Charles Schulz, the creator of the hugely popular "Peanuts" comic strip, has died just hours before his farewell to readers appeared in the Sunday papers.
His last strip showed his beagle character, Snoopy, at his typewriter, tapping out a "Dear Friends" letter thanking readers for their support. "I have been grateful over the years for the loyalty of our editors and the wonderful support and love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy . . . how can I ever forget them."
Mr Schulz (77) was diagnosed with colon cancer last November and announced that he would be discontinuing the comic strip to concentrate on fighting his illness. It was decided that the last strip would appear in yesterday's newspapers.
Mr Schulz died at 9.45 p.m. on Saturday at his home in Santa Rosa, California. His wife Jeannie was with him at the time, according to his son Craig, who said that his father had seemed fine earlier in the day and had gone to his daughter's home.
The "Peanuts" strip began on October 2nd, 1950 and was eventually carried by more than 2,600 newspapers, reaching millions of readers in 75 countries.
Mr Schulz was born in St Paul, Minnesota, on November 26th, 1922, and studied art after he saw a "Do you like to draw?" ad. After the second World War, he contributed to a church comic book and drew cartoons for the Saturday Evening Post. He developed a comic strip called "Li'l Folks" which was later syndicated and its name changed to "Peanuts", a title Mr Schulz disliked.
He won the Reuben Award, the highest honour for comic art, in 1955 and 1964. In 1978 he was nominated International Cartoonist of the Year, an award voted by 700 comic artists around the world.
Mr Sergio Aragones, a friend and an illustrator for Mad magazine, said yesterday that "in a couple of centuries, when people talk about American artists, he'll be one of the very few remembered".
Mr Schulz once asked: "Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems? They do it because life wouldn't have any meaning for them if they didn't. That's why I draw cartoons. It's my life."