Two decades worth of good Peanuts news

New releases

Last year, I found The Big Book of Peanuts Comics, a single volume which collected all of the Peanuts daily strips (i.e., no Sundays) from the 1970s, for sale for about $20 at Costco. A number of you wanted to lay your hands on a copy, but the only place I could find them was Costco, and then they were gone from there, and I was so sure they’d show up on the Barnes & Noble cheap pile or other similar spots, but no. I searched and searched.

But today, I was in Costco, and saw that they had just put out their table of gift books for the holidays, and there not only did I find that that book was back, I found that it had brought a friend!

IMG_0681The second book is also titled The Big Book of Peanuts, but this one has all of the dailies from the 1980s. That’s over 3000 strips for less than a penny apiece. They’re reproduced smaller than in a Complete Peanuts book, a full week’s worth on each large page (the book is about 9″x12″), in black and white, as nature intended.

Now, if you just want to give someone a large amount of Peanuts strips, these books are a fine way of doing so… but I’d recommend the 1970s volume. It’s a better era. The 1980s are probably the weakest decade of Peanuts, which makes it still better than most decades of most strips. But for $20, either of them is a great bargain. Also, big and heavy and great for womping spiders. If you’re a Costco member, get there before they’re gone again!

To be a real Peanuts books collector these days, you not only need a lot of bookshelves, you need big, sturdy ones. Between these books, the Peanuts Every Sunday volumes, and that IDW original art edition volume, that’s a lot of inches and a lot of pounds.

(By the way, if anyone needs a smaller book with the minimum amount of Peanuts comics, I do have spare copies of Boom! Studios Halloween Fright Fest 2014, the giveaway comic with two Sunday strips in it.)

New releases
Review: Snoopy (Classic Cartoon Character Bios)

The Abdo Kids : Classic Cartoon Character Bios books are blatant stuff-to-fill-school-libraries material. Sturdy hardcovers, lots of pictures, 24 pages, little text – about 250 words. The Snoopy volume uses Snoopy images from just about anywhere: strips (appropriately licensed), animation, photos, The Peanuts Movie publicity materials. And the simple facts it …

Classic finds
A needle-ssly fine present

Being a) an adult and b) not a Christmasian, it makes sense that I’m not given much in the way of Christmas presents. This year’s haul was just two items, both given by Dr. Mrs. The AAUGH Blogger: a Terry’s Chocolate Orange (yum!), and this Peanuts embroidery book from Japan. …

New releases
Double Love

Simon Spotlight has dropped two books for the Valentine’s Day Shopping Season, and they’re pretty similar. Love is Everywhere, Snoopy! is a board book that is supposed to be Charlie Brown explaining love to Snoopy (who is said to have asked, which raises the usual how-does-Snoopy-communicate-to-Charlie-Brown question.) Charlie Brown answers …