The AAUGH blog

IN THIS ISSUE:
* DEADLINES APPROACH
*HOW-TO BOOK NOW ORDERABLE
*SCHULZ BIO NOW SHIPPING
*DISCOUNT LUCY
*GIFT CERTIFICATES?
*PEANUTS MUSEUM BOOKS
*OUR BEST SELLER IS…
*ODD PEANUTS BOOK: CARLITOS Y LOS CEBOLLITAS
DEADLINES APPROACH
There’s not a lot of Peanuts book news today, but I wanted to remind folks that if you want to order Christmas gifts through http://AAUGH.com and have them arrive by Dec. 24th, order them by Friday or be prepared to pay extra for rush shipping. That’s for folks ordering for delivery in the US; if you want delivery in the UK, you have about a week to order something through http://AAUGH.com/uk — in all cases, make sure that the item is listed as shipping within 24 hours. http://AAUGH.com/uk/ and you have about a week left to order.
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HOW-TO BOOK NOW ORDERABLE
HOW TO DRAW PEANUTS is now available for preorder: http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?0816772479
This is a 32 page book showing simple methods of how to draw Peanuts characters in certain poses. As I pointed out before, it is NOT by Charles M. Schulz, no matter what the book cover and other online listings may claim. This book was written after Schulz’s death by talented artist Matt Busch.

It is slated to ship in March. I have seen some stray copies already in circulation, but cannot find a reliable source for them. (Books are often printed well in advance of their official publication, and sometimes leak out through odd routes.)
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SCHULZ BIO NOW SHIPPING
CHARLES SCHULZ, a Level 2 reader in the Wonders Of Reading series, is now shipping. This is a brief biography of Schulz, aimed at first grade students. If you want this for your collection, get it from http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?1567669506
If you’re not in first grade and still want a bio of Schulz, get GOOD GRIEF: THE STORY OF CHARLES M. SCHULZ: http://www.aaugh.com/go.htm?0836280970
That is a good, readable bio, if a bit dated. It should hold you over until 2006, when David Michaelis will unleash SCHULZ: A BIOGRAPHY. Michaelis won awards for his bio of N.C. Wyeth, although I remember him better from Mushroom: The Story Of The A-Bomb Kid, an entertaining book he co-wrote 25 years back with his college roommate, who had turned in a class project explaining how to build an atom bomb. The Wyeth bio can be ordered from http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?0679426264
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DISCOUNT LUCY
As long as I’m mentioning upcoming items, let me point out that THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LUCY, the book reprinting the 1996 Peanuts strips (and not to be confused with an earlier book by the same name but with completely different contents) can now be preordered at a discount: http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?0345442717
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GIFT CERTIFICATES?
With the gift-gettin’ season underway, let me head off one question: Yes, you can use Amazon.com gift certificates when you’re searching through the main AAUGH.com store, and Amazon.co.uk gift certificates can be used through our UK shop..
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PEANUTS MUSEUM BOOKS
Over the years, many museums have had exhibitions focusing on Schulz and Peanuts (in fact, there’s such an exhibition touring museums right now.) Some of these museums published exhibition catalogs, with pictures of their exhibited materials or articles about the work. These books are usually sold only by the museum. Up until now, I have not been aggressively tracking these books, but I realize that was a mistake. I’ve started a new page at http://AAUGH.com/guide/museum.htm to list these books. It’s starting off pretty small (only three such books listed), but having it there means that I will start tracking these books as I hear about them. Of course, if you have any museum books that are not on the list, let me know about them! My email address is nat@AAUGH.com
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OUR BEST SELLER IS…

Sometimes, the orders through my site astound me. If you had asked me a month ago what my best-selling item for this season would be, I would’ve said PEANUTS: THE ART OF CHARLES M. SCHULZ. After all, it’s a beautiful book laden with strips that aren’t in other books and presented in a way that makes it a great gift. Plus, I’m pushing it heavily on the front page of http://AAUGH.com . And yes, the book is selling fairly well — but it’s not the best-selling item in the shop. What is? ANTHOLOGY, a CD collecting songs by the Royal Guardsmen, who sang Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron, Snoopy’s Christmas, and a number of other Snoopy-related songs (as well as many non-Snoopy songs, of course.) Why the sudden upsurge in interest in this group? I haven’t a clue. But I’ll gladly take the orders! http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?B000002R03
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ODD PEANUTS BOOK: CARLITOS Y LOS CEBOLLITAS
Thanks to the efforts of scrumptious Sonia from Spain, the AAUGH.com collection now has another quartet of Spanish Peanuts books. Those most confounding of these is a volume in the CARLITOS Y LOS CEBOLLITAS series — "Carlitos" (Charlie Brown’s Spanish name) is in huge letters on the cover, and "Y Los Cebollitas" is in much smaller lettering. "Los Cebollitas" is the Spanish name for the comic strip "The Captain And The Kids". The cover has a huge shot of Charlie Brown, with small images of the kids from Captain And The Kids. So you figure that this book would have a lot of Peanuts strips, and a little Captain&The Kids thrown in, right? Wrong. It’s only about one-third Peanuts (mostly daily strips, all in color). Two-thirds of the book is Captain And The Kids!
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Well, that’s all the news and notes for now. I’ve got some research in the works, however, and with luck I’ll soon be able to tell you about The Rarest Peanuts Book Set Ever. Be good to each other, eat lots of fruitcake, and I’ll see you when there’s more news!
–Nat proprietor http://AAUGH.com

*IT’S TIME FOR SCHOOL, CHARLIE BROWN
*NEW PAGES IN THE GUIDE
*LAST DAY FOR FREE SHIPPING
*CHRISTMAS ON THURSDAY
*JEAN SCHULZ ON TODAY? THURSDAY? WHEN???
*ODD SCHULZ BOOK: UGH!
IT’S TIME FOR SCHOOL, CHARLIE BROWN
Coming in July is IT’S TIME FOR SCHOOL, CHARLIE BROWN, a Ready-to-Read book for kids. This is not yet available for preorder. Remember, any time you want to know what books are coming up, just head to http://AAUGH.com/upcoming.htm
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NEW PAGES IN THE GUIDE
I’ve added two new pages to the Peanuts book guide. The first covers books that feature photos of Peanuts items. There’s only a dozen books listed here, including price guides, books of Snoopy dolls dressed by designers, and other odd pieces. http://AAUGH.com/guide/lstuff.htm
The other new page is a listing of errors found in the fine book Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz. Most of these were listed in an earlier issue of this newsletter, but I also added some discussion of why the unfinished strips found by Schulz’s desk were almost certainly *not* strips that he was working on when failing health forced him to retire. http://AAUGH.com/guide/errors.htm
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LAST DAY FOR FREE SHIPPING
The "free shipping" deal expires Tuesday, December 4th, so if you want at least $99 worth of stuff shipped to one US location, hop on over to http://AAUGH.com and do your shopping now. Remember, the deal includes not only the books, videos, and CDs that you find in the main AAUGH.com catalog, but also books, videos, electronics, and more that you find over in the Amazon catalog once you click through. If you’re getting a DVD player, MP3 player, or TiVo, these savings can really help. And remember, Christmas may be weeks away, but Hannukah starts December 9th, and Beethoven’s Birthday is just a week after that!
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CHRISTMAS ON THURSDAY
Just a reminder to US readers that A Charlie Brown Christmas airs this Thursday at the start of ABC’s primetime lineup. Be sure to keep watching after the show for the documentary on the making of this beloved special.
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JEAN SCHULZ ON TODAY? THURSDAY? WHEN???
I hate having *part* of a news item.

I found out that Jean Schulz (Charles Schulz’s widow) was interviewed by Al Roker (a known Peanuts fan), presumably for NBC’s Today show. What I don’t yet know is when they intend to air it. If it were an ABC series, I would assume that it would be on December 6th, to promote that night’s airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Perhaps it will air on December 14th, the anniversary of Sparky’s retirement. I’m trying to find out when it airs, but I wanted to raise the warning flag so people can keep an eye out.
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ODD SCHULZ BOOK: UGH!
"PARENTS, UGH!", written by Barbara Jurgensen and published in 1968 by the Christian publisher Zondervan, is a minor Schulz item. This book, aimed at getting kids to understand their parents "from a Christian perspective", is illustrated with a number of cartoon drawings, but only two of them are by Schulz.

Well, "by Schulz" is a slight exageration. Despite their statement that "Grateful appreciation is expressed to Mr. Charles M. Schulz and Warner Press, Inc., for permission to use the ‘Teenuts’ cartoons included", the Schulz material is actually treated poorly. Oh, the art of these single-panel cartoons (reprinted from Youth magazine by way of the book What Was Bugging Ol’ Pharaoh?) is treated a-okay, but Schulz’s dialog captions have been replaced. Schulz’s funny lines have been replaced with something that fits in more with the theme of the book, even if these new lines don’t quite fit the pictures presented. One of the cartoons shows a teenage boy walking up toward two teenage girls, one of whom is looking back. The caption reads "You can tell Harold is going *from* home to *some* place…
he’s smiling." That’s neither particularly funny, nor does it explain why the girl who is apparently talking is holding a book defensively over her chest, a cross expression on her face. With Schulz’s original text ("Here comes Harold….The first time he says, ‘Let’s greet the bretheren with a holy kiss,’ he gets slugged!") it makes a lot more sense.

(Oh, and that "Teenuts" term that was occasionally applied to his single-panel cartoons for Youth magazine? I’ve never seen an issue of Youth, but I really doubt that was the name of the strip, and I even more strongly doubt that it was a name that Schulz coined or approved of. Given his legendary dislike for the title Peanuts, it seems quite unlikely that he would dub another strip with a lame twisting of that term.)
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That’s all the news I can share for now. I have a hunch (well, more than a hunch) that there will be more news to share soon. Keep in touch, and I’ll do the same!
–Nat proprietor http://AAUGH.com

*AAUGH! I MISSED THE SPECIAL
*A REPORT FROM SANTA ROSA
*AN AMERICAN MYSTERY SOLVED
*WHEN, CHARLIE BROWN, WHEN?
*A GOOD TIME FOR BIDDING
*ODD PEANUTS BOOK: PARADE OF THE COMICS
AAUGH! I MISSED THE SPECIAL
Last night, the new documentary on the making of A Charlie Brown Christmas aired — and I, computer genius that I am, messed up programming my VCR and missed it. (Yes, I *need* that TiVo!) The good news for me, and for anyone else who missed it, is that the entire hour (A CB Christmas and the documentary) will be reaired on Sunday, December 16th, at 8 PM in most U.S. markets. Talking to the people who were smart enough to catch it (and who were nice enough not to rub it in), it seems to have been a nice documentary with interesting footage.
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A REPORT FROM SANTA ROSA
Why did I miss the special? Why wasn’t I at home, glued to the TV? I have a good, Peanuts-related excuse: I was on the long drive home from Santa Rosa, home of the Peanuts empire. Things are hectic there: the Charles M. Schulz Museum is still being built, an interesting geometric design. Across the street from it is the ice rink that Schulz had built, where they were rehearsing for today’s launch of the annual ice show. I got a peak at Snoopy skating with a bevvy of beautiful women — this is a well-coordinated fun professional ice show they put on. If you’re in the area, do try to catch it. I lunched at The Warm Puppy, inside the rink — had a turkey burger, which they call The Woodstock Burger. Luckily, I know that Woodstock was not a turkey, so I really wasn’t eating my favorite bird.

I managed to speak with a couple of the fine Schulz museum folks. These are fun-loving folks, but their efforts are serious indeed. They’re going to great lengths to acquire, preserve, and display Schulz and Peanuts-related materials, and have acquired everything from actual copies of Schulz’s Li’l Folks cartoons clipped from newspapers to a childrens’ room wall that Schulz once painted with various decorations including early versions of Charlie Brown, Patty, and Snoopy. (The museum’s website at http://www.charlesmschulzmuseum.org has some great video footage of the wall being removed from the house.) They still haven’t set an opening date for the museum; they want everything to be right before they do so.

Next to the ice rink is the Snoopy Gift Shop & Gallery. The gift shop has a nice range of products; you can go in and spend $5 and walk out happily, or spend $1000 and still feel there were a couple things you wanted. For the book fans, however, the shop is a disappointment. They have only two items that you won’t find elsewhere: One is the program book for last year’s ice show It’s Christmas Again, which has a Snoopy cover, scattered Peanuts illos (although it’s mostly photos of the performers on the ice), and a poem that Monte Schulz wrote about his father. The other is Snoopy Festival, a large strip reprint book which was widely available when it was published in mid-1970s but has long since been out of print — except for the large supply of copies on hand at the gift shop. On the other hand, their missing some of the vital recent books; the shop has no copies of any of the Ballantine books reprinting the strips from 1997-2000, for example. (They are working on correcting this problem.)

However, any Peanuts book collector who is there has to head to the back of the shop, and find the ramp that winds its way up the inside of the shop’s walls. The ramp heads up to the gallery, where you’ll find Schulz originals displayed, as well as copies of many of the tribute strips by other creators, various awards that were given to Schulz, ineresting Peanuts historical pieces, and various related items (there’s a handwritten letter that then-President Ronald Reagan sent to Schulz, which includes an original Reagen self-portrait!)

But what’s there for the book nut? Check the railings around the edge of the ramp. Attached to those railings are display cases holding dozens of Peanuts books from all over the world. It’s a great collection.

If you’re heading anywhere near Santa Rosa — it’s about an hour from San Francisco — and you’re a Peanuts fan, it’s worth a stop by. And it’ll be even more worth it when the museum opens next year.
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AN AMERICAN MYSTERY SOLVED
I wouldn’t go all the way to Santa Rosa and not try to dig up some information on new Peanuts books. I got an answer to a question that had been bothering me: what is HERE’S TO YOU, AMERICA!? This book was announced as being in the same format as the current kids books adapting animated specials, but there’s no special by that title.

Well, it is an adaptation of an animated Peanuts episode, but not one called HERE’S TO YOU, AMERICA!. It adapts THE BIRTH OF THE CONSTITUTION, which was one episode of the historically-oriented miniseries THIS IS AMERICA, CHARLIE BROWN. The book is not yet available for preordering, but you can get the special on VHS video tape from: http://AAUGH.com/go.htm?6303451659 (sorry, there is no DVD and no PAL version available.)

This book will be the fifth of a dozen new adaptations they have scheduled. You can find the already-released ones on our Kids Books page: http://AAUGH.com/pkids.htm and the upcoming ones on our Upcoming Books page: http://AAUGH.com/upcoming.htm
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WHEN, CHARLIE BROWN, WHEN?
There’s still no date for the reprinting of the hard-to-find book adaptation of WHY, CHARLIE BROWN, WHY?, as some technical issues are being worked out. However, I have found out it is being produced by the folks at Ballantine Books, who have done such a nice job with the recent strip reprints.
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A GOOD TIME FOR BIDDING
I’ve picked up some particularly good deals on old Peanuts books from online auctions recently, often getting the books for the starting minimum bid. I guess a lot of people are saving their money and not bidding, which makes this the best possible time to hunt through the auctions! Check out http://AAUGH.com/guide/shopping.htm for tips on finding old books online. (And if you find something you reall want but discover that you’re bidding against me — go ahead, bid anyway! Trust me, I spend more than enough on these auctions, it won’t hurt me to lose a couple!)
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ODD PEANUTS BOOK: PARADE OF THE COMICS
I usually don’t try to get old color books for my Peanuts book collections. Usually, these things are just recycled art, so they don’t interest me that much, and bidding against serious coloring-book collectors easily drives the prices up above what I’d care to spend.

However, I got a good deal on PARADE OF THE COMICS, a coloring book published by Saafield in 1967. Now, this isn’t just a Peanuts coloring book; instead, it represents over 30 different strips, all by artists who were members of the Newspaper Comics Council. And the "Parade" in the title isn’t just just a reference to the quantity of contributors — all the images are of the cartoon characters involved in a parade! While a few of the pieces are probably recycled art, most are clearly drawn for this specific use. The three pages of Peanuts material appears to be original. One shot is Linus and Lucy, sitting on the curb, waiting for the parade, the next is of a bemused Sally, balloon in hand, saying "So what’s so much fun about a balloon?", and the final is Snoopy seated on his doghouse with a trio of birds who are looking eagerly at something off-panel. Snoopy is thinking "This is what happens when you have a house right on the parade route…"
The whole theme of the book make for an odd compilation, and it has a broad range of art styles, some of which are ill-suited for coloring books. Milton Caniff’s three pages of carefully-rendered soldiers on parade have too many scratchy lines and not enough open areas for a coloring book — but they are wonderful drawings. Still, they look quite odd next to an open picture of a Rex Morgan, MD character in a clown suit riding an elephant!
If you get a chance to look through this book, do. It’s an interesting if somewhat twisted image of what was going on in newspaper comics at the time.
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That’s the news for now. More news next time. Well, at least *different* news next time; goodness only knows what the quantity will be.

Thanks to everyone who has kept me up to date with their changing email addresses!
–Nat proprietor http://AAUGH.com