It is one of the most famous works to ever exist despite its relative young age. Everybody knows about it. Its humor and character crosses generations. It was one of the earliest (if not first) examples of philosophy in serialized newspaper comics. It stands as a paragon of its medium, if not for its monetary value then for its long-standing reputation and influence and had such a "shelf life" that it managed to outlive those it influenced. For example, Calvin & Hobbes was created by Bill Watterson, born in 1958, and the comic ran from 1985 to 1995; The Far Side was created by Gary Larson, born in 1950, and ran from 1980 to the beginning of 1995.
Peanuts started as Li'l Folks back in 1947. Charlie Schulz would not end his syndication until the year 2000.
But there's more to Peanuts than simply being extensive. If that were all it took, Garfield would be the subject of this post instead, a comic which arguably has an even deeper impact on culture if only by virtue of the money it makes each year.
But I don't care about money; certainly not where this blog is concerned. Peanuts did something more for the American people than just sell them something: Peanuts struck a chord deep in the hearts' strings.
Let me back up a second. I hate to admit it, but I'm a very bitter person. I mean, I try not to be, but life is hard. It was hard. It will be hard. I struggle a lot. I cry more than my father ever intended any of his sons to cry. I get stressed out and frustrated while I watch mankind—both in person and in proxy—do things or do not do things which I would not choose for them to do. I watch the world and realize I am helpless to stop it from turning. I look at what life is and what it could be and realize how little my hands are, and how little they can hold, the frailty of my grip. I try to be strong, but the more I do the more I realize how much deluge there is. I am, and always will be, a tiny thing in the great river of life, another rock which looks much the same as another and is lost beneath the ripple and the mud.
I am not Superman. I am not even Clark Kent. I am not even a character so much as I am set decoration, another blank face to fill in the infinite void of panel space. And that despite everything I can complain about, I look at the lives of those around me and those who surround them and I realize I am somehow one of the luckiest people alive—and yet life is still hard. Even just thinking about it is hard. I thank God that I at least have some outlet where I can speak my mind on the subject, for some do not even share that privilege.
Despite my insignificance there is a comic strip about me. It's Peanuts.
Charlie Brown is not Superman. He is not Clark Kent. He is a child, too small to make a difference in the world, a struggling human being who sets small goals and cannot even reach those. He is a hopeless romantic, staring at the nameless, faceless girl of his desires, an idea he forever wants and (in what Schulz considered to be the canon) never attains, always being less-than insignificant in her eyes by virtue of the fact that she does not even know he exists.
I mentioned Peanuts is more than just a product. The reason why is that it broke new ground by virtue of simply being... well, human. We take this "bite," this "edge" for granted now, but back in the 1950s, at a time where syndicated comic strips were saccharine perfection was the norm, Charles Schulz was unafraid to admit that life is hard as hell. There are winners, yes, some even somewhat like Superman in their constant victories, but the rest of us suffer over and over again. We get ignored. People exploit us for laughs (and for much worse, of course, but good luck getting something like across in a children's news comic). The proverbial football is pulled away time and time again. Those baseball games we've been playing for years still result in loss. Too often the punchline of ours lives is pain, or misery, or just petty indignation as life's many and little injustices. I suspect we are all more like Charlie Brown than anything resembling a "super man" if not all the time then what seems like most of the time.
I realize that I have portrayed Peanuts in my own ultra-negative light. I apologize for that; Peanuts and Charles Schulz deserve far better. His work is a greater complexity in both misery and joy than I can easily write, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. I don't write this blog to try and convince people to be as miserable as I am. That having been said, as of late something has been on my mind, something that's obvious but also forgotten:
Suffering makes us great.
And I don't mean that in an edgy sense that intends to shock or dismay. I mean that suffering is what makes us strong. Think about someone you know, someone who has been through a lot, and I mean a lot. Someone who has faced constant betrayals and heartbreak in a way that seems almost unreal, whose persistence in undue suffering would seem unreasonable or melancholic if it were placed into a story or any book less than nonfiction. If you don't know anyone like that, you need to get to know someone better. Or perhaps that person is you, in which case I hope that what I say resonates. The thing that I'm trying to say is that struggle makes us strong. We don't go to the gym to relax, we go because the pain of exercise makes our bodies that much better. When our hearts our broken, we don't turn to another relationship to have our hearts broken again; instead we try again, knowing what that pain is like, that awkward struggle to get comfortable with someone new, knowing that it could end worse than anything we've previously experienced, because there is some greater gold to be found in that new dig, something we could never experience if we simply did the easy thing and opted for the path with less suffering. The people I know that have suffered or have seen more suffering than I have are far stronger in life than I could ever pretend to be.
For sake of example, I will use Charles Schulz and his inspiration for Charlie Brown's unrequited love: Mr. Schulz fell in love with a woman. They dated for three years. He proposed, and she turned him down because she was engaged to someone else already. This was not the only thing that went wrong in Schulz's life. Indeed, I would recommend reading his Wikipedia biography to get a glimpse at some of the events of his life. But the point I am trying to make is that, had it not been for that heartbreak and the three years which gave it gravity, there would have been no Little Red-Haired Girl in Peanuts. That hardship in his life strengthened the depth of his comic, causing a ripple that still lingers to this day, and proof of that effect is the fact that I found it resonated with my own life so well that I included here, years and years after Schulz's death (and the death of the woman who inspired the character, I might add.) Perhaps Mr. Schulz did not know why he had spent so long with a woman he cared for only to be turned away at the threshold. Perhaps he did not even attempt to assign reason to his suffering. Either way, he perhaps never saw just how much impact a simple concept in his comics could bring into the lives of others. His strength came from his suffering, and had it not been for the hardness of his life, he would never have his strength tested. He suffered and he grew, and he reaped its benefits by making one of the most successful things to ever exist. We, too, succeed by his suffering, for we know that it helps to learn of another person's suffering is similar to our own. Even now, nearly twenty years after his death, having never met the man, I can feel a friendship resonate between me and him, and that is worth more than any success.
There are not enough hours in the day to go over 50+ years of comics and speak of their nuance in characterization. Aside from the anthologies and collections of Peanuts comics, there are plenty of books and websites which can attest to Peanut's human depth. Even beyond the immediate presence of Schulz's work there are those ripples of the series which are more indirect such as Calvin & Hobbes, which was influenced by Peanuts and carries a similar philosophic tone as well as its own significance. Really, the influence of Charles Schulz and his little folks is far too grand to properly measure. But the point is that the suffering of life makes us great. We struggle every day, sometimes for years on end, but if it wasn't for that we would never grow into something greater. That pain gives life its grandeur, odd as it is to say, and we could not be great without it. We will never be Superman, but we can be something a little better, something that, rather than being invincible is instead weak and desolate, seemingly insignificant and yet blooming into something greater than we could have ever hoped. If it had not been for that struggle and uncertainty it would have no impact, no meaning. We work for our greatness, we have to survive it, and that makes it all the sweeter.
As a writer, I can only advise not to shirk away from suffering. Let your characters suffer. Let your own suffering resonate in the work. Let it shine through, strengthening it, illuminating it. Without your suffering your work... well, suffers. Hardships are the stuff of life. Don't let your work be lifeless by excluding suffering. People revel in pain and misery because that makes things more worthwhile. We need that edge to align ourselves with your characters. We need that edge to resonate with those around us, and the struggles they go through. Don't cheat yourself or your audience by skirting the issues. Your suffering exists to make you strong. Don't let it go to waste. Don't take it for granted.
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