Offered is an original signed sketch of Snoopy that sits on the orange inside first page, with the autograph and sketch by Charles Schulz in black ink. Snoopy has a grin on his face and his eyebrows raised as he looks out beneath the signature of co-author Lee Mendelson, which reads “Happy No Day KAT! Lee Mendelson.” This signed first edition from World Publishing Co. in 1970 is a hardcover book, with a clear plastic sleeve over the perfectly preserved paper dust jacket. The dust jacket has a color photograph of Charles Schulz at the bottom right, with an image of Charlie Brown superimposed, also in color. The book is 8 ¾ inches wide and 11 inches high, and the cloth hardcover features an embossed image of Charlie Brown at the top, the books title and image of Charles Schulz, in brown ink on yellow background.

     This book was published “in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Peanuts.” Mendelson first met Schulz in the early 1960s, just over 10 years since “Peanuts” debuted as a syndicated daily newspaper comic strip. A filmmaker from San Francisco, Mendelson had just completed a documentary on Willie Mays and thought that since he had just “done the world’s greatest baseball player, now I should do the world’s worst baseball player, Charlie Brown.” Mendelson approached Schulz about doing a documentary about the comic strip and the artist. The 1965 documentary, “Charlie Brown & Charles Schulz,” was the beginning of a 30-year collaboration between Schulz and Mendelson which only ended when Schulz died in early 2000. The collaboration continued with the first animated “Peanuts” TV special, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” which led to a score of animated specials over the next three decades. This book comes with a LOA from Steve Grad of Beckett Authentication (A03414).

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