Peanuts back on popular demand

PARIS, FEBRUARY 21: Their creator may be dead, but Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts comic strip characters returned to the pages of the International Herald Tribune (IHT) on Monday thanks to an avalanche of mail after they were dropped. “Well, we were wrong,” the Paris-published newspaper admitted. “Everybody makes mistakes and we made one.” The 77-year old cartoonist Charles M. Shultz, author of the most successful comic strip in history, succumbed to cancer of the colon at his home in Santa Rosa, California, on February 13. The day after Schulz’s death, newspapers published the final Peanuts cartoon.

, concluding a 50-year run for the strip and bringing to an end a daily cartoon staple followed by millions of readers around the world. He had retired weeks earlier, too ill to maintain the daily cartoon strip and unwilling to turn it over to any successor. “We have received hundreds of letters and e-mails from readers all over the world,” the paper said, explaining its editorial volte-face. “Virtually all, of course, describe us as incredibly stupid and as having broken a primal bond with our readers.”