There were two publication milestones: Charles M. Schulz’s last daily Peanuts strip ran on January 3, 2000, and the final Sunday strip appeared on February 13, the day after his death. The daily carried his retirement message; the Sunday strip repeated it. The dates are different because “last daily” and “final strip overall” refer to different formats.
Which Peanuts strip was the last?
| Milestone | Publication date | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| Final daily strip | January 3, 2000 | A single-panel farewell featuring Snoopy at his typewriter. It announced Schulz’s retirement. |
| Final Sunday strip | February 13, 2000 | The last Peanuts newspaper publication, repeating the signed farewell letter in a multi-panel page. |
The Sunday strip ran one day after Schulz died, on February 12, 2000, at home from complications of colon cancer. The Charles M. Schulz Museum’s timeline and its timeline PDF record the chronology. These are publication dates; they do not establish when the Sunday page was drawn or delivered to newspapers.
Why did Schulz retire?
Schulz’s farewell gave a practical reason: he could no longer keep up with the schedule demanded by a daily comic strip. In the letter printed with the January 3 daily, he wrote: “Unfortunately, I am no longer able to maintain the schedule demanded by a daily comic strip, therefore I am announcing my retirement.” The Los Angeles Times report of January 2, 2000 reproduced the message and described the single-panel strip.
The letter also thanked newspaper editors and readers: “I have been grateful over the years for the loyalty of our editors and the wonderful support and love expressed to me by fans of the comic strip.” Schulz had announced his retirement on December 14, 1999. The Museum’s timeline quotes him saying he felt fortunate to have done what he loved for almost 50 years and that readers’ embrace of the characters had motivated him.
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How did the final Sunday strip differ?
The February 13 Sunday page repeated the farewell letter but placed it within a multi-panel strip. Its surrounding images recalled familiar Peanuts moments, including Lucy pulling away the football and Snoopy reaching for Linus’s blanket, according to the CBS/AP account published February 13, 2000. The final daily was a text-led, single-panel announcement; the Sunday page made the same message part of a broader visual farewell.
Why were there no new Peanuts strips afterward?
The end was intended to be final, not a handoff to another cartoonist. Contemporaneous accounts describe a contract and family preference against continuing the strip with new work by someone else; the syndicate planned to publish reprints instead. That decision suited the creator-led nature of the comic: Penguin Random House says Schulz wrote, drew, and lettered all 17,897 daily and Sunday strips. Its Schulz biography also records the first daily strip, published October 2, 1950, and the first Sunday strip, published January 6, 1952.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the farewell meant at the time
When Schulz retired, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries, according to the Los Angeles Times on January 2, 2000. A CBS/AP report on February 13 estimated 355 million daily readers in 75 countries; that was the contemporary report’s estimate, not a current readership figure. The scale helps explain why the final strip was both a personal retirement announcement and a major newspaper event.
Readers who want to see the Sunday pages in collected form can look to Fantagraphics’ Peanuts Every Sunday 1996–2000, a collection that the publisher says includes Schulz’s farewell letter. It collects Sunday strips across those years rather than presenting itself as a book solely of the February 13 page.
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