It's an Existentialist World, Charlie Brown

As part of the office festivities for Halloween yesterday, we participated in a trivia quiz while consuming pizza and various spooky potluck concoctions. The first question on the quiz was:

Every Halloween, Charlie Brown helps his friend Linus wait for what character to appear?
a. The Grinch | b. The Great Pumpkin | c. Godot |
d. Pigpen

I found the concept of Peanuts characters waiting for Godot hilarious. Considering that the content of Charles Schulz's comics was often quite deep, ironic, and satiric, perhaps the connection is not such a stretch. Tickled by this idea, I was moved to Photoshop a couple of images to illustrate a Peanuts take on existentialism.

As part of my research for this mini-project, I went to trusty ol' wikipedia to refresh my memory of Beckett and "Waiting for Godot." (I don't know what I ever did without wikipedia before!) There, I found out that one of two possible paintings by Caspar David Friedrich inspired Beckett to write the play: Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon or Two Men Contemplating the Moon. This composite of Friedrich's painting and Linus and Sally in the pumpkin patch is my tongue-in-cheek homage to both Beckett and Schulz. (By the way, Caspar David Friedrich's oeuvre includes some wonderfully atmospheric and sublime paintings.)

Thus, another Halloween has come and gone, and we find ourselves suddenly in the month of November. And even though neither the Great Pumpkin nor Godot has shown up, we find laughter and friendship and thought and creative expression as we continue to mark our time on this earth, and it is enough.