IN THIS ISSUE:
* AAUGH!
* DOUBLE AAUGH!
* NEW BOOKS SHIPPING
* LUCY MUST BE WATCHED, CHARLIE BROWN
* REVIEW: LUCY’S ADVICE
* REMAINDERED DISCOUNTS
* NOTE ON THE COMPLETE PEANUTS SET
* NAT’S A-BLOGGIN’!
* AAUGH.COM AT THE SAN DIEGO CON
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AAUGH!
I just wrote the whole newsletter and, before I saved
it, the power went out, my uninteruptible power
supply failed for some reason, and now I have to
write the whole thing again.
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DOUBLE AAUGH!
And now I suddenly discover that the newsletter I
wrote a week ago, I forgot to actually -send- for
some reason! So now I have to integrate the material
from that newsletter with the material meant for
the new one!
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NEW BOOKS SHIPPING
Several new Peanuts kids books are now shipping:
CHARLIE BROWN & SNOOPY is a board book for the
preschool set. It’s about 11 inches by 10 inches,
with five two-page spreads with pictures of
Charlie Brown and Snoopy and text gags that,
frankly, are too subtle for kids (and lose some
of their impact as text pieces anyway.) But if
you want a big book to share big pictures of
CB & S with the little folks, here it is:
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0689857837
(Of course, this book should not be confused
with CHARLIE BROWN AND SNOOPY, the Fawcett
Crest collection of Peanuts strips. Ah, trying
to keep track of “&” versus “AND”, that’s what
being a Peanuts book collector is all about.)
BEAGLE SCOUT SNOOPY is a stuffed Snoopy doll
wearing a hat and a backpack, which actually
opens up as a board book with 7
text-and-color-image spreads telling you about
what Snoopy brings on his hike. This is a cute
little item to have.
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0689858558
and if you like that idea, there’s a stuffed WOODSTOCK
with a book backpack too. I think the design on
this one is pretty nice — Woodstock’s tail actually
velcroes to the back of the backpack to close it.
The book is about Woodstock returning home from a trip
and being greeted by Snoopy. I think the character
design of this stuffed animal is a bit better, but I
like Snoopy’s book better. They would both make nice
shelf ornaments for a Peanuts book collector, of course!
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0689858566
Also available is a 16-month calendar, covering the
end of this year and all of the next
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0740737333
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LUCY MUST BE WATCHED, CHARLIE BROWN
Set your VCRs for August 29th — that’s the announced
U.S. air date for LUCY MUST BE TRADED, CHARLIE BROWN, an
all-new animated baseball-themed special. It will
air on ABC, who also announced that they will indeed
be running the usual classic Halloween, Thanksgiving,
and Christmas specials as well as the more recent A
Charlie Brown Valentine during their appropriate upcoming
holiday seasons.
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REVIEW: LUCY’S ADVICE
Another prose-and-pictures book for kids in the
Ready-To-Read line, this is actually better than
the rest. That’s because it’s largely built around
the psychiatric booth gags, which are mostly text
by nature, and translate well into vignettes.
There are still some awkwardnesses, mainly things
which have been awkwardly dumbed down for the young
target audience. Still, if you want to buy any book
from this series for your kids, this is a good one
to choose:
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0689858566
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REMAINDERED DISCOUNTS
Our friends at BookCloseOuts again have some good deals
on remaindered copies of Peanuts books
PEANUTS: A GOLDEN CELEBRATION (Just one copy left!) — $21.99
http://AAUGH.com/bco.htm?0062702440
BEING A DOG IS A FULL-TIME JOB — $4.49
http://AAUGH.com/bco.htm?0836217462
MAKE WAY FOR THE KING OF THE JUNGLE — $4.49
http://AAUGH.com/bco.htm?0836217888
I TOLD YOU SO YOU BLOCKHEAD (Just one copy left!) — $2.49
http://AAUGH.com/bco.htm?0061075620
A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS: MAKING OF A TRADITION — $13.99
http://AAUGH.com/bco.htm?0060198516
To make the deal even better: order at least $30 and
get $5 off! When you check out, you’ll need to enter
this information:
Coupon: summer
code: bookcloseouts
And hey, if you need some more books to qualify for the
coupon, let me recommend the big thick cheap collections
of the comic strip ZITS. It deals constantly with the life
of a teenager and the family he tolerates, and yet within
that is inventive and quite human. The drawings emphasizing
the lead character’s gawkiness remind me a lot of Schulz’s
cartoons from Youth Magazine. Over the past five months I’ve
read about 5 years worth of Zits and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Ignore the uncomfortable name (which Schulz himself called
“the worst name for a comic strip since PEANUTS”) and glory
in these oversize books with over 500 strips apiece and
the Sundays in color.
HUMONGOUS ZITS (treasury 1) — $7.49
http://AAUGH.com/bco.htm?0740700138
BIG HONKIN’ ZITS (treasury 2) — $7.49
http://AAUGH.com/bco.htm?0740718541
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NOTE ON THE COMPLETE PEANUTS SET
In the wake of a couple recent messages from readers,
I thought I might just calm people down a bit
regarding the planned complete Peanuts reprint set.
They’re working toward it, but that work includes
trying to straighten out various rights and business
matters. This is not a scheduled series of books yet,
this is not (at least last that I heard) a done deal.
It is an intent and it is being worked towards.
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NAT’S A-BLOGGIN’!
I’ve recently started posting my comments on the current
state of TV to my own weblog, which you can find at
http://www.gertler.com/nat/tv/
The only excuse that I have for mentioning it here is
that I may, at some point, adapt the AAUGH.com
newsletter archive to this format.
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AAUGH.COM AT THE SAN DIEGO CON
I will have a table at this year’s Comic-Con International:
San Diego, the U.S.’s biggest comics convention. I’ll
mostly be pushing the work of my publishing line,
About Comics, but I’ll also have AAUGH.com cooler bags
there and I’ll be glad to meet and greet any AAUGH.com
newsletter subscribers that happen by. So if you’re
planning on coming, be sure to say “hi”, and if you’re
not planning on coming — think about it, it’s a lot of
fun! The con runs July 17-20 (plus a preview night on
the 16th.)
For more info on where to find us among the 700+
vendors at the convention, go to
http://www.aboutcomics.com/sd2003.html
For more information on the convention itself,
go to http://www.comic-con.org/
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Well, that’s the news, notes, and nattering for now.
I usually manage to come back from Comic-Con with one
or two interesting news tidbits or revelations about old
books, and with a strip collection coming out later in
the month, I expect I’ll have a new newsletter shortly
after the con.
As always, send your queries, quandries, quips, quests,
and email address updates to nat@AAUGH.com
–Nat
proprietor
http://AAUGH.com
