Review: Peanuts The Poster Book

New releases
The back cover serves as a table of contents

The new volume Peanuts: The Poster Book isn’t quite what I expected. When I think “poster book”, I think of a big paperback filled with pics-and-slogans designed to be hung up in a teenybopper’s room.

But this, which turns out to be a British volume, changes format and target. Format, in that it is curiously a hardcover volume. (Generally, one is not worried about poster books being permanently protected, as you’re going to just rip the pages out.) And the design sensibility turns out not to be “posters” but “art prints”, So no “Happiness is a Warm Puppy”, no “Why do mornings start too early?” with the picture of a beleaguered Snoopy. (Among the 20 pictures, the only words are “It was a dark and stormy night.”, one “AAUGH!”, and the signage on the psychiatric booth… unless one counts a Woodstock word balloon as words. And no edge-to-edge color. Some of the figures are colored, but none of the backgrounds are, and quarter of the images are just pure black-and-white. If 20 of these 11″ by 14″ images is what you’re looking for, then this is where you’ll find them!

Classic finds
English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart

The next book in my Amazon Japan shipment falls into the adorable category of “Peanuts used to explain American culture”. English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart with Snoopy by Nobu Yamada falls into that category. It also falls into the category of “books which are meant to be destroyed”, as each …

New releases
Look! A mook!

Mooks – that is, items with magazine-like content but sold more like a book – are popular in Japan. Many of them come bundled with extra items, and there have been a fair number with Peanuts items. Most often these are bags – a handbag or a tote of some …

New releases
Bringing up the rear

I’m interrupting my coverage of the shipment of books I got from Japan to cover another foreign book that just arrived. Now, I don’t try to collect every foreign Peanuts book. My collection is out of control as it is. I try to find books in languages that I don’t …