The AAUGH blog

This is just a quick, short installment of the newsletter — I saw a bargain that I’d rather have go to a newsletter reader than to someone else.
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PEANUTS: A GOLDEN CELEBRATION UNDER $20
AAUGH.com’s pals at BookCloseOuts have a *very few* copies of PEANUTS: A GOLDEN CELEBRATION (that big thick anniversary book) for $19.95 (more than half off the $45 cover price). These are not "used" copies, but they may be returns from bookstores, which would mean that they may be a little worn and/or have a marker mark across one edge of the book…
but they should be fine for reading. If you’re interested, act quickly:
http://bookcloseouts.com/bc/display.book.asp?isbn=0062702440&rid=aaugh
While you’re at it, you may also be interested in Charlie Brown: Not Your Average Blockhead for under $10: http://bookcloseouts.com/bc/display.book.asp?isbn=0067575188&rid=aaugh
or even one of two little hardcover Peanuts collections about love, just in time for Valentine’s Day, at $3 each: http://bookcloseouts.com/bc/display.book.asp?isbn=0006492398&rid=aaugh http://bookcloseouts.com/bc/display.book.asp?isbn=0006492444&rid=aaugh
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VIDEO MOVIES: A CLARIFICATION
Last newsletter, I noted that two of the Peanuts theatrical films were no longer available on video, and made some comment suggesting that the same fate could soon hit the other two theatrical releases.

Peanuts animation maven Scott McGuire pointed out something I should have remembered: the four films are not all released by the same video publisher. The two unavailable videos were issued by Fox; the remaining two (Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown and Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown) are from Paramount; as such, the disappearance of two films should not bode ill for the remaining two.
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ODD PEANUTS BOOK: THE EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE
I found a used bookstore listing a Peanuts book that I had never heard of, THE EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE ACCORDING TO PEANUTS. Of course, I quickly moved to grab that up for the AAUGH.com library. And once in my hands, the book suggested something interested to me:
By all appearances, this is a -pirated- Peanuts book!
The book has no copyright notice, nor any properly-placed credit for Charles Schulz (although he is mentioned in the Foreword — which they’ve misspelled as "Foreward".) It also has no publisher or price listed; it appears to have been privately published and distributed by its listed author, B. Tom Green (my copy even has his business card taped inside), and the "Foreward" suggests that it is merely for his friends and associates. Each two-page spread pairs some brief saying about how a manager should act with an example in the strip of that attitude being either followed or (generally) ignored. The strip reproductions are clearly taken from published Peanuts books; some of them have the extended version of the panels or the panel overlaps that were done for the Fawcett Crest editions. The reproduction is spotty, with Schulz’s smooth lines showing up looking irregular.

By the choice of the title (which clearly echoes The Gospel According To Peanuts) and the strips (the newest of which appears to be from the mid-’60′s at the latest) suggests that this book was put together in the 1960′s or not long after.

I wonder if Green tried to find a commercial publisher who would be interested in this book. It’s certainly not deep, but I could see it selling as an amusing little gift for executives.
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Well, that’s it for today! More news when there’s more news. Until then, sending your questions, comments, and suggestions to nat@AAUGH.com !
–Nat Gertler Proprietor, http://AAUGH.com

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* PEANUTS IN 2001
*NEW SCHULZ BIOS COMING
*IT’S NOT PEANUTS, BUT IT’S FOR CHARITY
*VIDEOS DISAPPEARING
*NEW BRITISH STRIP REPRINTS
*AAUGH.COM IS DOIN’ OKAY, THANKS!
*ANOTHER INTERESTING ITEM FROM MY COLLECTION
PEANUTS IN 2001 Here we are, with the first AAUGH.com newsletter of 2001. It’s going to be an interesting year for Peanuts fans, with new strip collections, the new Snoopy U.S. postal stamp, the opening of the Schulz museum. Still, it’s a little sobering to realize that we’ll have to make it through the 21st century without Charles M. Schulz.
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NEW SCHULZ BIOS COMING A couple new Schulz biographies are on their way. The first one out the chute will be aimed at the kids. Mae Woods is writing about Schulz as part of her series of books on children’s authors. The publisher is one that release a lot of biographies of sports figures and pop stars, the sort of books that middle school kids like writing book reports about. This one, you can already preorder via the front page of http://AAUGH.com
For those who are looking for a little more depth, hold out for the upcoming bio written by David Michaelis (whose bio of artist N.C. Wyeth has gotten some respect). It’s not available for preorder yet — I don’t have a title, publisher, or release date even for it (I’m workin’ on it!) — but in the meantime you can read this author’s article on Schulz at Time.com. http://www.time.com/time/sampler/article/0,8599,93141,00.html
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IT’S NOT PEANUTS, BUT IT’S FOR CHARITY
Normally, the AAUGH.com catalog doesn’t have anything that’s not Peanuts/Schulz related. We’re making an exception in this case. J.K. ROWLING, creator of the fine HARRY POTTER books, has written two short books, texts on the creatures and sports of Harry’s world. The author is giving 100% of her royalties to children’s charities. The publisher is giving 100% of their profits to children’s charities. AAUGH.com is joining in this effort, promising 100% of our cut of any sales of these books to THE SLADECHILD FOUNDATION, which works to provide children with the basic needs of life in the U.S. and around the world. The books don’t come out until March, but you can preorder them now
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VIDEOS DISAPPEARING
The videos of the Peanuts full-length animated movies are starting to go out of print. Already out of print are A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Come Home. On the other hand, Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown is still available, as is Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. (I have a suspicion that they’re letting their stock of these tapes run out before remastering them and rereleasing them both on VHS and DVD. But that’s just a guess, with no real information behind it.)
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NEW BRITISH REPRINTS
February will bring four more books in the SNOOPY FEATURES series. These paperbacks collect strips, each focusing on a different role or specialty of Snoopy. They’re actually reprints of an earlier U.K. series, SNOOPY STARS. The new reprints are: Snoopy Features as Master of the Fairways Snoopy Features as Man’s Best Friend Snoopy Features as the Great Philosopher Snoopy Features as the Legal Beagle Because these books aren’t meant for the U.S., you won’t find them in the main part of AAUGH.com. We have to put them in our British Shoppe; you’ll find a link to that on the front page of http://AAUGH.com (Remember, you *can’t* mix an order from the British Shoppe with orders from the main shop. You *can* order these books sent to the U.S. and Canada — the shipping ain’t cheap, but it’s not too bad if you’re ordering several books at once. And for you U.K. Peanuts fans, ordering through the UK shop is the way to go!)
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AAUGH.COM IS DOIN’ OKAY, THANKS!
I really want to thank all of the customers new and old who have supported the commercial end of AAUGH.com over the past year. Things are going nicely. Sales for the holiday quarter were up over 150% from the same quarter last year.

Now, sales aren’t what this site is all about. After all, I had up the collector’s guide long before the site had a commercial end, and would keep right on supplying Peanuts book information if the commercial end disappeared altogether. Still, the money comes in handy (particularly backing the "research" — buying odd Peanuts books — for the collector’s guide.)

And a thanks to all you who use the collector’s guide and read the newsletter, even if you never order anything. You make this collector feel useful.

Meanwhile, for the curious: AAUGH.com’s best-selling book of 2000 was PEANUTS: A GOLDEN CELEBRATION. No surprise, it’s a great book, and at the beginning of the year it was fairly new and hard to find. PEANUTS 2000 worked extra-hard to take the runner-up slot, particularly impressive because it wasn’t released until most of the year had gone by. Our best-selling animated special was the classic A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS. The best-selling toy was SNOOPY IN TEXAS.

The best-selling non-Peanuts item was actually a book I wrote, THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO PAINT SHOP PRO 7, but that’s because I was promoting it on the side. Runner up was a book called PROCESS THEOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTORY EXPOSITION TOOL. Folks seem to order a little of everything with their Peanuts books; books ranging from The Simpsons to Buddhism, videos from King Lear to Blue’s Clues, even birdfeeders and computer networks. And you folks seem to be satisfied with what you get; only about one item out of every thousand gets returned.
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ANOTHER INTERESTING FIND
I recently picked up my first Swedish Peanuts collection, SNOBBEN OCH HANS VARLD. It’s a thin volume reprinting Sunday strips in black and white; published in 1970, it reprints strips first issued in the early 1960s. One of those strips is particularly endearing in this form. It’s a strip where Lucy (saying "Tickle Tickle Tickle") tickles Snoopy on his feet (which he responds to by laughing "Hee hee") until he falls off his doghouse. (You can find this strip in PEANUTS TREASURY, toward the end.) In translating this strip to Swedish, they replace the "hee"s with "hi". Now, the Swedish word for "Tickle" is "Killar", but apparently when you’re in the act, you use a shortened form of the word. You see, instead of saying "tickle", Lucy keeps saying "kill". The end effect is fascinatingly odd for the English reader. You have Lucy, grinning, climbing the doghouse and attacking Snoopy’s feet while psychotically chanting "kill kill kill". And Snoopy greets her in return.
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Well, that’s all the news I have for this newsletter. As always, I’d love to hear your comments, questions, and suggestions. Send them on to nat@aaugh.com! There’ll be another newsletter when we have more news!
–Nat Gertler Proprietor http://AAUGH.com