The Doctor Is In, The Pictures Are Not
- By : Nat
- Category : New releases, Reviews
Following the example of The Gospel According to Peanuts, there have been a number of essay books over the years that have used Peanuts strips as a launching point for certain topics, most often religious. In 1981, Warner Press (the publishing arm of The Church Of God, which Schulz was very involved with in the 1950s and 1960s) published The Doctor is In by Maurice Berquist, about G-d and his relationship with humanity. (SPOILER ALERT: He turns out to be the good guy.) The book seems to have had a bit of an odd circulation, in that I seem to find more copies of the “complimentary paper copy”, a paperback giveaway edition, then the more durable hardback it was meant to promote.
Well, the book is now available in ebook form for the Kindle... or at least the text is. They seem not to have licensed the rights for the Peanuts strips the original included (despite mentioning the license on the copyright page, at least of the sample). This makes for some odd transitions in the text, as the text is often playing off of the content of the now missing strip (although at least they put a “…” to mark where a strip was, so while you may not quite understood what is being said, you’ll understand why it is being said.)