Good Grief! Modern Life!

goodgriefofmodernlifeFor those of you who like an academic bent to the way you think about Peanuts, August bringsĀ The Comics of Charles Schulz: The Good Grief of Modern Life. This entry in the Critical Approaches to Comics Artists series has been in the works for a while – the call for papers went out in 2013. This is at least the third book from the University Press of Mississippi on Schulz, but when you have a focus on comics, who can blame you? I’ll see if I can get a rundown of the papers included.

(I sometimes wonder whether, if invited to contribute to volume like this, I’d have anything to put forth. I’m not an academic, my writing tends to be very popular-oriented. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have thoughts on Schulz’s work, of course, but could I make a point worth making with the sort of rigor that’s expected? Ahhh, I don’t see the calls for papers, so I guess I’ll never know!)

Anyway, being an academic book, this has a list price of $65, which is a bit of an ouch. (I have a couple of the contributorsĀ on my Facebook friends list. Am I gonna try to score a review copy? You betcha!) But you should click through on the link here, take a look… then finish all your Christmas shopping, and let Amazon provide me with the referral fee! (He says, as he decorates his doghouse in hopes of winning the top prize…)

Upcoming releases
A box of squares

This May, Fantagraphics is collecting the various small square Peanuts books they’ve published into a new box set, Peanuts All Year Round Mini Collection. This includes: A Valentine for Charlie Brown — Valentine’s Day and romance strips Batter-Up Charlie Brown! — baseball strips Waiting for the Great Pumpkin — Halloween …

Upcoming releases
Game Day returns

Back in 2020, Fantagraphics dropped Game Day, a boxed set of sports-themes Peanuts strip reprint paperbackss, as a Costco exclusive. Next June it’s coming back, this time in hardcover and available through the usual sources. Designed as a Father’s Day gift, it should be good for anyone who likes Peanuts …

Upcoming releases
An unauthorized? biography

In the past, I’ve talked about the Charles Schulz biographies that are produced as part of bulk lines of biographies for school libraries, very brief, photo-heavy things meant to give kids something to write book reports about. Well ABDO, a company that has produced just such a biography in the …