By Emily Mitchell/Reported by Wendy Cole

At first, good ol' Charlie Brown "was going to be a smart-alecky little guy," says Charles Schulz, 66. But instead Peanuts' creator made him into a lovable loser. Inspiration was close at hand, says columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson in her upcoming biography Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz. "For Schulz," she says, "humor comes from sad things, not happy things. All of life's embarrassments remain fresh." One memory is especially poignant. In 1950 a real-life "little red-haired girl" spurned his marriage proposal. Says Schulz, who dashed off a self-portrait for this item: "You never get over a loss like that."