Charles Monroe Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 26, 1922. He started drawing at a young age, practicing with popular characters such as Popeye. When he was 15, one of his pictures appeared as an illustration in "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" He took a correspondence course with Art Instruction Inc., where he later taught, and served in the Army during World War II. The Peanuts (originally called Li'l Folks, a name that was changed by the United Feature Syndicate) began syndication on October 2, 1950, when it appeared in seven newspapers. Schulz's work went on to become the most popular syndicated comic strip of all time, appearing in… 2600 papers in 75 countries around the world. Schulz drew everyone of the more than 18,250 Peanuts strips himself and his contract stipulated that no one else would ever draw them. Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts Gang also appear in a number of television specials, the first of which was A Charlie Brown Christmas (1964), created with animator Bill Melendez. It is one of the most watched and best loved television shows in history and winner of an Emmy and a Peabody. Charles Schulz has been inducted into the Cartoonists Hall of Fame and won numerous awards. He was given Reuben Awards by the National Cartoonists Society in 1955 and 1964, the Yale Humor Award (1956), the School Bell Award from the National Education Society (1960), and the Ordre des Artes et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture. In 1990, his work was shown at the Louvre. Schulz retired after being diagnosed with colon cancer. The final daily Peanuts strip appeared in January 3, 2000 and the final Sunday strip, along with a letter of thanks to his editors and fans, appeared on February 13, 2000. Schulz died in his home in Santa Rosa, California on February 12, 2000 within hours of the publication of his farewell strip.
Matt Groening, 1954 - Matt Groening was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He moved to Los Angeles in 1980 to start writing the comic strip "Life in Hell" for the newspaper he worked for. The strip had premiered in 1977 and appears in over 250 newspapers worldwide. Groening got his big break when the Fox television network was looking for a filler for "The Tracy Ullman Show." James L. Brooks had seen some of the "Life in Hell" strips and offered Groening a chance to create 30 second skits for the show. The skits were so well received that the newly titled "The Simpsons" for which Groening was now creator and executive producer of, debuted on Fox as a half hour Christmas special on… December 17, 1989 and as a regular series on January 14, 1990. In 1993, Groening formed "Bongo Comics Group" which publishes "Simpsons Comics," "Itchy and Scratchy Comics," "Bartman," "Radioactive Man," "Lisa Comics" and "Krusty Comics." In 1995, he founded and published "Zongo Comics," which included "Jimbo" and "Fleener" Groening oversees all of the licensing and merchandising of the "The Simpsons." He is also a best selling author, publishing books such as "Life in Hell," "Work is Hell" and "School is Hell," based on his "Life in Hell" comic strip, and "Bart Simpson's Guide to Life" based on "The Simpsons" animation. Groening is also creator and Executive Producer of "Futurama," another animated prime time television show.
Jonathan Franzen was born in Western Springs, Illinois, in 1959, but grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, near St. Louis. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1981, and went on to study at the Freie University in Berlin as a Fulbright scholar. Franzen worked in a seismology lab at Harvard University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences after graduation. In addition to winning a Whiting Writers' Award in 1988 and the American Academy's Berlin Prize in 2000, he has been named one of "Twenty Writers for the 21st Century" by The New Yorker and one of the "Best Young American Novelists" by Granta. Mr. Franzen is the author of "The Twenty-Seventh City," published in 1988, and "Strong… Motion," published in 1992, and is a frequent contributor to Harper's and The New Yorker.