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Snooping in on Snoopy

Nivriti Butalia stumbles on an exhibition of the Peanuts gang in London and rediscovers the legend that was american cartoonist Charles M. Schulz

One November weekday in London, I was wandering around The Strand - preoccupied only by (of all things) the genesis of sandwich shops that are part of the city's make-up. The sun was out and I had my walking uniform on: a pair of shades, sling bag and comfy shoes. I was simply feeling lucky to be out, happy to just walk, soak in the scenes, the voices and the dried fallen leaves that, disappointingly, would not crunch underfoot.
Those sandwich shops, though, really had me smitten. I told myself, Greggs must be older than Pret A Manger and that I ought to check. Brain engaged and feet moving on, I only happened serendipitously to stumble on Somerset House where the Snoopy exhibition was on. Now, whether or not the sun was out, Snoopy trumped walking. So, in I went, and only much later discovered that Greggs is 75 years old while Pret is still a millennial at 35.
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Some days prior to my 'serendipitous stumble', a school friend had mentioned the Snoopy exhibition and said to me, hey, you want to go? I totally did. But we couldn't fix a date that worked for both of us. Then, my friend, kind soul and London inhabitant said, you go ahead, I'll catch it later (it's on till March 3, 2019). And so, I had no compunctions zipping in, paying the £14 (Dh65) entrance fee to spend two hours with characters dear to me. (I know 'two hours' because when I examined my camera roll in the end, I had to skim past 78 pictures and videos, and between the first and last click, there was a two-hour gap). It was the best decision I'd made that day.
The exhibition is well-plotted and extensive, which isn't a surprise as the comic strip ran from 1950 to 2000 - 17,897 strips published in all. At its peak in the 1960s, it was syndicated to more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries in over 21 languages. Whereas, say, another comic of my childhood, Calvin and Hobbes, was syndicated for 10 years, from 1985 to 1995. Its creator Bill Watterson apparently stopped drawing in 1995. He sent a note to newspaper editors and readers, saying that enough was enough, that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium.
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The curators of the exhibition at Somerset House must have had their work cut out for them in having to pick from 50 years of Peanuts. No wonder there was so much to soak in! Besides numerous magnified comic strips on the walls, a variety of memorabilia brings alive early years of its creator Charles M. Schulz. The audio-visual components help. You can watch and hear Schulz talk about what the characters meant to him and how they came about.
Some objects from his life have a bearing on the storylines. A viewer can see Schulz's catcher's mitt from his childhood and photos of him with his mixed breed dog, Spike. The cartoonist, nicknamed 'Sparky', drew his inspiration for Snoopy from Spike. A caption read, 'Snoopy was so named because Schulz's mother had said before her untimely death that if they ever had another dog, they should name him Snoopy.'
The exhibition progresses chronologically. Standouts (to me) were some of the audio-video exhibits of Schulz talking about his work, language and tools. There was also a priceless footage of an elderly lady - inspiration for the Little Red-Haired Girl, love of Charlie Brown's life - recorded when she was much older; a white-haired woman in a pink jacket with a hoodie, talking about how she kept refusing Schulz. At one point in the footage, her blue eyes well up. I felt I was watching a piece of history. Immediately, I wanted to text my Snoopy-loving friends: you won't believe! I'm listening to the Little Red-Haired Girl. But there was a lot of ground to cover. The exhibition sprawled to the first floor and I couldn't waste time texting.
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Besides the display of Schulz and Peanuts archives, there was generous space for artists who grew up inspired by Schulz to showcase their works. One piece, by the artist Mel Brimfield, caught my attention. But apart from her work, and perhaps this is my shortcoming as a viewer wary of saturation, I wasn't interested in how other artists interpreted Schulz and Snoopy. I wanted to drink as much as I could only from the source of their inspiration, i.e. Schulz, Snoopy, glorious grinning Woodstock, and my imagined alter ego: Lucy.
One display was a framed Schulz quote from 1975. I wanted to send it to my family of Army folks, but didn't, thinking context would be lost and interpretations could cause trouble: "The three years I spent in the army taught me all I needed to know about loneliness."
Browsing through the exhibition, the visitor is made aware of the nuances in Schulz's drawings, the nibs he used, and how he would use a B-3 pencil for "maximum screams". Think Lucy's bad temper. He liked words like 'Bonk', 'Pow', 'Zoom' and 'Whap', making them 'visually onomatopoeic', like the "musical notation of even the 'Z'", denoting sleep. As any fan knows, Schulz dug language, and employed short, snappy sounds that had the effect of amusing a reader. 'Augh!', 'Good Grief', 'Rats!' and 'Blockhead' are just a few of the words Schulz immortalised. He told an interviewer that these expressions were everyday words that he used himself. He loved language, and thought certain words were naturally humorous, especially words beginning with 'B': 'Beagle', 'Blockhead', 'Beethoven' and 'Bleah!'.
Blown-up strips on the walls of that one wing of Somerset House show Charlie Brown on the baseball pitcher's mound. Again, any fan of the strip knows how losing is a recurring theme. In Schulz's words: "Charlie Brown must be the one who suffers, because he's a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning. Winning is great, but it isn't funny."
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The exhibition wasn't crowded. I was struck by how the others were also taking their time, lingering over exhibits like The Meditations of Linus (love!) and trivia about Snoopy as The Red Baron, World War I Flying Ace.
Pulling out of the Schulz world a bit and focusing on the physical space, the sounds at the exhibition, quiet footsteps of people around, I recognised the half smile on the faces of strangers and felt a sense of fraternity - a glimmering thing, like the energy radiating off fans who've just attended a concert and who might sense it of each other (if the music was near sublime, that is). But really, how often does one inhabit a space with strangers where the common link is an appreciation of artistry? At the movies (if it's a good movie)? At the theatre (provided the play is not weak)? At a sports stadium, where the performances are extraordinary? Which is all different from, say, strangers flocking to a mall for a sale at a retail outlet. How beautiful or artistic can a 30 per cent off sale get?

The day I visited the Charlie Brown exhibition, the surroundings were quiet. There were only a few kids, which wasn't strange because Peanuts is not a strip solely for kids. Schulz dabbled in universal topics: defeat, dread, not being good enough, not being loved enough and unrequited love. He depicted these themes with humour and pathos. No wonder then it feels as though the gang is still around, kicking a ball, trading feelings of angst and drinking lemonade. In the sequencing of exhibits, the curators inject surprise brilliantly. I stumbled on this fantastic typewritten letter dated September 26, 1956, on display:
Dear Mr. Schulz:
You can tell Charlie Brown for me that I care for him very much.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Spock, M.D.
When I compare Calvin and Hobbes to Charlie Brown, Calvin is too much of a smart alec. Charlie Brown is adorable, anxious, vulnerable and, let me just say it, tugs at my heart.
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In many ways, Schulz was influenced by life around him. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, Schulz introduced Franklin, the strip's first black character, after a back and forth with two readers, who had written to him, saying it would help children embrace diversity. Schulz was worried about the acceptability of such a character, thinking it might be divisive and problematic for existing readers. He didn't want to rock the boat. But the two readers pressed on, dispelling Schulz's fears. One reader who wrote to him (his letter was among the displays) was an African-American dad of two boys. The other letter was from a mother, who was convinced that Schulz, in his gentle way via the comic, could steer a generation away from bigotry, and enable open-mindedness. She may not have been off the mark.
I was also happy to stumble on evidence that Schulz supported women. In 1968, he wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton wishing her a successful term as Wellesley College Government President. Best part? It was signed, Snoopy. Many years later, Clinton wrote a letter to Jean Schulz, after her husband's death in 2000, and mentioned that that letter had meant so much to her over the years that "it occupies a very special place on the wall of my office".
The exhibition has done a fabulous job of showcasing different aspects of Schulz's life, how his beliefs filtered into the strip, his mild teasing of art snobs and his support for feminists. He introduced the outspoken, never-daunted character of Peppermint Patty. Little girls got much more than an honorary mention in his works. Think about the 1950s when the strip began, this was no small feat.
Writing for The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries makes a case for Peanuts being an important commentary of its time. "The philosopher Umberto Eco once tried to explain why 355 million people around the world were captivated by a weekly comic strip. It wasn't because Charlie, Patty, Lucy, Pigpen, Sally, Marcie and Linus were sweet kids with a cute beagle called Snoopy who distracted us from an intolerable world," he wrote. "The reason why Peanuts was so powerful was because it dared to look into the dark abyss of human life."
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com