Celebrate the centennial of 'Peanuts' creator Charles Schulz with this comic collection

WASHINGTON (TND) — Ever since that loveable blockhead Charlie Brown debuted in American newspapers on October 2, 1950 in seven newspapers across the US, the "Peanuts" gang has been a cornerstone of American culture.

Charles Schulz, the creator, writer and illustrator of "Peanuts" would have turned 100 this past Saturday, November 26. At the time of his death at 77 at the turn of the millennium, his comic stirp ran in over 2,500 newspapers across 75 countries and 21 languages: on top of the beloved and award-winning animated specials – like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" – and a stage musical, "You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

“Peanuts pretty much defines the modern comic strip,” wrote “Calvin and Hobbes” creator Bill Watterson in the Wall Street Journal in 2007. “Even now it's hard to see it with fresh eyes. The clean, minimalist drawings, the sarcastic humor, the unflinching emotional honesty, the inner thoughts of a household pet, the serious treatment of children, the wild fantasies, the merchandising on an enormous scale – in countless ways, Schulz blazed the wide trail that most every cartoonist since has tried to follow.”

With its 50-year run of over 18,000 comic strips, all solely drawn and written by Schulz, the collected body of work is thought to be “the longest story ever told by a single person,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

To mark and celebrate Schulz’s centennial, The National Desk has been granted generous permission by Peanuts Worldwide to reproduce some of the standouts amongst the thousands of comics the cartoonist produced over his lifetime.