One of the complaints that Schulz had about his strip being named Peanuts against his wishes is that it lead some people to think that one of the characters in the strip was named “Peanuts.” That was brought to mind when I read this particular strip in a book that I’ve just reprinted:
Peanuts would recur at least a bit in the series, which is a strip called “Beano” that ran not in newspapers, but in The Waifs’ Messenger, a newsletter for the Chicago orphanage Mercy Home for Boys. I’m not certain of the date that this particular installment appeared in the newsletter — I’m reprinting the 1966 collection The Best of Beano, so the strip obviously appeared sometime between the series’s inception in 1948 and this publication, but the dates are unmarked.
Anyway, I’ve retitled the book to That Orphan Beano for the reprint, and it’s priced at a mere $9.99 and available now from Amazon.
As long as I’m talking about things I’ve published, I will confess to having been a busy boy, as That Orphan Beano is just one of seven books I’ve put out over the past month. I’ve also reprinted four collections of the 1950s/’60s Jewish gag panel “Dayenu”, along with an omnibus of all four
