The mystery of Woodstock’s birth
When I wrote The Snoopy Treasures, I risked wading one of our times hottest controversies: the origin of Woodstock. Now, when Woodstock appeared is a little tricky, because he wasn’t given that name for years, and there has more than one Woodstock-like bird at various times. But there was a standard …
Be Kind, Be Brave, Be You beview… er, review
On the market as of last week is Be Kind, Be Brave, Be You, a board book which is made up of three upbeat-positivity-type poems by Elizabeth Dennis Barton, with Peanuts illustrations by Scott Jerald. I actually found this one reasonably charming – I could see reading this to my kids …
Peanuts for the Soul – review
The hardcover strip collection Peanuts for the Soul is published in the UK, but there are copies available in the US (although Amazon is for some reason listing the title as The Comfort of Blankets.) This is an undersized hardcover collecting the more philosophical strips, with each strip (whether a full …
Review: The Comics of Charles Schulz
Hey, folks – I’m doing pretty much the same review both here in the blog and on the podcast, although I’ll be winging it a bit in the audio recording. So choose which medium you prefer. Someone once told me that a certain person of import on the Peanuts world …
Heavy Snoopy for your Kindle
A couple weeks ago a rather huge Snoopy collection was released for the Kindle, and its follow up is coming out this week. The World According to Snoopy Volume One and The World According to Snoopy Volume Two each collect eight Snoopy-centric strip collections, specifically: Volume One – Snoopy the …
Your Valentine? Who is, Charlie Brown?
The English language is structured for creativity, not for precision engineering. Too many phrases are ambiguous. When I tell my wife “I can’t love you any more!”, am I noting that I used to love her, but am no longer capable of doing so? Or am I telling her that …
Review: Snoopy – A Peanuts Collection
I now have the first in the new series of hardcover reprints of selections from the Kaboom! Peanuts comic book series. Snoopy: A Peanuts Collection features stories about Snoopy (surprise, surprise!), written (or adapted from Schulz) by Jason Cooper, Vicki Scott, Alexis Fajardo, Shane Houghton, with art by Donna Almendraia, Vicki …
Review: Blessings from Peanuts
While Hallmark has seen fit not to grant us another book adaptation of A Charlie Brown Christmas this year (sniff), they have issued another new book for the reason-for-the-season crowd. Blessings from Peanuts: Thoughts on Faith to Make You Smile is a hardcover gift book which collects a number of Bible and religion-themed …
Review: The Complete Peanuts Family Album
There have been enough Big Books About Peanuts that the trick on writing them is to find a new angle. The angle for The Complete Peanuts Family Album is to do a deep dive, covering all of the characters in Peanuts, anyone who had a name and a few who didn’t. This …
Snoopy’s Letters to Santa
After doing a rather strange little we-won’t-accept-the-coupon-so-you-have-to-order-online-use-the-coupon-there-and-have-them-ship-out-the-book-to-the-store-which-you-then-come-pick-up-even-though-we-have-copies-just-sitting-here-on-the-shelves dance with my local Hallmark store, I finally have a copy of Letters to Santa, a new hardcover Peanuts storybook written by Bill Gray and illustrated by Rich LaPierre. This starts with the kids writing letters to Santa (something they did in the strip), …