English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart
The next book in my Amazon Japan shipment falls into the adorable category of “Peanuts used to explain American culture”. English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart with Snoopy by Nobu Yamada falls into that category. It also falls into the category of “books which are meant to be destroyed”, as each …
Look! A mook!
Mooks – that is, items with magazine-like content but sold more like a book – are popular in Japan. Many of them come bundled with extra items, and there have been a fair number with Peanuts items. Most often these are bags – a handbag or a tote of some …
Peanuts and the public domain
As you may have seen discussed elsewhere, as of today, the first couple Mickey Mouse cartoons are in the public domain in the United States. That means that people are free to make not just copies of the cartoons, but derivative works based on those cartoons. It doesn’t mean that …
Dubious philosophy
Why am I dubious that the Kindle book pictured on the left is a properly authorized edition of the physical book seen on the right? Is it because of the art? No, they are both obviously cartoon masterpieces. Is it that the one on the left is published by “Canongate …
Bringing up the rear
I’m interrupting my coverage of the shipment of books I got from Japan to cover another foreign book that just arrived. Now, I don’t try to collect every foreign Peanuts book. My collection is out of control as it is. I try to find books in languages that I don’t …
Writing Japanese, I think I’m writing Japanese, I really think so…
My main goal of ordering Peanuts books from Japan was to get a copy of the new Japanese edition of Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects, the book that I co-wrote for the Schulz Museum. After all, I want to have Peanuts …
Japanappiness is a New Book
I had to order a certain book from Japan. The shipping price was high… but I reckoned that as long as I was paying that, the cost to ship additional books would be low. I manage to stop myself at 4 more books, which Amazon said would arrive on December …
The Electric Joe Cool Acid Test
Bootleg Peanuts items abound. Our Facebook feeds are filled with unlicensed Snoopy shirts, Amazon has unlicensed Peanuts books. But the big unlicensed item in the early 1980s? LSD. The popular form of blotter acid was those decorated with images of Joe Cool, or the World War I Flying Ace, or …
Upcoming collections
Coming in May is Five Funny Snoopy and Charlie Brown Stories!, a compilation of the previously-released kids storybooks Let’s Go to the Library!; Time for School, Charlie Brown; Snoopy and Woodstock; Snoopy, First Beagle on the Moon!; and Make a Trade, Charlie Brown! We now have a cover for the …
Snoopy on the big screen
For those of you who like to keep track of every time Peanuts characters appear on screen, Maestro, the new Leonard Bernstein biopic by Bradley Cooper, has the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade passing by outside a window, including prominent use of Snoopy. You can see the Snoopy moment with some commentary from …