Customer Reviews

Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings

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This is where it all started.

In the late 1940s, young Sparky Schulz wrote and drew "Lil Folks" for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This was a cartoon feature about a group of VERY precocious children and a pet dog who make whimsical comments about the world they observe.

Sound familiar? You guessed it-it's the forerunner of PEANUTS.

The story of the transformation of this one-panel cartoon to the more familiar comic strip we know of today is told in this book. Along with that, we get the entire run of "Lil Folks" cartoons. Still not enough? We also see comparisons of "Lil Folks" cartoons to the particular PEANUTS episodes that they would inspire a few years later.

As for "Lil Folks" itself, it's quite interesting (historical reasons aside) witty, and amusing. Cartoons such as the Patty predecessor pouring a water can over a Charlie Brown prototype from a window while the pre-Charlie Brown says "Rain Rain Go Away, Come again some other day" are simply drawn and presented, but have a surreal and whimsical air about them. In another, a Schroder precursor jumps around the street on both feet while a nearby boy casually says to his friend, "I've always admired him-he's so carefree." This vision of childhood ranging from the realistically humorous to the bizarre would be carried to new heights as Schulz expanded into PEANUTS in 1950.

The book would seem to be aimed at cartoon historians and hardcore Schulz fantatics, judging by the price and often limited availability of this book (I've waited two years before being able to get my copy at an affordable price), but there's no reason why the casual Peanuts fan would not enjoy this, so the folks at the schulz museum should make this more widely available. Get this with THE COMPLETE PEANUTS 1950-1952 to see the evolution of the most beloved cartoon strip of all time.

First of all, this is a fantastic book! I was just about to purchase "The Complete Peanuts - 1950-1954" box-set when I stumbled upon Li'l Folks. When I realized it was the early-early years that inspired Peanuts, I knew I had to get it. For some odd reason it is not sold through Amazon, which is flabbergasting to me. (seeing as how it was published by the same company that is releasing The Complete Peanuts) This is a very high-quality book that all Peanuts fans would love to own. You can however purchase it for a reasonable price at the Fantagraphics official website.

This volume includes every single panel of Li'l Folks in chronological order. This is a very enjoyable and funny read. Schulz was equally at home in the panel format as he would later be in the strip. The characters have a very Peanuts-y feel about them, not surprisingly. For instance, there's one where you see a boy walking away from a little girl with a scowl on his face as she yells this at him, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me... You bonehead! You Numskull! You Birdbrain!" You also get to see the first appearance of Charlie Brown, yep, even before Peanuts.

In addition to that there is a foreword by Jean Schulz, and a great introduction to the book that gives a nice overview of how Charles got started drawing cartoons and Li'l Folks. A large part of this book is also compromised of annotations and editorial commentary by Derrick Bang. These are the seven categories that are used throughout the book...


Real-World Influences: Cases in which an actual historical person, place or incident has an impact on the strip being discussed.

Character Continuity: Cartoons that include ongoing characters who appear in other Li'l Folks cartoons, and a cross-referenced list of all such appearances.

The Road To Peanuts: Li'l Folks strips that specifically influence, or at least suggest, subsequent Peanuts strips, along with the Peanuts strips themselves, so that point-by-point comparisons can be seen.

Li'l Folks Redux: Li'l Folks strips that influence or echo other Li'l Folks strips.

General Comments: Remarks, observations, queries and asides on elements of a particular Li'l Folks cartoon that deserve mention.
Because each Li'l Folks panel contains between three and five cartoons, some of the facing pages are filled with commentary and referenced Peanuts cartoons, while others lend themselves to only a few words. In a few cases, the left-hand page is blank, leaving the facing Li'l Folks cartoons to speak for themselves.

Note To Li'l Folks Artwork: No attempt has been made to "sweeten" the artwork of these Li'l Folks strips; they have been reproduced precisely as they appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The results are occasionally less than optimal since the newspaper printing process was far more limiting - and unkind to artwork - than is the case today. This occasionally results in absent lines or details, perhaps most often with respect to a missing eye here and there.

Note To Peanut's Strips: When first pitched to client newspapers, Peanuts was sold as a so-called "space saver strip" that could be formatted to run as four horizontal panels, four vertical panels or a square box of two panels on each side. The syndicate hoped that newspaper editors would embrace a strip that, with its consistent four-panel format, was more flexible than most competitors. In practice, though, newspapers took advantage of such opportunities only during the 1950's, after which the horizontal format (in all strips) became more of an industry standard. By way of acknowledging these roots, and as a means of adding variety to this book, some of the subsequent Peanuts strips are reproduced in these alternate formats.


These are all extremely interesting and a very welcome addition to an already very well done book. Derrick Bang did his research on this book and it really shows.

So again, if you can't find a good deal here on Amazon, you can purchase Li'l Folks brand new through the Fantagraphics official website. A lot of hard work obviously went into this book, and it is a completely essential volume to Peanuts fans, highly recommended!

A few years ago I was on one of those family vacations many would dread. The wife, two teenagers and myself visted dark caves, shady redwood forests and on the fifth day we arrived in a place called Santa Rosa. But why, oh why would we end up in a small city fifty miles north of San Francisco? Well, I had to visit and experience the Charles M. Schulz Museum that is found there and I dragged the family along for this event.

As a fan of Peanuts since the early 1960's and as a cartoonist myself this visit to the workspaces of Charles M. Schulz was like going to Mecca as I may only have one chance to see the sacred grounds of Schulz. Well, the museum is somewhere above great as a wonderful home to Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Woodstock and all the all creations millions know and really love. By the end of the journey through the building I went a bit ape in the store and bought a few things. One of my purchases was this book about "Li'l Folks." This volume of the early work of Mr. Schulz was a bargain at only $15.00 (marked down from $30.00!) I grabbed it up and smiled about this li'l treasure of a book I now owned (and only available at the museum.)

From 1947 through to 1950 Charles Schulz drew these one-panel gags about a bunch of young kids that look a lot like Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Patty and some of them were printed in magazines of the day such as the Saturday Evening Post. The style is simple and the laughs don't hide from you as all the ingrediants that made Peanuts such a success are already here in Li'l Folks for all to enjoy.

Many of the gags used in these early cartoons later revisted Peanuts and the editors display the Peanuts versions right along side the earlier Li'l Folks versions to prove that Schulz would never waste a good idea. The art is tight and the characters are already in place so there is not much of a leap from Li'l Folks to Peanuts. I'm glad I was able to find a copy of this book of the early works of a comic master.
Three & 1/2 Half Stars!

My copy arrived today and I flipped through it. I had seen some of these drawings before. It's great to have a full collection of them. This is proto-Peanuts. It is when Charles Schulz (aka "Sparky") called them "Li'l Folks." But if you've read the very early Peanuts, then you will recognize the characters. The book is softcover, so it is easy for the corners to get bumped and for the bump to sort of ripple through several pages. I don't know why this title wasn't published in hardcover, like the Complete Peanuts collections are. I would think that most people who are buying the Complere Peanuts hardcover volumes would also want this title, and in hardcover. Maybe this will be reissued in hardcover later on. It is copyrighted and published by the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, and also copyrighted by United Feature Syndicate (2003). Fantagraphics is the distributor. You can purchase it directly from either the Schulz museum or Fantagraphics for the regular retail price (plus shipping). I bought my copy from Fantagraphics. I give it 4 stars instead of 5 because although the content is top quality, the book should've been hardcover.