Peanuts and American Culture

Coming next May is the book Peanuts and American Culture,.Looking at Peanuts  in the context of it’s “Cold War roots, this collection of new essays explores existentialism, the reshaping of the nuclear family, the Civil Rights Movement, 1960s counterculture, feminism, psychiatry and fear of the bomb. Chapters focus on the development of Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Franklin, Shermy, Snoopy and the other characters that became American icons.” This comes from McFarland & Company, so not a university press like some of the books we’ve seen of late, but rather a company that does a broad array of books analyzing pop culture. The editor, listed variously as Peter Y. W. Lee and Peter W. Lee, appears to have previously headed up similar books about Star Trek and Star Wars.

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Upcoming releases
Gilded Age Peanuts

There are many products generated as Peanuts “collectibles”. There have even been some special editions of books that would qualify, such as those leatherbound Easton Press editions. Still, I think the upcoming board book edition of It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is pushing the line a bit. The publisher …

Upcoming releases
Crafty Peanuts books

A couple of craft-ish new books popped up on the horizon. Coming next June is a revised and expanded edition of Peanuts Cross-Stitch; where the old one had 16 patterns, this one comes with a whopping 24. At least, I assume that’s whopping. I don’t really spend time with craft books. …

Upcoming releases
The Essential Peanuts preview

The magazine People ran a preview of The Essential Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, the upcoming Peanuts retrospective written by my bud Mark Evanier. I’ll let you head there for the content, but I am going to talk on one part of the preview pointed to me by AAUGH Blog …