Peanuts in less-than-full color

So I got my copy of Comics Squad: Lunch!, the comics anthology with a new Peanuts story in it. And while the creative line-up and samples seen in Amazon’s Look Inside The Book feature made it seem interesting, the printed volume turns out to have one major change from the version seen there. This is how an early page (well, two-thirds of a page) looks at Amazon:

three-color

and here’s how it look in the book that’s in my hands:

IMG_1525

Apparently, it was originally going to be three-color printed, using red, blue, and black, and instead they switched to two colors, yellow and black. This would be cheaper to print (every time you pass a page through a press for a different color, it costs; traditional color comics use a four-color process).

The Peanuts story is clearly made specifically for this book, not only because it follows the theme of lunch, but also because it’s laid out more simply that the current comic book series is; here they use two tiers of panels on each page, whereas the comic books generally use three. The tale is fourteen pages (including a “cover” page) focusing on Snoopy working in the school cafeteria.

All in all the package is a mixed bag, some of the stories work, some don’t. My favorite is the somewhat hallucenogenic lead story by Cece Bell. But hey, it’s about $8 (less through Amazon at the moment) for 128 pages of comics material, so if you’ve got a kid of the right age who has enjoyed the works of at least a couple of the participants, it’s probably a good purchase for them.

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 …

New releases
“Books”

My grocery shopping today landed me two new Peanuts “books”. The more bookish of the two is the latest edition of The Great Big Book of Peanuts Word Seeks, volume 5 to be precise, which as I’ve mentioned before I’ll allow to qualify as a book… particularly because it not …