Charles Schulz taught me how to read. When I was a little kid, it was those Fawcett paperback collections that caught my eye. Mom and Dad would buy them for me and read them to me while I'd sit in their laps. I learned how to read because I had to read those books, and sometimes Mom and Dad weren't around. Pretty soon I had to learn how to draw those great characters, so Charles Schulz became my first art teacher. I'm hardly unique. I imagine that there are a lot of people out there who learned to read from Charles Schulz, and there are a lot of artists who learned to draw from him whether they know it or not.

I believe that the barber's son from Minneapolis was not only the most important cartoonist of all time, but one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Charles Schulz transformed the comic strip. He adapted his style to fit the new constraints imposed on artists by newspaper editors. He created a rhythm in his gags (four panels long with a beat in the third panel before the punchline or the punchline in the third panel with a secondary punchline afterward) that didn't exist before. His characters expanded beyond the comics page into every aspect of American pop culture. Schulz influenced every cartoonist who followed him, some of whom may not even be aware they were influenced by him.

Arguments can be made for the superiority of Windsor McKay, George Herriman, Alex Raymond, Hal Foster, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, or Walt Kelly, and I'm certainly not denying their greatness, but I am confident in stating that Charles Schulz rises above them all.

Sketch from 2001 book The Art of Charles Schulz