DALLAS – Christmas comes early for Charlie Brown. An original Charles Schulz Peanuts Sunday strip, published December 18, 1966, sold for $360,000, Friday, September 10, at Heritage Auctions. That is the highest price ever paid at auction for original Peanuts artwork.
The sale, which took place during the auction house’s September 8-12 Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction, shatters two previous Schulz records held by Heritage.
In December, drawings Schulz made for the 1953 promotional The Peanuts Album sold for $288,000 during the auction house’s December 11-13 Animation Art event. That toppled a previous high-water mark set in November 2020, when a November 17, 1950, Peanuts daily strip realized $192,000.
It may come as no surprise that this December 18, 1966, comic is now the world’s most valuable Schulz strip. It was published just one year after the initial airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, created by Schulz, producer Lee Mendelson and director Bill Melendez to remind viewers of the true meaning of Christmas. CBS executives didn’t care for the show, insisting it was too slow for children; they also disliked Vince Guaraldi’s sad-jazz score, and were uncomfortable with using the voices of children instead of adults.
Mendelson frequently said CBS executives were also deeply worried about the now-beloved scene in which Linus recites from the Bible; at the time, injecting religion into secular television was considered a decided no-no. That didn’t stop Schulz from quoting from the Book of Luke in the special — “For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” — and again in this 1966 comic strip that pares down the animated special to its most defining moment.
To make it even more special, this Christmas 1966 strip is signed by Schulz as “Sparky,” a moniker he only used among close friends. For more information, www.ha.com.
