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.

Upcoming releases
2025 in Peanuts

Happy New Year, all you AAUGH Blog Readers! 2025 has come, like it or not, and it brings with it the 75th anniversary of Peanuts! Now, we’ve seen at least some attempts to play off 0f the big anniversary year since at least last summer, more than a full year …

Upcoming releases
A book I’d not expected to resurface

Back in 2011, Schulz’s granddaughter Dena Hodges issued the first two chapters of  a memoir called In the Shadow of the Family Dog. As I noted in my review at the time, the chapter and the description of the project made it clear that the focus was her relationship with …

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 …