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| When he was a little boy the other children called him "Sparky,"
after a comic-strip horse named Sparkplug. Sparky never escaped
from that nickname. |
| School was all but impossible for Sparky. He failed every
subject in the eighth grade. Every subject! He failed physics
in high school. Receiving a flat zero in the course, he distinguished
himself as the worst physics student in his school's history.
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| He also failed Latin. And Algebra. And English. |
| He didn't do much better in sports. Although he managed to
join the school golf team, it took him no time at all to lose
the only important match of the year. |
| There was a match for the losers. Sparky lost that too. |
| Throughout his youth Sparky was awkward socially.He was not
actually disliked by the other youngsters. No one cared that
much. He was astonished if a classmate ever said hello to him
outside school hours. No way to tell how he might have done
at dating. In high school Sparky never once asked a girl out.
He was too afraid of being turned down. |
| Sparky was a loser. He, his classmates, everyone knew it,
So he accepted it. Sparky made up his mind early in life that
if things were meant to work out, they would. Otherwise, he
would be satisfied with what appeared to be mediocrity. |
| But this is THE REST OF THE STORY. |
| One thing was important to Sparky: drawing. He was proud
of his own artwork. Of course, no one else appreciated it. In
his senior year of high school, he sent some cartoons to the
editors of his class yearbook. As expected, Sparky's drawings
were rejected. |
| While the young man had stoically accepted almost all of
his failures before that time, he was rather hurt by the general
lack of knowledge about what he believed was his one natural
talent. In fact, he believed in his artistic ability so deeply
that he decided to become a professional artist. |
| Upon graduating high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney
Studios, a letter saying that he has enough talent to become
a cartoonist for Disney |
| Soon after he received an answer, a form letter requesting
that he send some examples of his artwork. Subject matter was
suggested. For instance, a Disney cartoon character "repairing"
a clock by shoveling the springs and gears back inside. |
| Sparky drew the proposed cartoon scene. He spent a great
deal of time on that and the other drawings. A job with Disney
would be impressive, and it was very difficult to get a job
as a cartoonist at Walt Disney Studios. |
| Sparky mailed the form and his drawings to Disney Studios.
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| Sparky waited. |
| And one day the reply came… |
| It was another form letter, very politely composed. It said
that Disney Studios hired only the very finest artists, even
for their less-exciting background work. It had been determined
from the drawings which Sparky had sent―that he was not one
of the very finest artists. |
| In other words, he did not get the job. |
| I think Sparky expected to be rejected. He had always been
a loser, and this was simply one more loss. |
| So you know what Sparky did? He wrote his life story in cartoons.
He described his childhood self, the little boy loser, the chronic
underachiever, in a cartoon character the whole world now knows. |
| For the boy who failed the entire eighth grade, the young
artist whose work was rejected not only by Walt Disney Studios
but his own high school yearbook, that young man was "Sparky"
Charles Monroe Schulz. |
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He created the "Peanuts" comic strip and the little cartoon
boy whose kite would never fly―Charlie Brown.
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