Peanuts and American Culture

Coming next May is the book Peanuts and American Culture,.Looking at Peanuts  in the context of it’s “Cold War roots, this collection of new essays explores existentialism, the reshaping of the nuclear family, the Civil Rights Movement, 1960s counterculture, feminism, psychiatry and fear of the bomb. Chapters focus on the development of Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Franklin, Shermy, Snoopy and the other characters that became American icons.” This comes from McFarland & Company, so not a university press like some of the books we’ve seen of late, but rather a company that does a broad array of books analyzing pop culture. The editor, listed variously as Peter Y. W. Lee and Peter W. Lee, appears to have previously headed up similar books about Star Trek and Star Wars.

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Upcoming releases
It was a stormy Dark Knight…

Coming out in December is a facsimile edition of Detective Comics issue 500, the big thick issue-versary release from 1981. Detective Comics is a series that began in 1937, although it really picked up steam in 1939, when issue 27 introduced a little character called “The Batman”. Reaching issue 500 is an achievement …

Upcoming releases
Offboarding

I can think of a number of times that Peanuts storybooks have been converted into board books, often with some shortening and simplification. And I can think of once or twice that the stories from board books have been included inside non-board anthologies of stories. But I can’t think of …

Upcoming releases
How many bunny-wunnies?

We’ve got the first listed Peanuts book for 2027, and while it’s a board book for kids, it’s going to have something for all you Freida fans. In Snoopy’s Bunny Fun!, Freida wants Snoopy to go after rabbits, but Snoopy has other plans. And if bunnies are your thing, January …