Shipping in a few weeks is the latest volume in The Complete Peanuts, covering the years 1991-1992. I’ve already got a copy (provided by the publisher, Fantagraphics, with whom I have business dealings on other books), and here are my thoughts on reading through it:

• The introduction by cartoonist Tom Tomorrow is one of those genial “here’s how Peanuts has been a part of my life” essays. It’s fine, as such, but nothing new is imparted.
• There’s a gag about Snoopy knowing where he is flying over by checking the colors against the map. This is reminiscent of one of my favorite Twain bits, a scene in the less-known Tom Sawyer Abroad where Tom and Huck are flying in a balloon, and Huck expects the colors of the map to be their guide.
• Lots of “Snoopy likes cookies” humor.
• Sally refers to having an Aunt Marian. Usually, it’s Lucy who invokes Aunt Marian. Does this mean that the Browns and the Van Pelts are related? Is the true reason that Linus rejects his position as Sally’s Sweet Baboo simply a matter of avoiding the problems that can arise from consanguineous romance??? (Naaaaah.)
• I know that on the grand scale of Peanuts, this is not the strongest period, but it only takes a couple pages to remind you that even weaker-than-average periods of Peanuts are better than the good days of most strips. Schulz looks to be easily drawing moments that really work, and dealing with things that seem to come from his inner dialog. The darkness of Charlie Brown when Snoopy understands a comic strip gag that he misses; the need to confront a snowman with the question “is it art?”
• Peggy Jean is on Charlie Brown’s mind, and the stress of feeling for both her and the little red-haired girl. At this point, it feels like Charlie Brown is a teenager, internally.
• The World War I Flying Ace confuses Charlie Brown with Woodrow Wilson. But then, don’t we all?
• There’s a storyline where Charlie Brown and Sally are teaching Bible class. This is interesting to me as an echo back to the Warner Press cartoons where the teens are teaching the little kids. There’s some fun material (one of the students considers the Great Gatsby a Bible tale)… but it’s out of the tradition of Sally, who is usually weak on knowing what’s in a book.
• By this point, leaning against a stone wall chatting has been completely replaced by conversations under the tree.
• Not one but two gags that hinge on sexual harassment in sports, not an expected Peanuts theme; unrelated strips, both bringing a grin to my face.
• Schulz uses a couple of Sundays to seemingly just draw whatever he felt like drawing, rather than the full multipanel gag he usually builds. One of them is a funny Peanuts drawing, with lots of Snoopy heads, but on April 19, 1992, it seems like he just felt like drawing Victoria Falls. Sometimes, you just go where the muse takes you.
• On December 29th 1991, Charlie Brown seems to have an interest in women named Heather, Rachel, and Elizabeth. This goes beyond his usual focus on Peggy Jean and the Little Red-Haired Girl. (Of course, Heather was the Little Red-Haired girl in the TV special “It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown”, but that’s TV and thus non-canonical.)
• This book includes one of the storylines about Ace Airlines, where humans actually expect Snoopy to fly them places on his doghouse. These always felt to me to be pushing the reality-level of the strip a bit. It’s one thing to have the kids play along with him acting as the Flying Ace, but another to have them actually believe it.
• Kids were so much smarter in 1992. The children of today rarely quote Madame Bovary.

Go, preorder it now.

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