* COMPLETE PEANUTS: MORE DETAILS
* NOT BOARD BOOKS AT ALL
* MORE BABY SNOOPY
* MOM, MEET DAD
* A HALLMARK FOR THE UK?
COMPLETE PEANUTS: MORE DETAILS
Fantagraphics has now made the official announcement of their
Complete Peanuts series, which means I can now share with you
the cover:
http://AAUGH.com/CompletePeanuts.jpg
As you can see, it’s quiet, austere, and even melancholy,
all of which was intended by Seth, the cover designer.
Each volume will be about 320 pages, 8.5 inches wide and 7
inches tall — not, perhaps, the luxuriously big collections
that some had hope for, but with three dailies or one Sunday
strip on each page, everything should be clear and
readable. For those of you who think in terms of Peanuts
books, the strips will appear closer in size to how they
appear in the Peanuts Classics or Holt “full” books rather
than the larger size of the Parades.
The first volume is slated for April Fool’s Day, 2004,
but it’s no April Fool’s joke. The price is $28.95, a
reasonable price for a hardcover of this length… but
I suspect we’ll be able to get you a discount. I’ll let
you knw when it’s ready to be ordered.
==================================================================
NOT BOARD BOOKS AT ALL
A while back, I announced HELLO, WORLD! and SLEEPY TIME
as “board books”. I was wrong. While they are aimed at the
very young set, they’re actually -cloth- books. Hello,
World! (not a C programming book, for all you fellow
computer nerds out there) features a head shot of Woodstock
on its furry cover, and it’s all about Woodstock and Baby
Snoopy getting started with their day. Sleep Time, about
them at the end of the day, matches that with a Baby Snoopy
cover. Each book is shaped to match the cover image, and
has a mere 6 internal pages, soft and padded. Each comes
in its own plastic pouch with handle. All of the drawings
are fine, neither is a great piece of literature, but if
you’re looking for a baby gift, these should do nicely.
HELLO, WORLD!:
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0689863659
SLEEPY TIME:
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0689863640
==================================================================
MORE BABY SNOOPY
Also now shipping is PUPPY DAYS, another book in the Ready-to-Read
line of kids books. Unlike the previous Peanuts books in this
series, which were Level 2, this one is “Pre-Level 1”, aimed
not at readers but at 2-5 year olds who should be able to
recognize the words as you repeat them. The sentences are short,
mostly 3 words apiece. The story — if it could be called that,
it really just introduces the characters — is of Baby Snoopy
and the Daisy Hill Pups at their usual level of sticky sweetness
and humorouslessness. (Forgive me, but I have little affection
for these characterless variations of viable characters.)
PUPPY DAYS:
http://AAUGH.com/to.htm?0689859007
==================================================================
MOM, MEET DAD
Unsurprisingly, the Ready-to-Read line will follow up next
April’s GOOD GRIEF, IT’S MOTHER’S DAY with a book for kids
with dads: IT’S FATHER’S DAY, CHARLIE BROWN.
==================================================================
A HALLMARK FOR THE UK?
Thanks to the keen eyes and able assist of one of you fine
AAUGH.com newsletter readers, I recently landed myself a copy
of IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO YOU… LET ALONG A DOG, a little
hardcover book designed to serve as a get-well card. Hallmark
published a number of these, but this one is particularly
interesting, because it may never have been available in the
U.S. The copy I have comes from Britain, and the only other
one I can locate is also in Britain.
However, there is one weird clue that suggests there was a US
edition, perhaps in a greeting card format rather than a book
format. Snoopy is in the hospital (actually refers to himself
as The World’s Famous Patient, of course!), getting annoyed
by the stream of visitors he gets. On one page, Pig-Pen
(inherenly a troublesome visitor in a sanitary environment)
notices what’s on TV in the hospital room. The text of his
word balloon, however, looks different from the rest of the
text in the book, as if it was painted in later. He says
“HEY, GREAT! THE DOCTOR WHO IS ON T.V.!” Between the
capitalization and the clumsy wording, it’s not clear if
he is looking at the doctor who is on TV, or if he is seeing
the British science fiction show Doctor Who. The latter would
certainly suggest that this replaced some reference to an
American TV show in a US edition.
I’d be interested to hear if any of you have copies… and
if so, just what Pig-Pen is saying on the next-to-last
spread.
This book was printed in West Germany no earlier than 1966.
==================================================================
Well, that’s all the news and notes for now. But I do have
some interesting books winging my way, and even an interview
in the offing, so this is not the last newsletter you’ll
ever get. Not by a long shot.
As usually, send any questions, suggestions, rejections,
inspections, detections, excitements, incitements,
and peppermints to me at nat@AAUGH.com
–Nat
proprietor
http://AAUGH.com
