“Peanuts by Shultz” – if you are like me, that headline made you flinch (also, you wear out your right sneaker much faster than your left, and you’re a little too fond of donuts, but that really doesn’t matter for the subject at hand.) If you’re a Peanuts fan and even slightly attentive to spelling, you’ve seen the cartoonist’s last name misspelled repeatedly, often in internet discussion boards, sometimes in major media sources, and on very rare occasions, on Peanuts books themselves. And you certainly cannot believe that you’re seeing it on the AAUGH Blog, a place where clearly we take our Schulz very seriously.

But it’s not a mistake. I mean it. Peanuts by Shultz.

Look at this picture. It’s from a story slated for issue 10 of the current Peanuts comic. Entitled “Twinkle Thinkle”, it is written by yours truly…

…and drawn by Jeff Shultz.

Dedicated fans of comics aimed at the younger audience will recognize Mr. Shultz’s name for the many stories he has drawn depicting the adventures of Archie, Betty, Veronica, and their chums. His style is clean, round, and attractive.

(And just to prove that spelling problems don’t befall just Charles Schulz, let me note that the Grand Comic Book Database has 196 credits for Jeff Shultz and 221 for Jeff Schultz.)

Anyway, Mr. Shultz is slated to draw two stories (only one of which is my script) for issue 10, which ships at the end of July… which means that comics retailers are working on their orders for it now. When you go into the comic book store this Saturday for Free Comic Book Day, ask the retailer if they’ll order a copy of Peanuts 10 for you, and be ready to soak in the Shultz goodness. (Many comic shops do run a “hold” service, so that you can get them to order all the issues of Peanuts for you and not worry if it sells out before you get to the shop.)

As you can guess, I’ve been going around telling everyone that one of my Peanuts stories is being drawn by Shultz himself. Hey, is it my fault if they can’t hear the spelling?

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