The AAUGH blog

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In this issue:
*BACK FROM SNOOPY CENTRAL
*AAUGH.COM GOES BRITISH
*MORE SNOOPY FIGURES IN STOCK
*BOOKS AVAILABLE AGAIN FOR QUICK DELIVERY
*50th ANNIVERSARY MUSIC CD
*PEANUTS BOOKS WE CAN’T OFFER
*COUPON DEAL ENDS…
SORT OF
*ANOTHER ODD PEANUTS BOOK FIND
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BACK FROM SNOOPY CENTRAL
You may have noticed that there was no newsletter last week (or perhaps you didn’t; it’s hard to notice when something isn’t there.) That’s partly because I’m trying to cut the newsletter back to a monthly frequency. It’s also partly because I had something interesting to do last Monday: I was in Santa Rosa, California, stopping by One Snoopy Place, the headquarters of Schulz’s studio. I had a little bit of non-AAUGH business to take care of there, but it sure was a thrill to be able to set foot inside that building. The people who work there aren’t just employees, they’re all big fans of the comics, and it shows! There is original art from comic strips all over the place, and everyone has their Snoopys at their desks. These people seem to believe strongly in keeping the spirit of Schulz’s work alive. (They are all still refering to him in the present tense, too; a change that big takes a while to adapt to.) They’re working on a Schulz museum, so soon we’ll have a great place to go to for sharing their joy.
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AAUGH.COM GOES BRITISH
I’ve just opened up a *third* shop at the AAUGH.com site: The British Shoppe. Orders through this shop are processed in England, which makes shipping quicker and cheaper for our European customers. However, I really opened this shop for our North American customers. Why? BECAUSE THEY HAVE PEANUTS BOOKS IN BRITAIN THAT U.S. BOOKSTORES CAN’T CARRY! For example, there’s the SNOOPY FEATURES series, paperbacks which reprint strips featuring Snoopy in various roles. The four books out so far feature Snoopy as Flying Ace, Literary Ace, Matchmaker, and Fitness Fanatic. (Those of you who already collect British Peanuts books should know that these are reprints of books from the British Snoopy Stars series; I don’t know why they changed the title.)

The bad news, of course, is that North American customers have to pay for shipping costs from England…
but it may be cheaper than you think! (It’s also a good way to buy gifts for your friends in England, since the books won’t have to be shipped from here.)

I wanted to get the site up now, before the newsletter, so I haven’t had time to make it beautiful or well-organized…
but it is working! To start shopping for British Peanuts books, head over to http://AAUGH.com and click on the "British Shoppe" link.
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MORE SNOOPY FIGURES IN STOCK
If you head over to http://AAUGH.com and click on the Toys link, you’ll see some new figures listed! We’ve got Snoopy dressed as a magician, a rock star, a soccer player, a chef, and even a hippie. (It’s no surprise that Snoopy was a hippie–after all, he has lots of memories of Woodstock!) These are about the same height as the World Of Snoopy figures that we’ve listed for a while, only these are part of the World Famous series.
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BOOKS AVAILABLE AGAIN FOR QUICK DELIVERY
Available once again for quick turnaround are:
AROUND THE WORLD IN 45 YEARS — this is the 45th anniversary book. It includes a full consecutive year of strips, including Sunday strips in color. It’s a nice big book (about 8.5 by 11), with 24 pages of commentary by Schulz. However, if you have the recent smaller Peanuts Treasury book series, you already have about 80% of these strips. We’ve got it with a nice little discount, so I think it’s worth it for the extra strips (most of which are Sunday strips), the color, the foreword by Lynn Johnston, and the commentary.

NICE SHOT, SNOOPY — a small paperback which reprints strips circa 1984.
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50th ANNIVERSARY MUSIC CD
You can now preorder HERE’S TO YOU, CHARLIE BROWN, a special music release for the 50th anniversary of the strip. The CD is due to be released in early May; order it now, and they’ll ship it when they get it. It’s available on the Music page of http://AAUGH.com
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PEANUTS BOOKS WE CAN’T OFFER
As you may have realized, I put a lot of effort into making sure that AAUGH.com carries a wide array of Peanuts books. However, there are sometimes books out there that for some reason we cannot sell you, which really pains me as a businessman — but as a fellow collector, I want to make sure that you know about them, so you can buy ‘em if you want ‘em.

GOOD GRIEF! YOU’RE 45 CHARLIE BROWN is something that I had heard about, but hadn’t really been that interested in, because it was always described as being a catalog for a museum exhibit. I should have realized that meant that it reprinted all the strips they showed at the exhibit; it’s really a fairly thin strip reprint book, with 57 strips (mostly 80′s and 90′s, but some earlier) and an introduction by Lynn Johnston of For Better Or For Worse. Ten bucks may seem a bit steep for a thin softcover book like this, but consider two factors: the money goes to a good cause (the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco), and (if the indica is to be believed) they only printed 1000 copies of this. You can still get your copy from http://www.cartoonart.org/bookshop.html
PEANUTS TREASURY is a book that first came out in 1968, a large collection of strips from 1959 through 1967. (This should not be confused with the Peanuts Treasury *series* of books, which reprint strips from the 1990s) It’s been out of print for a long time, but Barnes & Noble just came out with an exclusive edition. You can probably pick one up at your local Barnes & Noble bookstore, or you can order it online from: http://shop.bn.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0760721467
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COUPON DEAL ENDS…
SORT OF
I thought I was offering a good deal, I really thought I was. But for some reason, not only has no one taken me up on the $5-off-on-$25-at-the-ULTRA-discount-shop offer, but sales there have dropped to zero. Perhaps using the online coupon just looked too complicated, and scared people away.

So, I’ve eliminated all mention of the deals from the website. But if you have the sudden urge to use it, surf on over to http://AAUGH.com and click on the link on the left for the ULTRA-discount shop. You will need the following information on the order form to get your discount:
COUPON NAME: bookcloseouts-com COUPON PASSWORD: bargainbooks
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ANOTHER ODD PEANUTS BOOK FIND
I know I’d brought the Museum Of Odd Peanuts Books feature to a close, but I just picked up another one and I couldn’t resist sharing it with you. It’s actually a pair of booklets, and some other materials — all from Charlie Brown’s Career Education Program. This was a project that Random House created for the schools, to teach kids about careers. There were 35 installments, each of which had a workbook for the teacher, plus a film strip and an accompanying audio tape. I don’t have all 35, I just have the 34th ("Work experience helps") which includes the workbook, filmstrip, and cassette for this installment plus the program overview booklet and a poster of the Peanuts characters, such as Charlie Brown, Linus, Snoopy, Schroeder, and Dolores. "DOLORES?" I hear you cry. "Who the heck is Dolores? I’ve never heard of any Dolores in the Peanuts gang!" Dolores appears to be a Latina character invented for this series, to give the cast a bit more of a minority balance. (Franklin is also used.) The filmstrip and cassette match the style of the animated Peanuts specials, down to the jazz music and the wah-wah voice of the teacher. It’s kind of a cool thing to have, but I’m glad I stumbled across one; I wouldn’t know how to begin searching for something like this!
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Well, that’s it for this issue! I hope to have some more news for you in another couple weeks. As always, I’m always interested in hearing comments, complains, and suggestions for the store, the collector’s guide, and the newsletter. Just send me a note at nat@aaugh.com !
–Nat Gertler proprietor http://AAUGH.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:
*AVAILABLE AGAIN: BOOKS ABOUT PEANUTS
*SPECIAL ORDERS: LOTS OF FAWCETT CREST BOOKS
*GOOD DEALS CONTINUE
*ANIMATED PEANUTS FUTURE: DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ
*COLLECTOR’S GUIDE EXPANDS AGAIN
*INTERESTING SETS: PEANUTS COLLECTORS SERIES
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AVAILABLE AGAIN: BOOKS ABOUT PEANUTS
Things have been relatively quiet this week in terms of Peanuts strip reprints. However, we have added some books about Peanuts that are available again.

The most notable of these is THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PEANUTS, which has sold millions of copies over the past 35 years. This book looks at the moral teachings in Peanuts and sees how they are paralleled in the bible. It was written by a then-young divinity student Robert L. Short, who would follow it up with two other volumes (The Parables Of Peanuts and Short Meditations On The Bible And Peanuts). This first one is the best of the three; the latter two moved more toward talking about the bible and finding echoes in Peanuts. To celibrate the 35th anniversary of The Gospel According To, they’ve released a new edition with a new introduction by Martin E. Marty (who has written a mess of theology books.) This book is available from the front page of http://AAUGH.com
Also available again is a couple of Peanuts collectibles/price guides, so now we have two volumes apiece in the Peanuts Gang Collectibles and Snoopy Collectibles series by Jan Lindenberger and Cher Porges. Because we now have a half dozen different collectibles/price guides, I’ve now devoted an entire page of AAUGH.com to these. (It was the Books About Peanuts page; I’ve moved the other books that were on that page to the Schulz Illustrations page.
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SPECIAL ORDERS: LOTS OF FAWCETT CREST BOOKS
A number of the small Fawcett Crest strip collections are now available on a "special order" basis. Now, "special order" sounds nice’n'special, but what it really means is that the book takes longer to get and instead of getting a discount, you have to pay a premium. A book that originally had a $2 cover price will now run you about $5 — which isn’t as bad a deal as it sounds, as that is about what the cover price would be if it were printed today. I’m always a little reluctant to include the Special Order books in the catalog, but there are a lot of people looking for these books. Titles I’ve added include: Here’s to You, Charlie Brown It’s Show Time, Snoopy Sing for Your Supper, Snoopy Strike Three, Charlie Brown Take Charge, Snoopy This Is the Best Time of the Day, Charlie Brown We’re All in This Together What Next, Charlie Brown? You Are Too Much, Charlie Brown You’re a Brave Man Charlie Brown You’re Hopeless, Charlie Brown You’re My Hero, Charlie Brown! You’ve Done It Again, Charlie Brown You’ve Got It Made Snoopy
I’ve also added a few more "Back Ordered" Peanuts Classics books to the list, with the reassurance from the publisher that they have been filling back orders: Thank Goodness for People There’s a Vulture Outside You’re Out of Your Mind, Charlie Brown!
The books can all be found on the Classic Strip Reprints page of http://AAUGH.com — the Fawcett books are toward the bottom.
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GOOD DEALS CONTINUE
The 50th Anniversary book PEANUTS: A GOLDEN CELEBRATION is spending another week on the best seller list, which means it’s half-price at least through Thursday.

And the $5-off-any-$25-purchase deal at the ULTRA-discount remaindered bookstore is continuing…
despite being the least-effective promotion in history. In the days since I first posted this offer, sales of remaindered books have plummeted to zero (except for my getting some For Better Or For Worse books for myself.) I don’t know why; these books are a good deal to start with and now the extra discount makes them even cheaper. But I’m reluctant to give up on a bargain, so the deal continues! Click on the Ultra-Discount link on the front page of http://AAUGH.com
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ANIMATED PEANUTS FUTURE: DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ
When Schulz died, there were some comments on the future of the animated Peanuts material. Some of the comments were dead-on (i.e., that they are working on some scenes for a tribute for the 50th anniversary, and that a direct-to-video release is in the works.) However, some other comments that were circulating — that Schulz wanted the animations to come to an end with him, and that there was only one further plot outline that he had approved — may (or may not) reflect just one person’s view of the situation. To go beyond what I’m saying would get into the realm of trading in rumor, but I just want people not to be surprised if further animated projects are announced, or to assume that any further projects must be against Sparky’s wishes. When I have more news, I’ll let you know.

The direct-to-video piece, IT’S THE PIED PIPER, CHARLIE BROWN, will be released mid-September. I’ll be sure to announce when it’s available for pre-order.
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COLLECTOR’S GUIDE EXPANDS AGAIN
I’ve added a page to the collector’s guide that covers Peanuts sheet-music books. There are dozens of these, including books of Peanuts-related music and books of classics and standard decorated with Peanuts images. I’m sure it’s missing some books, but it should be a good start if you’re interested in these sort of things. (I wasn’t really chasing these books myself, but I’ve gotten more into it of late; I guess being engaged to a musician has rubbed off on me!)
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INTERESTING SETS: PEANUTS COLLECTOR SERIES
As I said last issue, while the Odd Peanuts Books feature has run its course for now, I am going to keep doing discussions of various Peanuts books for fellow collectors.

I get a fair number of questions about the Peanuts Collector Series, a set of books put out from 1987 through 1991 by Topper Books, a division of Pharos Books. There’s a lot of interest in these largely because the books are not available, and most of the material from the books is not in print in any form (although there are still some of small Fawcett paperbacks that reprint the later material. Topper and Pharos are no longer pubishing, so these books are out of print (and the same goes for other Topper Peanuts books, such as BROTHERS AND SISTERS: IT’S ALL RELATIVE and CHARLES M. SCHULZ: 40 YEARS OF LIFE AND ART. Only GOOD GRIEF: THE STORY OF CHARLES M. SCHULZ is still available, from another publisher.)

One thing that makes the book interesting is its inconsistencies. Volume 1 (DOES DON’T EAT DESSERT) is 8 inches wide and about 5 high, printing two dailies or half a Sunday on each page. The title is on the front cover and spine; "Peanuts Collector Series #1" is on the back.

#2, YOU’RE ON THE WRONG FOOT AGAIN, CHARLIE BROWN, is roughly the same format, only the spine has the "Peanuts Collector Series #2" identifier rather than the title. Volume 3 has the title (BY SUPPER POSSESSED) on the spine again. Volume 4′s spine has both the title (TALK IS CHEEP, CHARLIE BROWN) and the Peanuts Collector Series #4 identifier.

With volume 5, the size changed to 10 inches by 7, with the title (IT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH TO ATTRACT A CROWD) on the spine. The "Peanuts Collector Series" identifier and number started appearing on the front cover as well with this book. Volume 6 had the title (IF BEAGLES COULD FLY) and "#6" on the spine. Volume 7 (DON’T BE SAD, FLYING ACE) was labeled similarly, but in a much larger font.

Volume 8 looks very different. The size has zoomed out to 11 by 8.5 inches (which means that the Sunday pages, still split over two pages, are huge.) The garishly colored design of the early volumes has been dumped in favor of a more sedate design. The fonts for all the cover text have been changed, to something completely un-Peanutsy. The spine has the title and the number 8, but no # sign. If you had the other books in the series and were looking for this one in a used bookstore, you’d probably skip right by it.

Why all the changes? Some of them just seem to be sloppiness, but the changing sizes and the eventual design changes suggest a line of books that wasn’t selling as well as had been hoped….
a suspicion which is reinforced by the relative rarity of these books on the used book market. In my experience, you’re almost as likely to find a British edition (published by Ravette, and with the last page of comics replaced by a page of ads for their other Peanuts books) as you are to find a U.S. version.

Well, that was more than I expected to ramble on about that!
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Well, that’s the newsletter for this week…
and for next week, unless something big happens. As promised, I’m easing back from the weekly schedule. (Besides, next weekend I’ll be in Oakland at the Wondercon comic book convention. Time for me to talk to fellow comics pros and fans face to face, rather than just through the Internet.)

Today, we start the second half of the fiftieth year of Peanuts. Pick up your favorite book and read a few strips!
–Nat Gertler proprietor AAUGH.com