I just got a copy of Charlie Brown’s World, one of a set of keyring-based strip reprints that Hallmark issued in 1970 (a set which, with the help of a particularly generous AAUGH Blog reader, I now have most of, but still not all.) These books reprint strips, one panel per page, and with title pages for each strip and other overhead, you end up getting eight whole dailies in a single booklet, not exactly a bargain for a buck today, much less considering what a buck would buy you in 1970.

The single-panel-at-a-time format also means that the panels themselves are each reworked a bit, trimmed of their frame and expanded. When this means additional art, you can tell it’s not Schulz.

Notice how the added rain at the top is very straight, doesn’t have the slight curve from Schulz’s hands, nor the little blobby end points that helped make Schulz’s rain work. And what’s up with that roof? How short are Mr. and Mrs. Brown, anyway? (Or is it Mr. and Dr.? Charlie Brown’s mother is a housewife, but we really don’t know her educational background.)

And because Schulz relied on panel borders for part of the word balloon shape, the top and occasionally sides of the word balloons are redrawn… not so smoothly.

I feel for the person who had to make these changes. Schulz did it all right, but a Peanuts panel is a delicate thing. When you mess with it, you’re bound to end up with something a little wrong.

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