Destined to blow up
Puffer Jacket Snoopy is a thing… enough of a thing that I’ll be discussing an item that only barely qualifies for this blog (it comes with a book… a tiny book of stickers.) Amazon is now listing for October release a Desktop Inflatable Puffer Jacket Snoopy. It’s one of the …
The Return of What’s Necessary
Coming in April is a reissue of Only What’s Necessary, Chip Kidd’s second book on the art of Peanuts, reissued for the 75th anniversary of the strip. (My review of the original 2015 edition is here.) For those keeping track, this is the third cover for this book. Here are the …
Covers to coming things
It’s that time when all the computer systems update and suddenly we’re seeing covers t0o some of the books that are rolling down the road toward us. The big one in this batch is probably Snoopy: The Story of My Life, which is the Cartoon Art Museum’s Andrew Farago ghosting …
2025 in Peanuts
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 …
A book I’d not expected to resurface
Back in 2011, Schulz’s granddaughter Dena Hodges issued the first two chapters of a memoir called In the Shadow of the Family Dog. As I noted in my review at the time, the chapter and the description of the project made it clear that the focus was her relationship with …
A box of squares
This May, Fantagraphics is collecting the various small square Peanuts books they’ve published into a new box set, Peanuts All Year Round Mini Collection. This includes: A Valentine for Charlie Brown — Valentine’s Day and romance strips Batter-Up Charlie Brown! — baseball strips Waiting for the Great Pumpkin — Halloween …
Game Day returns
Back in 2020, Fantagraphics dropped Game Day, a boxed set of sports-themes Peanuts strip reprint paperbackss, as a Costco exclusive. Next June it’s coming back, this time in hardcover and available through the usual sources. Designed as a Father’s Day gift, it should be good for anyone who likes Peanuts …
An unauthorized? biography
In the past, I’ve talked about the Charles Schulz biographies that are produced as part of bulk lines of biographies for school libraries, very brief, photo-heavy things meant to give kids something to write book reports about. Well ABDO, a company that has produced just such a biography in the …
The Peanuts books keep a-comin’
We’re getting into the period when “75th Anniversary” books should be being announced. I don’t know if either of these will be branded that way. Coming in May, 2025 is Happiness is Peanuts, which seems to be an attempt to capture the magic of the Happiness is a Warm Puppy-style …
Snoopy is guiding us to the great outdoors
Coming in October is Snoopy’s Guide to the Great Outdoors, which seems to be a general guide to camping, hiking, and appreciating nature, using your favorite Beagle Scout leader and various other members of the Peanuts crew as your guides. The author is Kristin Mehus-Roe, who seems to usually write about …