The new book Many Faces of Snoopy is a sort of book that we’ve seen pop up a few times, a strip collection focusing on Snoopy’s various personas. (That’s not a complaint; it’s a good idea, not everyone has all the old collections that I do already at hand, and with a strip that’s not been in production for over a decade and a half, there really is only so much “new” that one can expect. Although a previous one actually had the same title with the word The added to the front, just to confuse those of us who track Peanuts books) This is a small, square hardback presenting one daily on each page, except for the two cases where the personas they’re exploring only appeared in one strip, in which case it’s stretched across two pages (allowing the spread introducing the next person to be across two pages.) Characters covered include Joe Cool, Joe Preppy, the Flying Ace, the Secret Agent, the Beagle Scout, the Masked Marvel, Flashbeagle, and the Fierce Pirate.

The one displeasure I take in the book is that the strips, which are reproduced in color, have a very jaggy-looking black line. This probably won’t chafe most readers the way that it does me.

My favorite part of the book is actually the back cover, a nice shot of the Secret Agent casting a long shadow into a darkened room.

$9.99. published by Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Now as I said, the folks who make these books like to make my life hard. There is also just recently released a board book called The Many Faces of Snoopy, using the same logo (it seems to be a current campaign, there are also calendars available.) This, while discussing Snoopy’s various personas, is not a strip reprint. And I missed ordering it because I thought I already had! Now I’ve got stuff to buy!

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