The AAUGH Blog

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IN THIS ISSUE:
*PEANUTS TRIBUTE DAY ON SATURDAY
*MEA CULPA, WORLDWIDE PALS
*CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, COMING AND HERE
*CHARLES SCHULZ MEMORIAL VIDEO
*OTHER BOOKS BACK IN PRINT
*NEW SECTION OF COLLECTOR’S GUIDE and smiles and cheers
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PEANUTS TRIBUTE DAY ON SATURDAY
Folks in English-speaking North America should grab up as many different newspapers as they can on Saturday. Every comic strip for the U.S. market will have a tribute to Peanuts! This was planned between Schulz’s retirement and passage, expected to have been a big surprise for him during the big annual National Cartoonist Society gathering. Even the editorial cartoonists will be in on the act. This should be fun! (Apparently, Snoopy.com will have a large selection of the strips on Saturday. I don’t know if they’ll have *all* of them, but at the very least it’s a way for fans outside of North America to see these strips.)
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MEA CULPA, WORLDWIDE PALS
I just want to apologize to my newsletter subscribers who aren’t in North America — I know I’ve announced various dates for TV shows and such in this newsletter, and I generally forget to point out that those are announcements for the U.S. I’ll keep on announcing such things, but I’ll try to remember to point out that they are U.S. based. (And I’d like to wave "hi" to my new subscribers from the Netherlands, who presumably found AAUGH.com after having read my article on Schulz in StripSchrift magazine.)
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CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, COMING AND HERE
Harper-Collins has announced that they will be releasing a book of A Charlie Brown Christmas this November. It’s going to be a hardcover edition. The biggest thing that I don’t know yet is whether this will be a new adaptation, or if they’ll be reprinting one of the four (!) previous adaptations released in the U.S. *Don’t* try to order this one yet; if you put in a pre-order now, they’ll charge you full cover price. When the date comes closer, I’ll announce the availability in the newsletter — and we should be able to save you about $9 off the cover price.

But hey, if you’re a fan of A Charlie Brown Christmas, do you have the sheet music yet? This is now available for ordering through the Music page of AAUGH.com
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CHARLES SCHULZ MEMORIAL VIDEO
Whenever I have to steer you folks to a source for something that I can’t offer you, I feel like I’m Mr. Macy or Mr. Gimbel in A Miracle On 34th Street, trying to maintain a good front while sending folks to the competition. But this time, I really do feel good, because it’s for a good cause:
A video of the memorial service for Charles Schulz (created with the cooperation of Schulz’s family) is now available. The price? $20 plus shipping…
and the $20 goes to the D-Day Memorial that Sparky was so supportive of!
To order from the U.S., call (800) between 10:00am and 5:45pm Pacific time. From outside the U.S., fax your order to 1-707-546-0391 — however, you should offer to pay at least $25 plus shipping, to meet their international business minimum. (You can get two copies for a $40 donation, or you can just offer to donate $25 instead of $20.)
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OTHER BOOKS BACK IN PRINT
We’re once again offering Always Stick Up For The Underbird (1950′s strips) and It’s Great To Be A Superstar (late ’60′s, early ’70′s), both listed on the front page of the site. And you can find Charlie Brown: Not Your Average Blockhead, a hardcover gift book, on the Themed Collections page.

What’s not in print, alas, is a book that had been listed in AAUGH.com’s British Shoppe: Ffyrnigrwydd Snwpi. I know that some of you had ordered it, and I had ordered copies for myself — unless my eyes deceive me, that book is in Welsh, and I don’t have any Welsh books in my collection. Unfortunately, it turns out that the publisher no longer has copies on hands, so if you ordered any, they ain’t coming.
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NEW SECTION OF COLLECTOR’S GUIDE
Speaking of non-Engish editions, I’ve just added a new page to the AAUGH.com Peanuts Book Collector’s Guide. I had just received a copy of Linus De Vita, the Latin translation of the Hallmark mini strip reprint, Linus On Life. This got me thinking about the fact that there have been dozens of foreign-language books created for the U.S. market. So the new page lists these French, Spanish, and Latin books that were sold as novelties or as cool items for U.S. language students. To see the list, head to http://AAUGH.com , click on the Collector’s Guide link, and then click on U.S. Translations.

Well, that’s all the news I have for this time out. I hope yor lives are all filled with fun, friends, and family, and that somewhere out there is a chocolate chip cookie calling your name. Do let me know if there’s any way I can help you or make your dealings with AAUGH.com a little better.

(And hey, since Saturday is the big tribute day, wouldn’t that be a great day to wear your Peanuts t-shirt or hat? Put the Snoopy figure in the window? Show off your love for Peanuts!)

–Nat Gertler proprietor http://AAUGH.com

You are receiving this newsletter because someone (presumably you) submitted your email address for a subscription. If this email is reaching you in error, just respond to this mail and let us know.

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

This newsletter is being sent to you because someone (presumably you) sent your email address in for a subscription. If this you receive this in error, let us know and you will be removed from the list.

IN THIS ISSUE:
*PEANUTS CLASSICS REPRINT PLANS
*$5 OFF SPECIAL AT THE ULTRA-DISCOUNT SHOP
*BOOK AVAILABILITY
*PEANUTS MYSTERY
*SNOOPY SNO-CONE MAKER IN STOCK
*ODD PEANUTS BOOKS: COOKING FROM THE DOGHOUSE
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PEANUTS CLASSICS REPRINT PLANS
I was just in contact with a representative from Henry Holt, who publish the Peanuts Classics books (the current reprints of strips from 1952 through 1984). She told me that they are preparing to return to press for the following titles:
*Peanuts Every Sunday (Sunday strips from 1958-1961)
*What’s Wrong With Being Crabby (originally published as As You Like It Charlie Brown; strips from 1963-1964)
*My Anxieties Have Anxieties (originally published as You’ve Had It, Charlie Brown; strips from 1967-1968)
*It’s Great To Be A Superstar (originally published as You’re Out Of Sight, Charlie Brown; strips from 1969-1970)
*You’ve Come A Long Way, Charlie Brown (which contains half of the material from the first book of this title, plus half of the material from You’re You, Charlie Brown, which means that it has strips from the 1967-1971 era.)

She also noted that many of the other titles are still in print, so don’t be afraid to order books that are listed as Back Ordered; they may well come through. Other books may be coming up for reprinting as well.
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$5 OFF AT THE ULTRA-DISCOUNT SHOP
Many of you realize that AAUGH.com is actually two shops: the main shop and the second shop which I unimaginatively refer to as the ULTRA-discount shop. Well, for those who haven’t discovered the ULTRA-discount shop, or for those who have and want to go back for more, I’ve got a deal for you: $5 OFF ANY PURCHASE OF $25 OR MORE!
Those of you who have checked out the ULTRA-discount shop know that it doesn’t have a lot of Peanuts books in it; at the moment, we’re down to about a half dozen different titles, and with those at about half-off. So I started digging through the catalog and discovered that I could offer up books of dozens of different strips, everything from Adam to Zits, including such popular strips as Dilbert, For Better Or For Worse, Doonesbury, Calvin & Hobbes, Cathy, Foxtrot, Garfield, and Mutts. I’ve provided links for all those strips, which cover over 100 different books, most at about HALF OFF the cover price even before your $5 discount. And if those books aren’t enough, you can search through the catalog yourself and find thousands of other books, including bestselling authors like Dave Barry, Stephen King, and Nat Gertler! So surf on over to:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/nat/ultra.htm
and start shopping and get your $5 off.

(Books carried in the Ultra-Discount shop are Remaindered, which means that either the publisher decided they had more of this book in stock than they needed, or the stores ordered more than they could sell and returned them. They are new books, not used. However, they do usually have a marking pen mark on the top or bottom edge of the book, which is used to seperate the remaindered books from the unremaindered copies.)

This $5 off deal is good until April 30th (which, totally coincidentally, is my birthday). However, if you’re interested, hop on it quickly. They’re down to their last few copies on some of these books, and with the nature of the remaindered book market, they probably won’t be able to replace anything that sells out. The good news is that what they have on the list, they have in stock — no waiting for "Back Ordered" books here!
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BOOK AVAILABILITY
The latest book to come back to quick availability is You’re Not Alone, Charlie Brown. This is a small paperback that reprints strips from around 1988. The strips in this book are not in any of the Peanuts Classics books; they were in volumes 7 and 8 of the Peanuts Collector Series, which are no longer in print.

Peanuts: A Golden Celebration is spending another week on the hardcover nonfiction bestseller list (it actually moved up a spot), which means that it’s still at 50% off.

If you head over to http://AAUGH.com , we always list on the first page what strip reprint books are available for quick ordering. These books usually ship in within 3 days, often within one day. (How long they take to arrive is another matter; it depends heavily one what shipping method you choose.)
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PEANUTS MYSTERY: PEPPERMINT PATTY’S MOTHER
People ask me a lot of Peanuts questions. (If you have a web page, everyone assumes you’re an expert!) One which pops up from time to time is "What happened to Peppermint Patty’s mother?" Usually, the person has just stumbled across some strips that indicate that her mother isn’t around, and assumes that her absence was established somewhere.

The truth is that I don’t know what happened to her mother. In fact, Charles Schulz admitted at times that he didn’t even know! They did make an error in one of the TV specials and refer to her having a mother, but the TV specials really don’t "count" for this sort of thing. I suspect the mother has been gone for a while; Patty’s love of sports and tomboyish dress suggest that she has been mainly influenced by her dad.

Some people think Peppermint Patty is weird because she calls Charlie Brown "Chuck" all the time. To me, that makes a lot more sense than calling a little kid by his full name all the time. It’s the rest of the kids who are weird!
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SNOOPY SNO-CONE MAKER IN STOCK
Just added to our Toys page: the Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker. Designed for ages 4 to 10 (and for nostalgiacs 20 and up), this simple device shaped like Snoopy’s doghouse will let your kid make small sno-cones. No batteries are needed, nor are any fancy ingredients. All you need is some ice, some sugar, some drink mix (like Kool Aid or Flav-r Aid) and a little while cranking the crank. Sure, the cranking can be hard work, but then you have a sno-cone to cool off with!
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ODD PEANUTS BOOKS: COOKING FROM THE DOGHOUSE
For this week’s feature, I delve into my personal collection and come up with THE SNOOPY DOGHOUSE COOK BOOK, subtitled 59 Recipes For Your Dog. Now don’t worry, this isn’t like 59 Recipes For Chicken, and you won’t find Poodle Au Gratin or Mutt Loaf. Instead, it’s recipes to make meals for your dogs. Published in 1979 by Determined Productions, you’ll find such unlikely doggy meals as Macaroni And Cheese, Tuna Casserole, and even Chicken And Matzoh (in case your chihuahua celebrates Passover, I suppose.) The recipes are written by Evelyn Shaw, PhD (I didn’t know you could get a doctorate in dogfood), and every other page is a full-page Peanuts illustration in color (apparently reworked and repurposed Schulz art, with a horrible unPeanuts font used for the lettering.) This book is no longer in print.

I think this brings the Odd Peanuts Books feature of this newsletter to a close, as I’ve used up the oddest ones. Don’t worry; next issue I’ll start up another feature for the Peanuts book collector, it just won’t be based around oddness!
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Well, that’s about it for this newsletter. As usual, if you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or complaints, let me know. I like hearing from Peanuts fans. In the past year I’ve heard from folks on six different continents (so where are all the Peanuts fans on Antarctica? I need to complete my set!) This newsletter gets sent out not only across the U.S., but to such distant locales as Australia, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Japan, and Israel.

No matter where you travel, you’ll never be far from a fellow Peanuts fan.

–Nat Gertler proprietor http://AAUGH.com