Still Drawing After All These Years

At 74, Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz has fame, fortune, and a funny bone. So why does he dread getting out of bed?

Comments (0) By Ellen McGarrahan Wednesday, Jul 24 1996

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What will happen with Peanuts? Schulz says the strip goes with him when he dies or retires. "That's written into my contract," he says. But will Charlie Brown ever kick that football? Will there be any kind of happy ending -- to the strip? To life?

"If I knew, if suddenly I get a stomach pain this afternoon and I go to the doctor and they say, 'Oh gosh, you've got six months to live, you're going to die,' it might be kind of nice to draw a finish to it," he says. "But that's being self-serving, isn't it? Self-conscious and all of that? I don't know, self-glorifying. I don't know. That's almost beyond thinking. Why worry about that? But the strip will end. That's in my contract. Do you want somebody else to draw it? Do you think somebody else should draw it?"

And that, in a sense, is what's kept him going. "It's just that what would I do if I quit? I have no desire to, as people say, 'Oh when I quit I'm going to travel.' I don't want to travel. I've been a lot of places. That doesn't interest me. I sure don't want to play golf every day. I don't know what I would do.