I haven’t had a chance to make my way through my copy of The Complete Peanuts volume 20: 1989-1990. Life has been full of life things and business things, such as talking to a lot of enthusiastic people at that ArtNight event. I arrived just after that filled up the few display tables in the first room, so I got into the second room, with several more people yet to arrive… and they never arrived, so I was in that room all alone. But I had a book with a big picture of Snoopy on it, placed it so it could be seen through the entranceway from the first room, and that was enough to tempt people over. Folks like Snoopy, it turns out. Who knew?

We’re not exactly in my favorite run of Peanuts here in the books. Things pick up toward the end of the decade, with Rerun taking the creative lead, but this book represents a weaker period… but only relatively speaking. It’s still Peanuts.

I have taken the time to read the introduction by Lemony Snicket, and it’s one that should please Lemony Snicket fans. For those unfamiliar with LS, he’s the pseudonymous author of the A Series of Unfortunate Events kids books (although my favorite thing of his that I’ve read is The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story), and is basically a persona mired in darkness, seeing doom and negativity everywhere. His introduction is basically a look at the Peanuts characters in the most dark sense possible… and the thing about Peanuts is that this doom-and-gloom interpretation is not some bizarre twisting that’s wildly off the mark, most of it is straightforwardly what Schulz intended. Snicket fans should appreciate the perspective.

The book is scheduled to ship from Amazon at the end of the week, so there’s still time to order with those high preorder discounts (at the moment, it’s 38% off of list).

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