USPS to release 'Peanuts' stamps for Charles M. Schulz's 100th birthday

Aug. 31 (UPI) -- The U.S. Postal Service will release 10 new stamps featuring Peanuts characters to commemorate the centennial of the comic strip's late creator Charles M. Schulz's birth.

The USPS will issue a pane of 20 stamps with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Franklin, Sally, Pigpen, Linus, Snoopy and Woodstock, Schroeder, Peppermint Patty and Marcie in an event on Sept. 30 at the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center in Santa Rosa, Calif.

"The centennial of the birth of cartoonist Charles M. Schulz brings new stamps celebrating his wit and wisdom through his unforgettable Peanuts characters," the USPS said in a statement. "The groundbreaking comic became history's most popular and successful strip."

The first-day-of-issue event for the stamps will be free and open to the public with attendees encouraged to RSVP on the USPS website.

Schulz died of colon cancer at age 77 on Feb. 12, 2000. He was born on Nov. 26, 1922, and would have turned 100 years old this year.

The Peanuts comic strip debuted in 1950 and garnered hundreds of millions of readers worldwide and in the 1960s spawned television specials, books and a Broadway show.

Schulz drew, inked and lettered all of the nearly 18,000 Peanuts comic strips, with the last one published the day he died, earning various awards that included a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal.