SCHULZ, CHARLES | Original four-panel Peanuts daily comic strip signed by Schulz

Property of Patricia Lorsch

SCHULZ, CHARLES

Original four-panel Peanuts daily comic strip signed by Schulz

The daily strip for 5 September 1969, black ink on drawing board (6 1/8 x 19 1/8 in.; 158 x 495 mm, sight) with Strathmore blindstamp, signed "Schulz" in the fourth panel, with United Feature Syndicate copyright notice affixed to board at right margin of second panel, further inscribed and signed by the artist at the top, "For Patricia with every best wish—Sparky."

"It was a dark and stormy night": an original strip from one of the most popular and iconic recurring themes of Peanuts, Snoopy's gothic novel. The present strip carries the novel through its fifth sentence and second major plot twist: "It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out! A door slammed. The maid screamed. Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon!" In the fourth panel, Snoopy looks out confidently and predicts, "This twist in the plot will baffle my readers."

In 1971, Schulz collected the text as it had developed throughout numerous strips and published the full "novel" within the frame of Snoopy's struggle to complete his masterpiece. When Patricia Lorsch interviewed Schulz in early 1970, she mentioned that these take-offs of Bulwer Lytton's prose style were among her favorite strips. When she returned to Montreal, she found this original strip waiting for her, a gift from Schulz.