By: E&P Staff In the fourth E&P podcast launched today, longtime Senior Editor Dave Astor talks about the controversial new biography of "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz -- and his own encounters with the late cartoonist in covering the syndicates beat for the past two decades.
You can click on the link below or the one on our home page to go to our
podcast page to download or listen right now to the interview, conducted by E&P Online Editor Pauline Millard. The three earlier audio reports are also there.
Among other things, Astor says that he finds the intimate biography, "Schulz and Peanuts," well-research and very respectful of Schulz's work as a cartoonist but overall a "little too negative" in judging his personal life, including an affair with a young woman.
Astor also recounts his many dealings with Schulz over the years, in which he found the famous artist extremely responsive to queries. But Schulz got very angry with Astor one time after the reporter had written a story that suggested that the "Garfield" strip might have caught up to "Peanuts" in the number of newspaper clients.
Another topic in the podcast: Should the "Peanuts" re-runs in newspapers finally make way for other strips?
Astor recently interviewed both David Michaelis, author of the book, and Schulz's son, Monte, who is critical of the book. Monte Schulz told Astor that he had problems with the book on several levels -- including what Michaelis chose to emphasize and some of the information the biography presented as fact.
If the Schulz family had to do it over again, said Monte, it would not have given Michaelis access to the Schulz papers and archives the author used for the biography. "I doubt we would have talked to him at all," he added.
The biography, "Schulz and Peanuts," came out last week.
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here for the latest podcast, as well as our three most recent offerings.
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