Linus and Charlie Brown await The Great Pumpkin in the Peanuts comic strip
Detail from Peanuts– October 30, 1960

Escape into
Imaginary Places in the Comics
April 24–August 22, 2010
at the Charles M. Schulz Museum

March 23, 2010—Santa Rosa, California

Experience some of the funny page’s most memorable locales in the Charles M. Schulz Museum’s newest exhibition, The Language of Lines: Imaginary Places in the Comics, running Saturday, April 24 through Sunday, August 22, 2010.

Cartoonists have long created rich environments in which their characters live, work, and play. From the minimalism of Peanuts to the lush surroundings of Pogo’s Okefenokee Swamp, the Charles M. Schulz Museum presents an in-depth look at the choices cartoonists have made when creating the places their cartoon characters inhabit. This exhibition, the final installment of the The Language of Lines trilogy, explores the famous settings of many classic comics.

Imaginary Places in the Comics features over 60 comic strips and welcomes audiences to visit Li’l Abner’s Dogpatch, Krazy Kat’s Coconino County, and Beetle Bailey’s Camp Swampy. Among the exhibition’s highlights are a hand-colored drawing of the Krazy Kat cast visiting Monument Valley in 1925 by George Herriman; a map of Cul de Sac illustrated specifically for this exhibition by Reuben-nominated cartoonist Richard Thompson; and three sequential Little Nemo in Slumberland pages, featuring Nemo and Flip cavorting among Manhattan skyscrapers, created in 1907 by the amazingly gifted Winsor McCay. Co-curated by cartoon historian Brian Walker, this exhibition seeks to present these famous yet imaginary places as silent characters within their respective comic strips.

The impact of these spaces and places can be discerned from references to specific settings—from the neighborhood appeal of Gasoline Alley to the suggestion of time and place as established by the props and scenery of Prince Valiant.

“Whether set in the realities of the contemporary world or an imagined past or present, the settings of comic strips play a vital role in the way that readers interpret and relate to humor and messages of them,” said exhibition co-curator Walker.

About the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center
The Charles M. Schulz Museum opened in August 2002 to fulfill its mission of preserving, displaying, and interpreting the art of Charles M. Schulz. The Museum carries out this mission through changing exhibitions and programming that build an understanding of cartoonists and cartoon art; illustrate the scope of Schulz’s multi-faceted career; communicate the stories, inspirations and influences of Charles Schulz; and celebrate the life of Charles Schulz and the Peanuts characters.

Additional Images
Note: If you would like any of the images in this release at a higher resolution to print in a publication, contact Gina Huntsinger at gina@schulzmuseum.org.

February 5, 1979 — Snoopy’s doghouse, perhaps one of the most iconic symbols of the strip, is a classic example of the whimsy and playfulness that Peanuts exudes.

February 17, 1952 — Notice the pain-staking attention to detail in the setting that would later disappear from Peanuts as its landscapes became more abstract and minimal.

July 4, 1957 — The ordinary wall at which the Peanuts characters often philosophize with each other was such an intriguing piece for Schulz that he actually built one himself by hand along the driveway to his own house.