Paige Braddock’s Award-winning Career in Cartooning and Comics
By Laura Tenpenny (’11)
To focus on creating his comic strip, Charles Schulz was looking for a talented artist to work with the Peanuts licensing team in New York, managing requests to use his famed illustrations for commercial purposes. After hearing Paige Braddock (’85) speak on a panel at the 1999 National Cartoonist Society Convention, he knew he had found the right person.
During that presentation, Braddock engaged in a back-and-forth exchange of views with a member of the audience: Braddock recalls, “She was gatekeeper for one of the few syndication companies onboarding new comics—someone most people in my place would’ve simply agreed with. She was also editor to Schulz.”
Schulz knew of Braddock’s work illustrating for newspapers, and witnessing that interaction had shown him Braddock wasn’t afraid to say no. She eagerly accepted when he offered her a job working with one of the most iconic comic brands in the world.
For 25 years, Braddock has led art direction and coordinated with the licensing office to protect the beloved comic strip’s integrity for Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates.
Photo courtesy of: The Snoopy Show on Apple TV+ | Peanuts © Peanuts Worldwide 2025
With the studio and the Schulz family, Braddock built the Peanuts editorial standard and mission statement and developed many standards and style guides for use of the comics in everything from gaming to fashion.
“Schulz expressed the emotional range of human experience in his characters: self-doubt, unrequited love, anger with Lucy, trepidation with Linus—it transcends time and culture,” says Braddock. “Protecting this legacy has been my constant focus.
“Having illustrated for newspapers for years, I understood editorial frameworks,” adds Braddock. “I started at UT’s The Daily Beacon creating Sadie, a comic strip focused on college life. That set me up for the next 12 years of working as an illustrator, mainly for papers in Orlando, Chicago, and Atlanta, and it ultimately led me to Schulz.”
Among multiple awards from UT, the Distinguished Alumni Award joined the former illustration student’s collection last fall for her extensive career with the Schulz studio and as an original comics creator. Her current original series, Peanut, Butter, and Crackers, follows the antics of three pets based on the dogs and cat she owns with her wife, Evelyn. It makes its debut in the United Kingdom this year, with another book in the works centered on the holidays.
In her capacity as an illustrator for Schulz studio, Braddock is also well decorated. She’s won a Children’s and Family Emmy in 2022 for the documentary Who Are You, Charlie Brown? Her recent work appearing on Apple TV+ includes Camp Snoopy and The Snoopy Show, which won a Canadian Screen Award in 2023.
This year she moves into an emerita role at Schulz, handing off licensing work to focus on animation, and it offers a perfect time to reflect on her career: “When I think about the beginning of my interest in comics, even as a child, I resonated with the emotional depth and honesty of Schulz’s characters.”
At the age of seven, Braddock declared to her concerned parents that she wanted to become a comics creator. For a kid growing up with the smell of a pickle factory wafting down the road in Wiggins, Mississippi, it wasn’t the most practical career choice.
“But I just loved ink on paper,” says Braddock. “With comics, it’s a puzzle that’s equal parts art and story. I began by mimicking the masters from the Sunday funnies and gas station comics and grew my style. My first original character, Captain Lightning—an uncoordinated superhero who failed at everything—was published by my junior high school.”
I remember how big an impact UT had on me; it has a soft place in my heart. Supporting students and the arts, when I found it difficult to access the arts growing up, is my way of helping to bridge that gap—especially for women in comics like me.”
Paige Braddock (’85)
For her father’s work in forestry, her family moved regularly and often to rural areas, including Cleveland, Tennessee, where Braddock heard about UT. She often had limited access to art programs and supplies, using school-issued pencils and paper for drawing before experiencing her first art class at UT.
“UT taught me a lot—turns out there are more options than a No. 2 pencil!” says Braddock. “Professors like Dottie Habel brought art to life and showed me so many ways that art can be explained and interpreted. As an art director, it was important for me to communicate why something works or doesn’t work, to leave people inspired to improve, and I got that experience in classes and portfolio reviews at UT. I also got a crash course in deadlines, professionalism, and how a newspaper works at The Daily Beacon.”
Braddock’s Beacon comic Sadie, about a college student and her roommate trying to get their act together, carried into her acclaimed comic Jane’s World, which features a 20-something and her roommate getting their bearings as young adults. Nominated for the industry’s highest honor, an Eisner Award, it was the first gay-themed comic distributed online by a national media syndicate in the country.
Jane’s World
Working for Schulz in a studio environment where comics were treated as true art spurred her original creations.
“From Peanuts, I learned that characters need an authentic voice unique to them; they have to occupy space,” says Braddock. “With Jane’s World, I saw how that resonated with people.”
In 2019, Braddock gifted the entirety of her Jane’s World original illustrations to UT Libraries, and in 2022 she lent her skills to illustrate firsthand accounts of the 2016 Chimney Tops fire. Her generosity further extends to a graduate award she established for students in the School of Art and an estate gift that will also benefit the school.
Investing in the next generation has taken on growing importance for Braddock. She often teaches workshops at art schools around the country—even at her local library—and at UT, where she’s spoken multiple times.
“I hired a UT student for Schulz studio from one workshop. She’s very talented and working with me now on animation projects for Apple,” says Braddock. “I remember how big an impact UT had on me; it has a soft place in my heart. Supporting students and the arts, when I found it difficult to access the arts growing up, is my way of helping to bridge that gap—especially for women in comics like me.”
