Reviews for Schulz's Youth

The average rating for Schulz's Youth based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-02-02 00:00:00 Richard Garcia Sr. Youth is one of the lost periodical comics of Charles M. Schulz, the father of my beloved Peanuts. It was run in a religious magazine targeting youth, and though that seems pretty rigid parameters, Schulz' usual wit and warm humour shines through. I was at a comic book store, checking to see if they'd got any more of the Complete Peanuts back in stock when I happened upon this little volume in the otherwise empty S shelf; much my fault, since I've been systematically buying every single volume of Peanuts for ages. I thought to myself though, "Schulz is Schulz" and got the thing. Apart from the fact that you basially need no other guide to life than Peanuts, there are two main reasons (among many, though) that I'm so devoted to it: The first is that you really get to know the characters. They're all archetypes, and after a while, you know their ways and habits, and they literally become your friends; Charlie Brown is ever so depressed and insecure, Lucy's the mean champion fussbudget, Schroeder's main concern is Beethoven (never try to discuss marriage with a musician) and Pig-Pen is universally dirty. And Linus... How I adore Linus. The second reason is that the humour is so warm and fuzzy and always has an element of truth. I often find (being not ahead of, but after my time) that today's humour can be vulgar (this, by the way, gets me into all kinds of trouble with my director at theatre group; doing Harold Pinter, I'm a fierce protector of his text and therefore his subtle wit, making a terrible fuss whenever I feel it's being betrayed). Comedy these days is often riddled with big messes, private parts and calamities, and frankly, it's not how I like it. Youth, being single-panel comics and featuring lots of different, often nameless people, one doesn't get the feeling one knows the characters, but one does know the situations, and Sparky Schulz' wit and crinkling smile is ever-present in this work too, even though it's more toned-down in a way, than Peanuts (or perhaps the Peanuts gang are just less well-behaved). I did really like this work too though, and just added It's Only A Game, Schulz' comics on sports to my amazon wishlist. Youth is, even though not up there with Peanuts, a treat for fans of Sparky's work who want to branch out a little with his art.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-03-29 00:00:00 David Kalil This book compiles all the "Young Pillars" strips that he did for the Church of God's bi-weekly Youth magazine. I maybe shouldn't give it much of a review, because I just couldn't read another page after about fifteen of these truly dreadful single-panel "gag" strips.