Peanuts: Search and Destroy

Trombonian.

This I believe.

Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski

Amazingly, not bad as I'd thought it would have been. Brilliant even.

lolz@"Good grief, he thought. What a cunt. "

goddammit they are putting out these complete peanuts volumes faster than I can afford them! I only have 1-4 and haven't even gotten to the 60s yet :(

search: http://images.skyllo01.multiply.com/image/6/photos/187/400x400/34/tyra_grossaroo.gif?

BAH

search: http://images.skyllo01.multiply.com/image/6/photos/187/400x400/34/tyra_grossaroo.gif

wtf

fuck never mind

buy the boxes Shakey, they're cheaper and you only have to keep up with one a year instead of two.

that's what I did with vol 3-4... maybe I'll get 5-6 for Xmas...

Is the new one out? I thought it wasn't coming out for a few more weeks.

all I know is my volumes end at '59 and now they're like on '66 or some shit.

also watch for huge new biography of schulz by david michaelis, 6 years in the making, next month

am i the only one who's read the michaelis bio yet? quite controversial, owing to its open treatment of schulz's lifelong depression, his shortcomings as a dad, and even his sex life. his kids aren't happy with it.

i finished reading it this morning. it's well researched and not at all as sensationalized as that description makes it sound, but michaelis spends way too much time on rambling, discursive, and frankly unconvincing analysis of schulz's personality. it often reads like a (very) rough first draft, before a sensible editor made him take all that bullshit out. he also leaves WAY too much out - he spends 30 (admittedly gripping) pages on schulz's extra-marital affair, but virtually ignores the last 25 years of "peanuts."

the revelation that schulz reacted to his divorce by having charlie brown kick lucy off the baseball team is worth the price of the book, though.

also the story about him calling garfield "the ugliest, most insulting and hateful character i've ever seen."

Haha! This sounds like a good read for a long flight.

I think on some level Schulz ignored the last 25 years of "peanuts."

Oh my GOD I need to read this. His depression and doubt make him my spiritual kin basically. RIP my dear Sparky.

Schulz gets an "American Masters" on PBS tonight (Michaelis is interviewed and was a consultant).

wau

I saw Chip Kidd speak this summer and he showed (or at least explained) three or four book covers that were rejected before the one they used got picked. Originally I think there were Peanuts characters on the cover until the family started to dislike what they read.

am i the only one who's read the michaelis bio yet? quite controversial,

Just picked it up over the weekend, but haven't read yet.

really been really enjoying the two most recent volumes in the Complete series. some of these books have like 150 strips that were never reprinted!

Yeah I was surprised by how much was new to me in the most recent one.

This American Masters ep is pretty good. It's available thru the usual sources.

Still, it's difficult for me to really express the centrality and importance of Snoopy & Peanuts to my growing up dorkling years.

Am planning to buy the Fantagraphics Peanuts collections only through 1970.

why? they're good through 1975 at least!

also get good again around 1996 or so

My favorite stuff is the, I think 70s material with a lot of long story arcs. The absolute high point for me is when Charlie Brown goes to summer camp and due to some baseball-related anxiety develops a rash on his head that makes it look like a baseball. He covers this up with a paper back and instantly the mysterious "Mister Sack" becomes the most popular kid at camp. Eventually the rash goes away, he takes off the sack, and his popularity dissipates. Absolutely wonderful little story.

From Fantagraphics spamco:

"UNSEEN PEANUTS" Revealed This Friday!

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, in association with the Charles M.
Schulz Museum and Research Center, is pleased to present "Unseen
Peanuts." This collection of full size, rarely seen Peanuts strips
opens with a daylong preview on Friday, November 23 from 11:30 until
8:00 PM, highlighted by an "Unseen Peanuts" slide presentation by
Fantagraphics Books co-publisher Kim Thompson at 6:00 PM. The public
of all ages is invited to this free event.

Perhaps no American artist is more closely associated with the
holidays than Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz. Kim Thompson, co-
editor of the Complete Peanuts series, points out that even though
Peanuts is the most-reprinted comic strip in history, several
thousand strips had never been collected until The Complete Peanuts
project began in 2004. The show includes a companion 32-page "Unseen
Peanuts" comic book catalogue featuring over 150 more of these "lost"
strips. This fully annotated publication is available for free with
any purchase exclusively at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.

Get an early start on your holiday shopping at Fantagraphics
Bookstore & Gallery, located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport way S.)
in the heart of Seattle's lively Georgetown business district.
Throughout the month of November all comic strip reprints, including
The Complete Peanuts, are offered at 20 % off, and pick up our free
"Comic Strip Masterpieces" tabloid.

"Unseen Peanuts" remains on view through December 31. Fantagraphics
Bookstore & Gallery is open daily 11:30 - 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00
PM. 206.658.0110.

A bit of a long shot but here goes...

There was a strip where it's pouring with rain and (I think) Linus and Lucy are looking out of the window and saying something like 'what kind of idiot would be out in weather like this' and then the last frame is CB on the pitchers mound in the rain saying "Where is evertbody?" or something similar. And I really want that last frame to make into a card for someone. If this rings any bells with anyone and they know where to find it (what book, what year even) please to let me know. Thanks.

This might be a frame from the same cartoon...
http://eteamz.active.com/bangoreastll/images/CharlieBrownlookingupatrainJPG.jpg

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/Cartoon-Schulz.jpg

Ned, I believe it's in "The Snoopy Festival", if that's any help. (Maybe "Peanuts Treasury" instead, but I think it's "The Snoopy Festival". Late 60s/Early 70s. If you remind me in a week I might have some time to try to look for it and scan it.

I think "Peanuts Treasury" is more likely than "The Snoopy Festival", because I remember this strip, and I never read "The Snoopy Festival".

it's not "the snoopy festival" because that was pretty much all snoopy strips.

it's pre-66 (i remember it showing up in the second special, "charlie brown's all-stars"), so it's definitely in one of the last two "complete" volumes.

The Snoopy Festival is the book I grew up with the most, and I totally don't remember it as being all Snoopy strips (though it surely had a few classic Snoopy sequences in it -- I think the riot strips are in there?).

If it's in the last few complete volumes, which it might be, then it'll be easier for me to find it. Yay for indexes.

I memorized the Peanuts Treasury when I was a kid. I am still waiting for the Masked Marvel armwrestling contest, it has not appeared yet. Also the doghouse-burning-down series.

By the way, my mom owns two original strips in frames. Her boyfriend in high school in the 50's wrote Schultz and said his girlfriend loved Peanuts, did he have anything he could give her? He sent two originals. She's thinking about donating them to the archives, since she is an archivist herself.

Jesus, dude, she could put you through college with what those two would bring.

a boy named charlie brown is on the family channel right now.

i mean abc family, if there's a difference (is there?)

If it's in the last few complete volumes, which it might be, then it'll be easier for me to find it. Yay for indexes.

-- Casuistry, Friday, 30 November 2007 02:00 (4 days ago) Link

Bump - in case casuistry has found it.

Oh right! I just looked, and I couldn't find it in 63-64 or in 65-66. Only the first of those two has "rain" as an index entry!

Good lord I need to catch up on the books. Maybe with some Xmas cash...

(And yes I am listening to Vince Guaraldi's music for A Charlie Brown Christmas as I type, thanks.)

Got the biography for Christmas. You guys need to check it out. I'm really enjoying it, and the amount of psych-/contextual analysis of what was going on in the strips vs Schulz's actual life is astounding.

I really don't want to know, honestly. Seems strange but I prefer to deal with the image he projected in the interviews than the truth as such -- I sensed a long time ago there was a lot he preferred not to discuss. I don't need to know every nut and bolt and every cross-correlation.

Well Ned, the thing about that is he was so delightfully inconsistent in interviews over the years, and I don't think the bio really contradicts that inconsistency. The only "gotcha" moments are really those that kingfish mentioned. Overall, you get just a small peek into how different people influenced the characters along the way, and what kind of prompted different eras of the strip. The single vision of becoming a cartoonist, sticking to it, and eventually being such a resounding success never really changed his basic outlook.

There are some details that aren't delved into out of respect to his wishes, although I know the family didn't like that other things were left in. There's only a brief mention about how his cousin was the inspiration for a character named Patty, and then another named Peppermint Patty, but he distanced the character from his cousin after the insinuations of the character's sexuality. Michaelis mentions the cousin a few times, but nicely sidesteps the issue since it's a book about Schulz, not the characters.

some of the revelations are charming - all those famous female athletes snoopy loudly crushes on (peggy fleming et al) are there because schulz had mad crushes on them in real life.

my main problem with the book is that DM appears to have no discernable sense of humor, which leads to him interpreting every single aspect of schulz and "peanuts" in the dourest possible light.

<quote>my main problem with the book is that DM appears to have no discernable sense of humor, which leads to him interpreting every single aspect of schulz and "peanuts" in the dourest possible light.</quote>

It's extra irritating when DM lapses into extended DO YOU SEE moments. The book is great and I'm glad I read it, but Schultz was spot-on when he said that "everything is in the strip." It really is.