So I’m working my way through my review copy of The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984 (which I’d hoped to review before Amazon had it in stock, but too late, they’ve got ’em), but other things keep arriving, whispering to me “I’m shorter! Review me first!” Towards that end, today’s delivery brought me Snoopy the Flying Ace, which despite what the pre-release picture shows, actually does have the word The insert on it in small letters on the front, side, and top.

It does still have the utterly unnecessary quote marks around “I’ll get you, Red Baron!” in the thought balloon on the box. The front of the book has also changed from the mockup, with the text set in a differnt, smaller font moved about the image, the the that is there made tiny, and the image replaced with the smiling Flying Ace image that you can see on the edge of the box.

The kit, as you see in the image, contains two items. One is the PVC figure of the Flying Ace on his bullet-riddled Sopwith Camel. The other is a 32-page squarebound paperback, 2.5″ x 3″, reprinting Flying Ace strips – 10 four-panel strips each on a single page, 4 two-panel excerpts from strips presented one-panel per page, and some single Flying Ace images filling out most of the remaining pages. It’s not a vastly important book for your Peanuts collection, nor an ideal presentation of the material (at least some of the strips are presented at slightly off the proper aspect ratio, slightly squished, although with printing that small you’re not looking at ideal reproduction anyway) but it’s a valid little gift item. I could certainly see giving this kit as a minor present to someone. I might want to pay a little less than the $9.95 list price, but I should note that Amazon includes this (and seemingly most books under $10) in their 4-for-3 promotion.

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