Charles Schulz was a timid person who didn't excel at anything at school, apart from drawing. He lived in a society where people wanted you to be good at practical things and he was a dreamer. The most extraordinary thing about Peanuts is its longevity - it appeared in just seven newspapers but would grace more than 2,000 newspapers in over 70 countries. Of the human characters in Peanuts, the most famous is Charlie Brown; really everybody in the strip embodies some characteristic of him or her.