Hitting comic book stores Wednesday is volume 5 of the collected Peanuts comic books, published by Kaboom. This includes the three of my Peanuts stories for them – “Joe Stockcar”, “Press Here”, and “New Shoe Zoom”, with art by Andy Hirsch, Jeff Shultz, and Robert Pope, respectively. It also has a lot of other stories by various fine writers and artists… which brings us to a small ticking point. On solicitations, the publisher doesn’t list writers and artists, but authors and artists. Like most comic book writers I’ve talked to about it, I reject the term “author” for the work. The thing that we create is not a full work and what is added by the artists is not mere illustration to augment that work. As a writer, I will accept the “author” credit for much of my prose work; I have authed often in the past and hope to be authing more in the future. But unless I’m providing a significant portion of the artwork for my comics stories, I’m merely the writer, part of an authorial team. But I digress… here’s a preview of this new Peanuts volume! (Click on each page to enlarge.)

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