The new series of Peanuts mini comic books issued by The Charles Schulz Museum are some of the more expensive Peanuts books ever issued. After all, for a normal Peanuts book, you just have to walk over to the bookstore and give them money, but for these supposedly “free” mini comics, you will need a computer, internet access, a printer, paper, toner, and scissors… and after all that invested, they expect you to make them yourself!

So are they worth the investment? (And surely, you will want both; the real costs are for the first one; the marginal costs of the additional page of paper and the added toner it takes to get the second one are almost certainly worth it.) Well, when properly cut and folded, each of these two winter-themed comics contains an abridged version of one Sunday strip, in color (unless you leave the B&W printing option turned on.)

But the construction effort takes a bit of interpretation. You get told to do something called a “hamburger fold”. They also want you to “cut along straight line” when you actually have to not only cut the line, but also the words “cut along straight line” and the little pictures of scissors as well.

They do each entertain, as a Peanuts strip should. One thing you have to be aware of, though is even if you follow the directions correctly, one of the panels in one of the books (taken from the January 7, 1968 strip) will come out upside-down.That isn’t to say that you still can’t misfold things. If you make errors and end up with something like what’s pictured below, it’s best to just throw it away and try again.

You can find the download file (with instructions built in) and other Peanuts activities from the Museum here.

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