The 25th volume of The Complete Peanuts collects the very final year-plus of the defining comic strip of the 20th century, which ran for nearly 18,000 strips and for 50 years after its debut in 1950. This masterpiece includes all of 1999 through the final Feb. 13, 2000 strip. In this volume, Rerun takes center stage and cements himself as the last great Peanuts character―when he embarks on a career as an underground comic book artist! This volume also features a huge surprise: the complete Li'l Folks, the weekly one-panel comic that Charles Schulz produced for his hometown paper. Li'l Folks was a clear precursor to Peanuts, and its inclusion here will bring The Complete Peanuts full circle.
Blockheads, Beagles, and Sweet Babboos: New Perspectives on Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" sheds new light on the past importance, ongoing significance, and future relevance of a comics series that millions adore: Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts. More specifically, it examines a fundamental feature of the series: its core cast of characters. In chapters devoted to Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Franklin, Pigpen, Woodstock, and Linus, author Michelle Ann Abate explores the figures who made Schulz’s strip so successful, so influential, and—above all—so beloved. In so doing, the book gives these iconic figures the in-depth critical attention that they deserve and for which they are long overdue. Abate considers the exceedingly familiar characters from Peanuts in markedly unfamiliar ways. Drawing on a wide array of interpretive lenses, Blockheads, Beagles, and Sweet Babboos invites readers to revisit, reexamine, and rethink characters that have been household names for generations. Through this process, the chapters demonstrate not only how Schulz’s work remains a subject of acute critical interest more than twenty years after the final strip appeared, but also how it embodies a rich and fertile site of social, cultural, and political meaning.
With contributions by Leonie Brialey, MJ Clarke, Roy T. Cook, Joseph J. Darowski, Ian Gordon, Gene Kannenberg Jr., Christopher P. Lehman, Anne C. McCarthy, Ben Owen, Lara Saguisag, Ben Saunders, Jeffrey O. Segrave, and Michael Tisserand The Comics of Charles Schulz collects new essays on the work of the creator of the immensely popular Peanuts comic strip. Despite Schulz's celebrity, few scholarly books on his work and career have been published. This collection serves as a foundation for future study not only of Charles Schulz (1922-2000) but, more broadly, of the understudied medium of newspaper comics. Schulz's Peanuts ran for a half century, during which time he drew the strip and its characters to express keen observations on postwar American life and culture. As Peanuts' popularity grew, Schulz had opportunities to shape the iconography, style, and philosophy of modern life in ways he never could have imagined when he began the strip in 1950. Edited by leading scholars Jared Gardner and Ian Gordon, this volume ranges over a spectrum of Schulz's accomplishments and influence, touching on everything from cartoon aesthetics to the marketing of global fast food. Philosophy, ethics, and cultural history all come into play. Indeed, the book even highlights Snoopy's global reach as American soft power. As the broad interdisciplinary range of this volume makes clear, Peanuts offers countless possibilities for study and analysis. From many perspectives--including childhood studies, ethnic studies, health and exercise studies, as well as sociology--The Comics of Charles Schulz offers the most comprehensive and diverse study of the most influential cartoonist during the second half of the twentieth century.
Even the most devoted Peanuts fan will be surprised by revisiting Schulz's last decade of work. Schulz's cartooning has never been more expressive, and his sense of humor never more unencumbered by formula or tradition. In one sequence, the gang waits... and waits... for a school bus that never comes. Another shockingly showcases Charlie Brown hitting a game-winning home run ― off Roy Hobbs' great-granddaughter? Then, Linus lobbies the White House to nominate Snoopy for a Supreme Court seat (it would go to Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Woodstock discovers his long-lost grandfather's diary, detailing a hard life in captivity (birdcage). Snoopy lands in the hospital with pneumonia, and all three of his brothers ― Andy, Spike, and Olaf ― come pay their respects.
We are now in the mid-1960s, one of Schulz's peak periods of creativity (and one third of the way through the strip's life!). Snoopy has become the strip's dominant personality, and this volume marks two milestones for the character: the first of many "dogfights" with the nefarious Red Baron, and the launch of his writing career ("It was a dark and stormy night..."). Two new characters―the first two from outside the strip's regular little neighborhood―make their bows. Roy (who befriends Charlie Brown and then Linus at summer camp) won't have a lasting impact, but upon his return from camp he regales a friend of his with tales of the strange kids he met, and she has to go check them out for herself. Her name? "Peppermint" Patty.
These years are especially fecund in terms of new canine characters, as Snoopy is joined by his wandering brother Spike (from Needles), his beloved sister Belle (from Kansas City), and... did you know he had a nephew? In other beagle news, Snoopy breaks his foot and spends six weeks in a cast, deals with his friend Woodstock's case of the "the vapors," and gets involved in a heated love triangle with Linus over the girl "Truffles."
In Snoopy-family news, Spike is drafted into the Infantry (don't worry, it's only Snoopy's imaginary World War I army), and a brand new brother, "Marbles" (with the spotty ears) takes his bow. We also see two major baseball-oriented stories, one in which Charlie Brown joins Peppermint Patty's team, and another in which Charlie Brown and his team lose their baseball field.
As the 1970s wind down, the last two recurring Peanuts characters have fallen into place: Snoopy's brother Spike and the youngest Van Pelt sibling, Rerun. But that doesn't mean Schulz's creativity has diminished; in fact, this volume features an amazing profusion of hilariously distinctive new one- (or two-) shot characters!
The second volume is packed with intriguing developments, as Schulz continues to create his tender and comic universe. It begins with Peanuts' third full year and a cast of eight: Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty, Violet, Schroeder, Lucy, the recently-born Linus, and Snoopy. By the end of 1954, Pigpen and his dust cloud join the crowd. Linus, who still doesn't speak, begins to emerge as one of the most complex and endearing characters in the strip: garrulous and inquisitive yet gentle and tolerant. And, in this volume, he acquires his security blanket! Charlie Brown is becoming his best-known self, the lovable, perpetually-humiliated round-headed loser, but he hasn't yet abandoned his brasher, prankish behavior from Volume One. And, Lucy, this book's cover girl, has grown up and forcefully elbowed her way to the center of the action, proudly wearing her banner as a troublemaker, or, in Schulz's memorable phrase, a "fussbudget". For readers unfamiliar with the early years of the strip, Snoopy's appearances here may come as the biggest surprise: he behaves, for the most part, like a dog! But, although he doesn't yet walk upright, sleep on top of his doghouse, or possess a fantasy life, Snoopy has started thinking for himself and his evolution continues its fascinating course within these pages. If you watch carefully, you'll catch his very first shark impression. The vast majority of the daily and Sunday strips collected here are not currently available in any in-print Peanuts collection. Dozens of them have not been reprinted since their initial appearance in newspapers over 50 years ago.
