Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts

by Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear (Photographer), Jeff Kinney (Introduction), Jean Schulz (Preface by), Paige Braddock (Contribution by)

Overview

From award-winning author/graphic designer Chip Kidd, Only What’s Necessaryis the Eisner Award–nominated tribute to Charles M. Schulz celebrating the art of Peanuts.

Introduction by Jeff Kinney
Preface by Jean Schulz
Essay by Paige Braddock and Karen Johnson

Charles M. Schulz believed that the key to cartooning was to take out the extraneous details and leave in only what’s necessary. For 50 years, he wrote and illustrated Peanuts, the single most popular and influential comic strip in the world. Chip Kidd was granted unprecedented access to the extraordinary archives of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.

Only What’s Necessary reproduces the best of the Peanuts newspaper strip, all shot from the original art by award-winning photographer Geoff Spear, and features exclusive, rare, and unpublished original art and developmental work—much of which has never been seen before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419746895
Publisher:	Abrams ComicArts
Publication date:	09/01/2020
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	237,676
Product dimensions:	11.30(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Chip Kidd is an award-winning graphic designer, writer, and editor at large at Pantheon. His books on comics include Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts, Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, Shazam! The Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal, Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross, and Marvelocity: The Marvel Comics Art of Alex Ross, among others. He lives in New York City.


Geoff Spear shot all the photography for Batman Collected, Batman Animated, Bat-Manga!, Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, and Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross. His award-winning photographs have appeared regularly in Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, Newsweek, and the New York Times, and on numerous book covers.


Jeff Kinney is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and the Awesome Friendly Kid series. He is a six-time Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award winner for Favorite Book and has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. He spent his childhood in the Washington, D.C., area and moved to New England, where he and his wife own a bookstore named An Unlikely Story.

Charles M. Schulz (1922–2000) is the legendary cartoonist and creator of the iconic comic strip Peanuts. He was twice honored with the Reuben Award by the National Cartoonists Society. His archives are located at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.

Chip Kidd is an award-winning graphic designer, writer, and editor-at-large at Pantheon. He lives in New York City.

Geoff Spear is an award-winning photographer who has collaborated with Chip Kidd on over a dozen books and numerous book covers. He lives in New York City.

Jeff Kinney is the #1 bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and a six-time Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award winner for Favorite Book. Jeff has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the creator of Poptropica, which was named one of Time’s 50 Best Websites. Jeff lives with his wife and two sons in Massachusetts, where they own a bookstore, An Unlikely Story.

Jean Schulz is the widow of Charles M. Schulz and the Founder and President of the Board of Directors of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.

Editorial Reviews

What’s most striking is the wealth of original art.

The New York Times

This glorious tome is equal parts museum and monument, a masterwork of curatorial rigor and an affectionate homage.

Brain Pickings

It’s a coffee-table book to end all coffee-table books—not just a beautiful object, but something anyone can flip through for an hour.

New York magazine online

What’s most striking is the wealth of original art.

The New York Times