It would be difficult to write about my brief encounter with Charles Schulz, his place in the world, and suchlike without writing about my friend Mark, who died just before Christmas. Mark was Sparky's friend, too. He's the reason I met Schulz, someone I never expected to encounter.
Sparky is what the world of cartooning calls Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts who announced his retirement recently after drawing the strip for almost 50 years .
They both live/lived in Santa Rosa in California where mountains meet the sea and the fault lines, and the weather stays balmy all year round. Mark Cohen's father was born in Dublin, so this is an Irish story.
A few years ago he came to Dublin and met the few members of his wider family that are still part of the dwindling Jewish community in Dublin. Mark's father was a pawnbroker, an occupation which held little attraction for Mark, who wanted to be a magician, a cartoonist, a comedian or something like that. He was all those things, in a small way, before he became a real estate agent, in a bigger way, in order to make a living and pay alimony.
When his father died, and left him money, he chose to spend it in the most inappropriate way possible. That is, the least attractive way possible from his father's point of view. So, as he was a lifelong lover of cartoon art (and his father wasn't), he set about accumulating the largest collection of original Mad Magazine art possible - which he immediately loaned out to any gallery or institution who wanted to exhibit it.
His friend Sparky is also big on gestures. When he moved from the frozen wastes of Minnesota to the Californian coast and began making too much money from Peanuts he spent it on building an ice rink in the town. He still liked the ice, the hockey and the skating - it was just the temperatures associated with ice that were unappealing. Every December, he holds a gala-cum-party at the ice rink. If you are a cartoonist, you get in for free. Somewhere along the line, four or five years ago, Sparky asked Mark to handle the sale of some of his cartoon originals. Then a few other cartoonists also looked for help and Mark made a career where he was happiest - among cartoons and cartoonists.
Coincidentally, around the same time Mark found he was playing host to a bunch of cancer cells that were growing things in his brain, neck and various other points due south. He was given six months by the medicos but lasted almost four years, much to the disappointment of the medical insurers, much to the delight of the rest of us.
Then, as Mark was on his last legs (actually off his legs and flat on his back in bed), just before Christmas, his pal Sparky discovered, during a check up, that he was accommodating the same little beasts, albeit in a smaller, and, hopefully, more treatable area. Thus, he decided to retire to concentrate on regaining his health full-time. What is it about the climate of Santa Rosa?
Charles Schulz is something of an icon in this business. But he will be horrified to read that. When the strip announced its retirement, gruesome, cynical political cartoonists across America and Canada took a day off from roasting George Bush jnr to draw a tribute to Peanuts. On one of the cartoonists' websites there is an open page where his colleagues can wish him well. It has been inundated. There are many cartoonists, but only one Sparky.
Why? Well first, I guess, there is the longevity of both the artist and his creation. Second, there is the fact that he has produced the strip, day-in and day-out, on his own without the need of armies of assistant artists, writers, colourists and the like who have become all too common among successful strip cartoonists.
Third, he is an example of persistence and determination, which are two of the most required attributes for would-be cartoonists. The Beatles were turned down by all other record labels before EMI took them on. Schulz's strip, named in those days Li'l Folks, did the rounds of papers and syndicates before eventually finding a home.
Which proves what I suspected all along - that syndicates and newspapers know nothing when it comes to cartoons. In my case this has worked to my advantage.
And fourth, he is a regular guy, as they say over there, who remains unaffected by his wealth and fame. He'll let you buy him dinner, if you've been introduced, and tell you a few jokes to take home with you. If anyone wants to talk to him he could be found, same time, every day, taking coffee in the same coffee shop, just round the corner from his studio.
He has produced a stream of characters that have become part of everyone's life. Whether you regularly read Peanuts, or not, you will know Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Woodstock, et al. The omnipresence of the characters strangely doesn't breed contempt. Watching the Snoopy balloon hovering over a televised American golf tournament is often the most exciting thing on offer. While other fads come and go, the Peanuts crew sail on, relating in some way to generation after generation. When the syndicate announced that the strip would live on in re-runs, the decision was welcomed. Nobody seemed to think that 50 years was enough.
For the last 30 years I have laid my head every night on a Snoopy pillow - "curse these early morning hours" - in the hope that, by osmosis, it will give me inspiration in the morning. It is a little faded now, after a couple of thousand washings, but has a couple of decades left in it yet. So, I hope, does the artist.