E-Concussion

Reading: "Creator of Peanuts"

Charles Schulz
(26/11/1922 - 12/02/2000, USA)
Charles Schulz, the creator of 'Peanuts', is one of the most popular and influential humorist comic artists ever. After he fought in Europe in the second World War, he started drawing the comic 'L'il Folks', a precursor of 'Peanuts'. Soon the United Feature Syndicate bought his stories and sold them to many newspapers. Then it was renamed 'Peanuts' (1950). The main characters are the melancholy Charlie Brown and his clever dog Snoopy, who live in a suburb together with other kids who all have their peculiar personalities.
Umberto Eco described 'Peanuts' in an introduction of a book:
"These children affect us because they're monsters. They are the monstrous, infantile reductions of all the neuroses of modern citizens of the industrial civilization."
While his strip deals in psychology, social commentary and often bitter humor, its hallmark is its perspective: all these issues experienced, evaluated, and ultimately decided upon by children. "There is a market for innocence" says Schulz, whose discipline still drives him to his studio every day "to get feelings of depth and roundness, and (to know) the pen line is the best pen line you can make...I don't think I'm a true artist. I would love to be Andrew Wyeth or Picasso...But I can draw pretty well and I can write pretty well, and I think I'm doing the best with whatever abilities I have been given. And what more can one ask?"

The most successful comic strip in newspaper history, 'Peanuts' appeared in some 2,600 newspaper in 75 countries and was translated into 21 languages. It also published more than 1,400 books. United Feature Syndicate started the strip in syndication on October 2, 1950. 'Peanuts' has sold more than 300 million copies worldwide.
Schulz was still working on new material between golf-matches until he retired at the beginning of the new millennium. He died of complications due to colon cancer at the age of 77 in Santa Rosa, California on February 12, 2000. He will be missed, but his lovable comic characters will live on in our memories.
On June 7, 2001, Charles Schulz was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor in the United States.




We also created ourown comics by filling the dialogues and drawing the ending!

Vocabulary:

Influential adj.有影響力的
Precursor n.前身;前輩
Syndicate n.報業聯盟
Melancholy adj.憂鬱的
Clever adj.聰明伶俐的
Peculiar adj.怪癖的,特殊的
monstrous adj.像野獸的
infantile adj.幼稚的;嬰兒的
reduction n.縮影;縮版
neuroses = neurosis
n.神經病;精神官能症
psychology n.心理學 n.善解人意
commentary n.評論;紀實
perspective n.觀點;洞察力
innocence n.純真
roundness n.直率;球型;整數
millennium n.千禧年
complication n.併發症;複雜
posthumously adv.死後地
congressional adj.美國國會的