Kurt Cobain's life would have been much simpler if he had been Charlie Brown. No heroin, no grunge rock, no Courtney Love, just an animated guitar, a psychiatrist's booth and a lonely pitcher's mound in the rain.

Hmmm...Charlie is slang for cocaine. Brown is slang for heroin. Worlds keep colliding in unexpected ways.

If you had to draw (or sketch) comparisons between the works of Kurt Cobain and Charles Schulz, you'd be in trouble.

Charles M. Schulz was born in 1922. In time he became the most widely syndicated cartoonist in history. He didn't write 'Rape Me' or howl his way angrily through covers of Leadbelly songs. He might well have worn a cardigan. That's about all I can think he'd have in common with Mr Cobain.

Kurt Cobain fell into the world in 1967 in Aberdeen. Not Aberdeen in Scotland, but in Seattle. To my knowledge he never worked in a steak house. Another missed opportunity.

Both artists are dead. Both artists had world-wide appeal.

Charles Schulz actually had interstellar appeal: In 1969 the Peanuts characters became official NASA mascots. This is unlikely to happen to any of Kurt's creations, although who knows what (if anything) astronauts listen to in space. I suspect it is Hootie and the Blowfish and Sheryl Crow.

Peanuts was originally called Li'l Folks. Schulz didn't like the name Peanuts - he thought it was demeaning, but the syndicates liked the name Peanuts and it stuck.

Quite a few angsty, angry rock stars should have been cartoon characters - or at the very least cartoonists.

It's a more sedate lifestyle: cartoonists tend not to trash their pens and brushes after a triumphant day's work. They are not regularly fed drugs by starry-eyed groupies.

Rock stardom indulges the basest aspects of a person's soul. Which is probably good fun for a short period of time. But I can imagine many rock stars would be happier hunched over a sketch pad, their tongues splayed in concentration, as they try to make Snoopy dance.

Snoopy was based on Schulz's pet dog Spike. Pets do mean prizes. All the connections make my head hurt. Goodnight.