One of my favorite characters from the strip was Peppermint Patty. I liked the fact that she was great at some things, and atrociously inept at others, and unfortunately found herself struggling with her inadequacies most of the time. She managed to be pretty in an ugly sort of way. I enjoyed how Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Franklin and Roy lived in a different neighborhood from Charlie Brown and his close circle of friends. It gave a sense of space and time to the comic strip, and created that large cast of characters that I think really helped the comic strip to endure. That physical separation of the characters from each other created challenges and desires that most of us can relate to, which was pretty deep stuff for a comic strip. Schulz wrote that Peppermint Patty probably could have sustained a comic strip just on her own.
The passing of Charles M. Schulz was the only time that I shed a tear at the death of a celebrity. In the latter years of the strips, I had fallen away from reading Peanuts. But now it's interesting to see how Schulz had sharpened his wit then, even after such a long run of strips. The re-emergence of the lost and immature Rerun could have helped sustained the comic for many more years, if only Schulz was still around.
That's my post for today. As Peppermint Patty once said, "Don't call on me for the next few years"! :D
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