Comment by gilgoomesh
16 hours ago
> Charlie Brown may have been as popular as any character in all of literature
Was he? Maybe this is true inside the US but from outside the US, I've always viewed the character as a peculiarly American artefact – something I was aware of but never really read or watched. This seemed to be reinforced by most major Charlie Brown titles seemingly tied to other American customs like Halloween and baseball.
Snoopy as a character is popular in Japan, but only as a character design - kind of like Hello Kitty. There is zero awareness of any of the shows or really Charlie Brown himself.
I'm Brazilian, in my middle 40s. When I was a little kid my best friend used to carry a blanket around. Neighbors called him "Linus" for years. But I'm confident it was because of the TV show, not the comic strips.
The BBC published this article. I agree with "all of literature" being hyperbolic though.
It was very popular in Australia. Serialised in newspapers for many years. As a kid, our family owned pretty much every Charlie Brown paperback.
People in eg Germany are mostly aware of the Peanuts, but it's nowhere near as central to the culture as in the US.
I'm an American and I've really never related to Charlie Brown myself, but I've heard Peanuts is huge in Japan and other asian countries.