President Obama pens foreword to new ‘Peanuts' collection

Even presidents love “Peanuts.”

When connoisseurs of Charles Schulz open up the 25th collection of his comic strips, they’ll find an affectionate foreword by Barack Obama.

“I grew up with ‘Peanuts,’?” Obama wrote. “But I never outgrew it.”

He says in his five-paragraph introduction to Fantagraphics Books’ new hardcover volume of “The Complete Peanuts” that will go on sale next week that longtime Sonoma County resident Schulz “treated childhood with all the poignant and tender complexity it deserves. He gave voice to all its joys and anxieties.”

For Obama to pen the book’s foreword was a triumph for the Schulz family, the Schulz Museum and all involved in maintaining the art and wisdom of “Sparky” Schulz, who died in Santa Rosa in 2000.

“I don’t know how you could get better than the sitting president of the United States,” said Melissa Menta, an executive with Peanuts Worldwide and the brand management firm Iconix Brand Group.

In Santa Rosa for a meeting of the board of the Schulz Museum, located near the ice arena that Schulz built in 1969 north of Santa Rosa’s Coddingtown Mall, Menta said that early in his presidency, Obama revealed his affection for the Charlie Brown gang.

One indication: Menta said the White House invited a Snoopy presence at the Obama family’s first Easter Egg Roll.

Menta recalled that more than a year ago she was with CNN reporter and lifelong “Peanuts” fan Jake Tapper at Blue Sky Studios, animator of “The Peanuts Movie.” The two of them spoke about the approaching publication of the 1999-2000 volume of “The Complete Peanuts,” the final collection of the strips. (Fantagraphics is expected to release another edition this fall, featuring stories and drawings by Schulz. His widow, Jean, is expected to write the foreword.)

Menta said Tapper asked her, “Who are you going to get to write the last introduction?”

“I said, ‘It has to be somebody really, really good.’ And he said, ‘It has to be somebody amazing.’?”

She’ll never forget Tapper then saying, “It should be Obama.”

Menta immediately reached out to the president’s press secretary and others at the White House. She didn’t hear back.

Fast forward to last fall. The release of “The Peanuts Movie” prompted CNN’s Tapper to email Menta and ask how she was coming along with persuading Obama to write the intro for the next-to-last edition of the “Peanuts” archival collection.

She responded, “They’re ignoring me.” Menta said Tapper shot her back: “Give me five.”

“An hour later,” she said, I got an email from the White House that said President Obama would write the dedication.”

Imagine Menta breaking into Snoopy’s happy dance.

In Obama’s foreword, he reflects on the human emotions Schulz explored through the nearly 50 years he treated the world to “Peanuts.”

“Hope. Doubt. The exquisite pain of unrequited love. The self-exploration of what it means to be different.”

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.