10 People Who Changed The Comic Book Industry Forever
3. Charles Schulz
Charles Schulz/Universal Uclick
Peanuts is the most popular comics strip of all time, so it's easy to see why the series' creator, Charles Schulz, is considered such a legend in the industry.
Peanuts is a comic that needs no introduction, with the exploits of Charlie Brown and Snoopy common knowledge for fans of the original strip and of the many animated features that followed their initial publication. It was - and still is - a cultural phenomenon, with Schulz becoming a household name in the fifties on account of the strip's intelligence and style, a process that was only accelerated by Peanuts' transition to the big and small screens years later.
Schulz comic is one of the most famous of all time, and while his influence on the industry might not be as noticeable as other creators, Schulz's work on Peanuts inspired a whole other generation of artists, animators and cartoonists, exerting an influence externally that other creators simply could not match.
It might be difficult to see in comics themselves, but without Peanuts, the industry as a whole would be a vastly different place.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
