Schulz, Charles

(born Nov. 26, 1922, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S.—died Feb. 12, 2000, Santa Rosa, Calif.) U.S. cartoonist. Son of a Minneapolis barber, he took a correspondence course in cartooning and worked as a freelance cartoonist before creating Peanuts (originally Li'l Folks, 1950), which would become the most widely syndicated comic strip of all time. The strip, whose characters are boys and girls ranging in age from three to five and a beagle with a grandiose imagination, deals with the frustrations of everyday life and the cruelty that exists among children, often with philosophical and psychological overtones. Just before his death, after 50 years of continuous production, Schulz announced the end of his strip.