these comic books (Especially X-Men), my fascination with comic books never reached my adoration for three comic strips: THE FAR SIDE, PEANUTS, and GARFIELD. While the former was brilliant for creating a world where all creatures had a conscience, and were often put into cultural, political, and absurdly intelligent situations inside of one panel while the latter had more of a cynical absurdist and sometimes stupid theme to it, nothing compared to PEANUTS.

PEANUTS was never an artistic masterpiece. It often was dead serious. But no comic strip even to this day has dived into psychology, depression, the darkness and frustration of life, and the cynicism of the people in your community (With a little bit of philosophy thrown in AKA Linus) like PEANUTS did.
​
So, I decided to reflect on this aspect of my past. What drove me to be so attracted to this specific comic strip as a young child? Going back to my school library in 2019 during the memorial for my father, I realized that my name was inside every single CHARLIE BROWN book that my old school still has inside their “Comedy” section. Something about reading the frustrating adventures of a boy who failed at everything in life but kept getting himself back onto his feet to try and fail again was appealing to my young mind. So lately, I have been going back and reading them again. Two things really stand out when revisiting PEANUTS.

1) The philosophical debates, child-like situations, and observations by these very mature children really hold up in the present day. These kids, especially the philosophizing of Linus who deals with his own insecurities by latching onto a blanket, were intelligent, grounded, down-to-earth, and realistic. Lucy, inside her psychiatry booth (5 cents), would give a cold, hard reality check to many of the kids who had legitimate problems and her advice would provide them no comfort.

2) PEANUTS also never reveals where it takes place inside the United States. The comic strip seems to take place in an imaginary United States that many people believe existed from the late 1940s into the 1980s. The purposeful intent of this artistic decision allows anyone who recognizes themselves in one of these characters to identify more clearly with the most well-written, psychologically developed children ever created inside of any medium.

Re-reading PEANUTS, I have no doubt that Linus is my doppelganger. I have always been philosophical and fascinated by the spiritual. I was attached to a blanket FOR WAY TOO LONG as a child and yes, it was my “security blanket”, and I had a sister who had a very similar personality to Lucy. As I aged and left this comic behind (Especially after Schulz’s death in 2000), I moved onto darker things in my teen years like Tim Burton and horror films and a fascination with punk and goth music. That sense of sadness that permeated my childhood continued and got worse during my teen years. This depression lingered into adulthood. Only seeing the smiling face of my daughter snapped me out of my mental funk. There is something wrong with your head when lyrics from one of your favorite bands bring a smile to your face and years later, you have a recognition about how dark the lyrics are. For instance, the lyrics to Oingo Boingo's NOTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS TO ME below,

Have you heard about the Joneses, my, my, my
It happened so quick, and no one knows why
Their teenage son, he seemed okay
But his suicide ruined everyone's day
And I can't believe that anyone would
Wanna do such a terrible thing
But why should I care?

For me, PEANUTS was something I needed at a specific time in my life (Between seven and fifteen years of age). It brought me joy despite the often-depressing content. During the almost 50 years of its existence, PEANUTS continues to be an amazing work of art. It is the greatest comic strip of the 20th Century.