Benny Green
Last Updated on June 7, 2022, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 178
For some time now I have been mystified by the sheer extent of the Peanuts trend. That the average casual reader is a schoolboy I have always realised…. But the discovery that he is not a schoolboy after all but a child comes as a bit of a smack on the face, especially as it seems to me that the Peanuts cartoons disappeared, aesthetically speaking, a long time ago down the chasm which separates adult sensibility from infant sentimentality….
[The] draughtsmanship … is, of course, where Schulz scores. It appears that his line, his proportions, and his sense of colour convey something to small children which reminds them of the way they see the world. The captions, on the other hand, please those adults whose arch explorations into what they think they remember childhood ought to have been leads them into all manner of critical excesses…. The Peanuts Jubilee book is beautifully produced …, and is for children of all ages who can't read. (p. 25)
Benny Green, in The Spectator (© 1976 by The Spectator; reprinted by permission of The Spectator), December 11, 1976.
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