The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984: Vol. 17 Paperback Edition

Charles M. Schulz was born November 25, 1922, in Minneapolis. His destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the newspaper strip Barney Google ). His ambition from a young age was to be a cartoonist and his first success was selling 17 cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post between 1948 and 1950. He also sold a weekly comic feature called Li'l Folks to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press. After writing and drawing the feature for two years, Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three counts, he quit.He started submitting strips to the newspaper syndicates and in the spring of 1950, United Feature Syndicate expressed interest in Li'l Folks. They bought the strip, renaming it Peanuts, a title Schulz always loathed. The first Peanuts daily appeared October 2, 1950; the first Sunday, January 6, 1952. Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz retired from Peanuts at the end of 1999. He died on February 13, 2000, the day before Valentine's Day-and the day before his last strip was published, having completed 17,897 daily and Sunday strips, each and every one fully written, drawn, and lettered entirely by his own hand -- an unmatched achievement in comics.

Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin was born in New York City on December 18, 1950. He grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey and began writing as a teen. Maltin received a degree in journalism from New York University and has published articles in numerous film journals, newspapers, and magazines. He is well-known for his bestselling annual, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, the first edition of which he created at the age of 18. Maltin has written or edited many other film-related books and television specials, and he has hosted, produced and/or written video documentaries. His title Leonard Maltin's 2012 Movie Guide made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012. He has hosted radio and cable programs, was a film critic for Playboy magazine, and has been the movie reviewer for Entertainment Tonight since 1982. Maltin has also appeared in several animated television series including South Park. He lectures on film and taught for nine years at New York City's New School for Social Research. Maltin currently teaches in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He has been a guest curator for the film department of New York's Museum of Modern Art, president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and a member of the National Film Preservation Board and the Advisory Board of the Hollywood Entertainment Museum. Maltin has been the recipient of awards and citations from the American Society of Cinematographers, Anthology Film Archives, The Society of Cinephiles, and the Telluride Film Festival.