Charles M. Schulz

Born: Charles Monroe “Sparky” Schulz
Birthday: November 26, 1922
Location: Minneapolis, MN, U.S.
Alma mater: Art Instruction, Inc.
Occupation: Writer
Years active: 1947-1999
Died: Februray 30, 1993

Charles Monroe “Sparky” Schulz peeked through the windows of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, as a child, and watched the Sunday funnies rolling off the presses. He and his father would read the Sunday comics from four different newspapers, and by age 6, Charles decided to become a cartoonist when he grew up.

His parents encouraged his drawing talents. In high school, he took a correspondence course for artists from Art Instruction, Inc. and got a C-plus in one subject: drawing children. His high school, however, rejected his drawings submitted for the local yearbook.

Schulz was drafted into the U.S. Army during WWII, and served in Europe. At war’s end, he returned home to Minnesota, where he did lettering for Timeless Topix; a Roman Catholic comic magazine, and in 1946 got a job with the correspondence school he’d attended before the war. There, he critiques and graded the students’ assignments. He stayed with Art Instruction, Inc. for several years while he developed his career as a comic artist.

Charles created the comic strip Peanuts featuring his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, debuting October 2, 1950.

Peanuts was so popular, it exploded into other media. The first animated TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas was produced by Bill Melendez and premiered in December of 1965 and won an Emmy award. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown aired the very next year. Many TV specials followed, Schulz writing or co- writing each TV special. He carefully oversaw their production up until his passing.

The Author

Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee has been creating animated cartoons online since 1999/2000 for his website flashcartoons.org. Many cartoons on the site have gained viral video status reaching millions of viewers online. In 2009, Lavalle started learning hand drawn animation from Don Bluth in his animation classes, as well as attending his Masterclasses in Arizona. He has also personally studied animation and visual effects from Veteran Disney animators in Orlando, FL.

Lavalle is widely known in the animation industry as the creator of the TraditionalAnimation.com website. After seeing that most animation sites were about all types of animation, not any specific to classical hand drawn animation, Lavalle knew Traditional Animation needed to be represented online. TraditionalAnimation.com has become the leading website and social media account for all things 2D. The website served as inspiration for “The Traditional Animation Show” in which Lavalle was both producer and host.

His partnership with Don Bluth began when he championed the Dragon's Lair Indiegogo campaign as lead project manager, editor, voice actor and in-betweener. The campaign reached $730,000 dollars to produce a 7-minute pitch video. In 2017, Lavalle brought the idea of creating a school to Don Bluth, and Don Bluth University was born. After a decade of learning from Don Bluth and working together on multiple pitches and business ventures, Lavalle accepted the position as Vice President of Don Bluth's new company Don Bluth Studios.