Charles M. Schultz

  b. 1922; d. 2000 | American cartoonist

At The Bottom

— 1950

Schultz decided to quit the only newspaper that seemed willing to publish his work.

Charles Schultz was fed up.  The young artist from St. Paul, Minnesota, was unhappy with the treatment his work was receiving from the Pioneer Press, his hometown newspaper.  For the past three years, the paper had been running a weekly series of his called “Li’l Folks,” a single-panel cartoon featuring a collection of small, clever children and a beagle.  He had sold a few cartoons on the side to the Saturday Evening Post, but his efforts to place “Li’l Folks” in syndication had come to nothing.  Meantime, Schultz was unhappy with the $10 he received each week from the Pioneer Press and had recently asked the editors to move his work from the “women’s page” to the comics section.  Without much of an explanation, his requests were turned down.  So Schultz decided to quit the only newspaper that seemed willing to publish his work.