I had to order a certain book from Japan. The shipping price was high… but I reckoned that as long as I was paying that, the cost to ship additional books would be low. I manage to stop myself at 4 more books, which Amazon said would arrive on December 29, DHL (the shipping company) said would arrive on January 2, but instead the package arrived today… and I’m posting about it immediately because there is one book in here that is making me so happy. And that book is not the book that I had to buy, not the book with my name on it (although that is cool, too, and I’ll be covering that in a couple days.)

What was so cool?

It’s a manga biography of Schulz! It tells his life story in about 150 pages, and because it’s an officially licensed item, they can include the characters an his work. When you see him drawing a Peanuts strip, it’s an actual Peanuts strip.. or even one of the roughs he drew.

Do I read Japanese? Boy, no. Can I follow this book? Well, yes, but that’s in large part because I already know the story. But still, seeing the mangaized Sparky is just making me happy.

This apparently came out in 2019. It’d be cool if someone would release a translated English edition. (I’m half tempted to license the rights myself.) As with a number of manga, there’s a few pages of color in the front, but it all should work well in the black-and-white that makes up the bulk of the book.

If you want one, it can be ordered from Amazon’s Japanese branch. Looks like it’s also available for the Kindle, but I have no idea if it can be sent to US Kindles.

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