Charles Schulz on continuing to work hard on his strip

Back when I used to work at a [cartoon] correspondence school, Art Instruction, Inc. [in Minneapolis], it was a wonderful place to get started because the atmosphere was not unlike that of a newspaper office... Once I got started on the [Peanuts] strip I liked working there, because I could go downstairs to the stockroom, and I could find nice pieces of cardboard and wrapping paper, and they gave me a room to work in after I quit the job as an instructor... I used to go down, get the cardboard, fold my strips in half, and then I'd wrap them up and take them to a little subsidiary postal office -ー and I did this for several weeks. One morning, I went in there, and [the postal worker] looked at me, and the package, and he said, "You come in here every week, and this says 'United Feature Syndicate' -ー what is that？" I said it was a newspaper syndicate, and they distribute and sell comic strips. "Like Dick Tracy？" he asked. And I said, "Well, yeah, something like Dick Tracy." And he said, "Well, where's your Cadillac? I said I didn't drive a Cadillac, and he asked what was it I did draw. "It's that little strip that runs in the evening paper about this kid and his dog" -ー I never use the name Peanuts, because I hate it -ー and he said, "Oh, I'll try to read it." So the week went by, I drew another batch of strips and I took them down and handed them in to be mailed out, and he looked at me and said, "Oh, I read your strip last night -- I didn't think much of it."

I was reminded of that incident because a couple of weeks ago -ー I usually work until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I just can't stand sitting there any longer; I always like to drop into a bookstore and see what new things they have. As I was pulling out of the driveway I was thinking that this was a good batch of strips that I drew. And I can honestly say that I still get just the same thrill at the end of the week when I have drawn that thing from Monday through Saturday, and I feel that I've thought of some pretty good ideas, and they've been drawn the best that I can draw them, and it's a nice feeling to know that they're going to be mailed out and that I have done it again. Because back in Minneapolis, when I went to that little post office, I had the same feeling -ー that I had done a good batch of strips, to wrap them up and mail them in and know that I had something the best that I could do.

So the feeling is still there, and I guess it's going to be 45 years next year, and I can absolutely guarantee you that despite what some columnist for the Chicago Tribune wrote a few years ago, that it's time for me to retire, that the strip is no good any more, that the strip has lost all its meaning and everything, I work harder now ー- I truly do -ー I am more particular about everything I draw then I ever have been, I almost never send in anything that I'm not totally pleased about. And I still am searching for that wonderful penline that comes down ー- when you are drawing Linus standing there, and you start with the pen up near the back of his neck and you bring it down and bring it out, and the pen point fans a little bit, and you come down here and draw the lines this way for the marks on his sweater, and all of that... This is what it's all about -- to get feelings of depth and roundness, and the pen line is best pen line you can make. That's what it's all about.