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 before the actual anniversary, but I expect that to become much larger this year. Will there be book projects? Well, there are always book projects, I don’t expect that I will ever live to see a year without some new Peanuts book project. But will there be specifically 75th-anniversary projects? That seems likely, and I’ve heard something that suggests there may, but nothing’s been announced yet. (And if you’re wondering, no, this is not me trying to hide that I’m involved in some anniversary project.) The only announced book that seems like it could be pushed as [a 75ht item is Snoopy, the Story of My Life: The Myth, the Legend, the Beagle!, but the promotional text for that makes no link to the date. Other than that, the things that’ve been announced for this year are fairly straightforward — another storybook, another strip reprint for kids, the usual. But it is early yet, there is still plenty of time to for there to be some surprises for later in the year.

Of course, there is much to commercial Peanuts beyond books, as special as those are for me. Just yesterday, I received a request that I promote a 75th anniversary bobblehead. Now, I’ve not accepted all such requests in the past, I’ve even told the bobblehead folks that I was unlikely to cover anything unless is was fairly directly relevant to this book-oriented board, or if it inspired me to spin out on some topic. But I took a look at what they sent me, and I looked at the base…

…it reprints a strip. Sure, it’s not a book, but it reprints just as many strips as the book Here Comes Charlie Brown! A Peanuts Pop-Up. In fact, it reprints the exact same strip as that book. And if you want to bribe me with a free bobblehead (as the folks at FOCO do), then a strip reprint one is the one to do it with. Anyway, if you wish to preorder one for yourself, you can do so at this link.

This item does remind me of the historic problem with Peanuts statuary, in that Schulz had not really designed the characters for three dimensions. Their heads exist in the front-on, side shot, three-quarters, and that’s most of it, and the placement of things like ears are not consistent at different angles. Over the years, the toys and other 3-D attempts got better, or at least more consistent, although to a slight degree that is as much developing a standard reinterpreting of the characters for three dimensions that wasn’t quite the same as their drawn equivalent. A Snoopy toy’s eyes can not float into various different positions of its face as you look at it from various perspectives. And to a certain degree, over the years the way Schulz drew the characters became more compatible with there being a full version… but here, they have boldly chosen to attempt to capture a Charlie Brown from before all those refinements.

But anyway, the new year is upon us, and just like a new comics character, it will evolve, and end up looking a bit different than it looked at the start. Here’s hoping that by the end, it has found way to bring us joy and that it looks good in three dimensions. Peace to you all!

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