The Complete Peanuts: 1957-1958 ~Charles Schulz
–published October 2005
–Fantagraphics Books
–346 pages
–4.75/5 stars
The Complete Peanuts: 1959-1960 ~Charles Schulz
–published May 2006
–Fantagraphics Books
–346 pages
–5/5 stars
The Complete Peanuts: 1961-1962 ~Charles Schulz
–published October 2006
–Fantagraphics Books
–346 pages
–5/5 stars
From as far back as I can remember, Peanuts has been synonymous with the holidays, thanks in large part to the television specials that I looked forward to every year (and still do), beginning with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and ending with A Charlie Brown Christmas. In those pre-video-rental/pre-dvd days you scanned the TV Guide and listened carefully to commercials so that you could pinpoint the exact night that the Dolly-Madison-sponsored Peanuts specials would air, because if you missed it, that was it until next year.
Those specials prompted visits to the local library where I would check out hard-bound copies of the paperback collections to read, and re-read, whenever the mood struck.
Peanuts was my first love. Long before the Star Wars films turned my reading whims towards science fiction, and later fantasy, Peanuts dominated my imagination. My mother read Peanuts stories to me as a young child (books that I still own) and for years I would spend hours drawing Snoopy and Woodstock in various adventures. Off and on through my formative years, up through my teen years, I would revisit those library copies of Peanuts.
Early in my married life I rediscovered my love of the daily strips by collecting the cheap paperback collections, and I was thrilled when Fantagraphics decided to release the complete collection in these high quality volumes. I began collecting them right away and over the past few years have received these volumes as gifts from my wife and daughter. I had gotten way behind on reading them, but listening to Vince Guaraldi’s excellent A Charlie Brown Christmas album while wrapping presents last week put me in the mood and I spent much of Black Friday listening to that music on a loop and making my way through these three volumes.
Although I find the strips from my youth to be entertaining, it is these earlier volumes of Peanuts that are my absolute favorites. Reading these three volumes you find Snoopy still walking on all fours. He dances often, frequently pretends to be a vulture or a ship’s captain on stormy seas, and has legendary battles with Linus over his security blanket. Woodstock has not yet appeared but you can see the seeds of Woodstock being sown in Schulz’s imagination as Snoopy allows the neighborhood birds to use his dog house for their weekly meetings.
Charlie Brown’s travails as manager of his neighborhood baseball team fill many of these pages. Surprisingly these vacillate between games where the team is beat by hundreds of points and games when it comes down to just one more at bat, or strike out, for the team to win the championship. Inevitably these always turn out to be moments where Charlie Brown could be the hero, but instead becomes the goat. Despite the familiarity with Charlie Brown’s failures, these strips are often surprisingly poignant and painful, the more so with revelations of the deep depression and insecurities felt by Charlie Brown’s creator.
These early strips are often much more mean-spirited than later strips. Lucy, Violet, and Patty (not Peppermint) never tire of verbally abusing Charlie Brown, hurling insults that cut to the quick. Charlie begs and pleads to be liked, all to no avail.
All is not darkness in Schulz’s world, however. Snoopy is not the aloof Joe Cool of later years. He frequently shows affection and love for his owner and is often the cause for all of the neighborhood kids to express happiness and let loose. In these volumes we meet Sally for the first time and see an exuberant and excited Charlie Brown take to his big brother role with a passion that cannot help but be admired.
Frieda and her “naturally curly hair” joins the cast, Pig Pen plays a major role, and Lucy spends the majority of her time, when she is not abusing Charlie Brown or Linus, flirting with Schroeder. It was fascinating to read these back to back as you see the patterns that Charles Schulz got into with his strip. Every year in the fall there would be a Sunday strip devoted to the age-old battle of Lucy manipulating Charlie Brown into trying to kick the football. November/December would see multiple strips devoted to Schroeder promoting Beethoven’s birthday. You can see Charlie Brown’s relationship with his “pencil-pal” develop and watch Linus’ ongoing issues with carrying a blanket and sucking his thumb. It was not until I read these in order in this way that I noticed that Schulz was not only a genius in capturing aspects of humanity with a few squiggly lines, but he also developed his creations in a way that you can chart the course of their growth.
My attachment to the creations of Charles Schulz has grown, not diminished over time. When I read Peanuts strips it creates an atmosphere in which I feel connected to that little kid who sat downstairs giggling out loud as various strips struck a nerve. In addition to that my forty-two years allow me to experience the pathos in Schulz’s work that I was not conscious of as a child.
Fantagraphics Books has created a product that does great honor to the legacy of Charles Schulz. With only one exception (the 1957-1958 collection which as a few ink-bleed issues in my first edition), these books are top quality: solid binding, thick paper, clear ink, perfectly sized for reading without eye-strain and each has a very passionate introduction by some famous personality who was and still is affected by the life’s work of Charles Schulz.
It is without hyperbole that I say that I cannot recommend these highly enough.
A wonderful review of these volumes. I so want a copy of them now. Listening to Vince Guaraldi music right now.
what a touching, wonderful review of the three volumes – makes me want to do read them back to back in the same way! Really a great blog post!
My kids have been checking these out of the library and I couldn’t be happier. Can’t resist reading some of them myself. Do you remember the Charlie Brown’s Big Book of Questions and Answers? My mom recently moved and found my copies of these and I was beyond thrilled.
Mari: Thank you. Isn’t that Christmas album wonderful? I never tire of listening to it.
Courtney: Thank you. It was really fun to just lose a day in Peanuts reading and music. It felt festive and relaxing and was a lot of fun.
Melissa: That book sounds really familiar. I’m going to have to look it up to see if it jogs any memories. Funny that you mention your mom moving and finding these books as that is also what happened with me getting my childhood copies of Peanuts books. My parents moved down here a few years ago and they still had some of our stuff that they had us take. I was happy to have them come home with me.
At Amazon they start with the 1950-1952 volume. Have you seen it? Is it better begin with a later volume, like 1959-1960? I’ve always heard that the early Peanuts was great, and I’ve meant to track them down. But at $20 to try them out, I’m wondering which is the best volume to start with?
Jim: Yes, I have the earliest up through these three that I reviewed today. I really, really enjoy the first volumes. The drawing is much different and Schulz is really just finding his way, but the strips are fun and also fascinating from a historical perspective. I’m a big fan of Peanuts and so not owning these is not an option for me, but I would strongly encourage you to order them from the library first, especially the earliest volumes. If you are not interested in starting at the beginning, starting with the first of these three that I reviewed here is a really good place to begin.
Nice review! Yes, the early Peanuts comics were great. Unfortunately, the comic strip continued for decades too long, as far as I’m concerned. I understand the economics of it, but it’s still a shame.
WCG: Thanks, and thanks for stopping by. I do agree that economics played a big part of it continuing on, but I also firmly believe that it also continued because Charles Schulz could not have survived without it, an opinion that seems at least plausible given the fact that he died within days of the last strip being printed.
I remember seeing a 60 minutes special on Schulz that aired just before he retired and I remember wondering aloud if he would live long after he was done just based on things he was saying about how important the work was to him. When it actually happened it made me very, very sad.
Although I guess there is something positive about the idea of him being able to do what he loved almost right up to the moment of his death.
I can see that I have to get these. I held off, though I bought the complete Calvin and Hobbs the second I could, thinking these might not be as engaging as I remembered them as a younger person. I’ll start with the library, if they have them, but will probably get them, regardless of price.
Richard: I bought the complete Calvin and Hobbs right away as well but have only read the first volume. After reading all the Peanuts this weekend I was thinking that this Christmas season would be a great time to get back into those as well. So much fun.
It is SO weird that you posted this, Carl…for some unknown reason, I’ve been thinking about you and Peanuts a lot lately :/ I have no idea why…but everything Peanuts seems to be standing out lately! And every time I see Charlie Brown, I think of you since I’ve started reading your blog 🙂 I really should read these! I’ve always loved Peanuts but haven’t really dug into them.
I read the first collection of these when they came out. I need to find more time to check some out from the library and read those as well.
I too grow up loving Peanuts and many other newspaper comic strips. I also used to love Family Circus, Marmaduke, Haggar the Horrible, Wizard of Id, Ziggy and Prince Valiant. As an young adult I found The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, For Better or Worse and Bloom County.
My child hood comic strip love was Peanuts and Marmuduke though. I distinctly remember owning multiple small paperback collections of each. Prince Valiant was also special to me as the Kansas City area newspaper didn’t carry it but when I went to visit my grandparents in Iowa their paper carried it. So I have special memories of those visits were I looked forward to Prince Valiant.
I bless Fantagraphic’s for now producing incredible complete collections of both Peanuts and Prince Valiant. Two completely different yet incredible comic strips. The only other comic strip I love as much as these is Calvin and Hobbes.
It is ironic that you posted this strip as I was recently thinking of how I lost touch with Newspaper stips as I stopped getting the paper a few years ago to save money. Even in the last ten years my love of newspaper strips had fallen off as there were none anymore I looked forward to reading everyday. I truly miss that. Truly, deeply.
Great post my friend and let’s talk about newspaper strips again later this week.
Jeff: Thanks for the long, memory-filled reply. I remember you telling me about Prince Valiant and your grandparents, now that you mention it. It is no wonder those are so special. Though way on the other end of the spectrum I have a similar nostalgic feel for Mad Magazine because I had cousins who got it and I would read it whenever we went to visit them.
I read Peanuts in our local paper, and Wizard of Id, and later as an adult in Tulsa would often read Calvin and Hobbs and Foxtrot and enjoyed them. And Bloom County and Outland.
Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbs are my favs, with Bloom County being a short distance behind. I read several of the new Bloom County strips when he started doing it again and they really sucked. Whatever he had, he clearly lost in the his time off. Makes me think Larson and Waterson retiring when they did might have been a good idea. Go out on top.
Although newspapers were not a big part of my life other than during brief periods, I do lament their demise, at least in printed form. While I love advancement and the joys of the internet, I also hate some of the side effects of it, especially when it comes to print media.
Chris: It is probably the whole “nut” thing…Pea’nuts’, I’m ‘nuts’. 😉 LOL! I must say that I am thrilled and honored that thinking of Charlie Brown and the gang makes you think of me. I couldn’t think of a more wonderful thing to be associated with.
I’ve not read much with Peanuts, outside the occasional newstrip or the television specials. But reading this rekindles my desire to somehow obtain the Complete Calvin & Hobbes, which is what I grew up loving and reading. Nice and informative write up.
Logan: That complete Calvin and Hobbes collection that came out a few years ago is fantastic, if a bit unwieldy to read. Very high quality, just a bit heavy. Books you read with them laying completely across your lap OR on a table. Good for building muscles though! I always thought that Calvin was a perfect representation of the kind of kid that would grow up to be game playing, sf/fantasy reading adults like so many of us are. His imagination was so fantastic and outlandish and yet it is so easy to see ourselves in him…I mean didn’t we all kind of play and daydream this way when we were kids? I know I did.
Had fun reading your review.
I am not comic book fan. I was never one who read comic strips when I was kid. I do love the Peanuts, and my love for this great comic strip comes from viewing the Charlie Brown shows. I agree with you that Charlie Brown is synonymous with the holidays. I wish my children could feel the magic that I did while growing up. They do love the shows, but it is not the same because it is available to them many times over throughout the season.