Looking over the latest Peanuts books on hand:

• The biggest note is that the first printing of The Complete Peanuts volume 9 has a flaw; on page 53, they run the May 1st, 1967 strip twice, leaving out May 3rd. This will be fixed with the second printing, and volume 10 will also include the missing strip. It hasn’t shipped yet, so there’s still time to order and get the additional 5% pre-order discount.
• Peanuts Sudoku Comic Digest is what it sounds like… 200 sudoku puzzles (a fun little number puzzle for anyone who hasn’t run into them), interspersed with 50 apparently fairly random Peanuts dailies from the 1990s. I see this more as a “bonus” thing for those who want a book of sudoku puzzles anyway, rather than something for someone who wants a book of strip reprints. They integrated the Peanuts feel into the pages, including the difficulty ratings. The easiest puzzles are marked with one Linus head, with more difficult ones marked with two Marcie heads, three Snoopy heads, four Lucy heads, and five Charlie Brown heads. I gotta say that that’s not the order I’d put them in; I’d think that Linus would be the best sudoku puzzle master of that group. The cover is pretty much like the pre-release cover you see here, except for three points: the background is red, Snoopy is filled in white, and Snoopy is smiling. One change they didn’t make: Schulz’s name is still without his traditional middle initial.
• The Peanuts Grand Piano Book is a kiddie book in the shape of a grand piano. No other special features than that; it doesn’t have flaps, doesn’t play music. It basically takes pieces from strips and retells them in a way that loses their impact (gags that depend on the merging of text and pictures lose their effect when most of the pictures disappear), but at least it does a fairly nice job of displaying Schulz-based art.

Current Schulz bargains (note: discounts may change without notice):

• Peanuts Guide to Life – 47%
• A Peanuts Thanksgiving (minibook) – 66% off, 4-for-3
• Oh Friends of Friends: A Peanuts Box of Friendship – 75% off, 4-for-3

Non-Schulz cartooning books at steep discounts, while I’m at it:

• Complete Dennis the Menace 1955-1958 boxed set – 47% off
• Complete Dennis the Menace 1957-1958 – 60% off
• Where’s Dennis? (Non-Dennis Hank Ketcham) – 66% off
• America Gone Wild (Ted Rall) – 74% off
• Our Gang volume 2 (comic books by Pogo’s Walt Kelly) – 50% off
• Character Matters (Ziggy) – 47% off
• Zippy Annual 2002 – 77% off

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