Inherited Peanuts gene

My son is 20 months old now, and generally hasn’t paid much attention to the TV. That’s starting to change, but still, most of the time if he’s in the room and the TV is on, he’s busy doing something else, often pestering someone to help him page through one of his books. But the other morning, he toddled into the living room where I was sitting, grabbed a book adaptation of Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown from the table, pointed eagerly to the cover, then to the TV set, and to make sure I was paying attention, repeated the whole mime again. This boy, who only rarely puts two words together, was letting me know that he wanted to watch Peanuts on TV. So any concern about over-exposing him to television got swept aside for my appreciation for his choice to communicate and his tastes; I threw A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving into the DVD player (chosen for the quality of slapstick within), and he cheerfully stared at it for the whole running time.

(By the way I forgot to point it out, but that fine graphic novel adaptation of Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown is now shipping from Amazon.)

General
Spot the Dog

I publish things. I also research things. And really, the two efforts are often one and the same: I research stuff and find that it’s worth publishing; I publish stuff and in the process I’m doing research. That all just happened for me with a syndicated comics panel called “Spot” …

Now shipping
Snoopy’s Book Café

Peanuts collector Lisa, who had been showing all her finds from a recent trip to Japan, started showing off one of the Re-Ment sets of little kits that combine to make a diorama. They do lovely work, but Peanuts statuary is not what I collect, and besides, these are Japanese …

Now shipping
a box of confusion

Here’s a quiz for you: imagine you, like AAUGH Blog reader Douglas, got a copy of a new boxed set of Peanuts books, and it had this marking on the box…. Now, first pretend that you (unlike Douglas) don’t know anything about Peanuts books. How many books do you think come …