* ANOTHER EDITION I CAN’T OFFER YOU
\n
\n* SCHULZ COLLABORATOR INTERVIEW ONLINE
\n
\n* REVIEW: A PEANUTS CHRISTMAS
\n
\n* BEWARE THE CHRISTMAS FLEECE
\n
\n* IT’S A HARDCOVER, CHARLIE BROWN<\/p>\n
ANOTHER EDITION I CAN’T OFFER YOU<\/p>\n
Barnes & Noble has published a new paperback edition of
\nPEANUTS TREASURY, a collection of primo strips that was
\nfirst offered in 1968. The book appears to be available
\nonly through Barnes & Noble stores — at this point,
\nit’s not even on their website. But that doesn’t bother
\nme much, because the new edition has a cover price of
\n$9.95, but through AAUGH.com you can still get the
\nhardcover edition from 2000 for a mere *three cents*
\nmore. The reproduction (in all editions, even the original)
\nis a bit weak, but the quality and quantity of strips
\nmakes it the best bargain in the store. To check it out, go
\nto:
\n
\n http:\/\/AAUGH.com\/go.htm?1586630687
\n
\n————————————————————-
\n
\nSCHULZ COLLABORATOR INTERVIEW ONLINE<\/p>\n
Derrick Bang has taken the interview he did with former
\nSchulz assistant Jim Sasseville for CBG, expanded it some, and
\nput it on the web. Sasseville worked on the Peanuts comic
\nbooks and on Schulz’s little-known strip It’s Only A Game.
\nCheck it out at:
\n
\n http:\/\/www.peanutscollectorclub.com\/sassevil.html<\/p>\n
And while you’re at it, you may want to look at my interview
\nwith Sasseville’s fellow assistant Dale Hale, at:
\n
\n http:\/\/AAUGH.com\/guide\/ldale.htm
\n
\n————————————————————-
\n
\nREVIEW: A PEANUTS CHRISTMAS<\/p>\n
There are two ways to look at the new strip collection A
\nPEANUTS CHRISTMAS: as the book it is, and as the book it
\nclaims to be. Let me tackle that second way first.<\/p>\n
As I announced months ago, the book jacket of A Peanuts
\nChristmas describes it as being “the complete collection
\nof Christmas strips from 1950 to 1999”. This fails in a
\ncouple ways. The first is more of a quibble: the book
\ncontains no strips from 1950.<\/p>\n
The second concern is meatier: the book is not complete.
\nYes, it has hundreds of Christmas-themed strips. However,
\nthere are also Christmas-themed strips that it doesn’t
\nhave. In fact, grabbing the sweet little book A Joy Of A
\nPeanuts Christmas that Hallmark put out in 2000, I find
\n18 legitimately Christmas-themed strips there that aren’t
\nin A Peanuts Christmas, and I have to believe there are
\na fair number of Christmas strips that didn’t make it
\ninto either book (and, in fact, other fans are already
\npointing out missing Christmas storylines.)<\/p>\n
And yet, if one looks at the book as what it is, a
\ncollection of Christmas strips, it’s good but not
\nexceptional. In their drive to collect strips about
\nChristmas, the editors include some strips that are
\nonly vaguely related to Christmas (such as strips about
\nwriting book reports over Christmas vacation), often
\nrunning the one Christmas-mentioning strip from a
\nlonger storyline.<\/p>\n
Any book that prints hundreds of Peanuts strips
\nclearly is a good thing, and there is a lot of fine
\nmaterial in this. The entire book is printed in
\ncolor, but in almost all cases the color is on
\nthe page background or on decorative design elements,
\nnot on the strips themselves. The only strips that
\nare reprinted in color are Sunday strips from 1996
\nonward — in other words, strips that the same
\npublisher (Ballantine Books) has already reprinted
\nin color in their primary strip reprint series.
\n(And no, they didn’t include the color versions of
\nthe dailies that they had run in some of those books.)<\/p>\n
A couple of repeated strips also reflect some
\neditorial sloppiness. The Christmas Day, 1990 strip
\non page 74 is repeated on page 77, where the
\nChristmas Day 1991 strip should likely have been.
\nMore understandable is the December 20th, 1987
\nSunday strip which appears in black and white on
\npage 101, then appears in color on page 148. This
\nwas a strip that was rerun during Schulz’s 1997
\nvacation<\/p>\n
On the up side, the strips are in order by date, with
\nthe copyright and date markings left intact, which
\nis handy for those of us who study Peanuts history.
\nThe book does include strips that I don’t think I’ve
\never seen before, ones that are likely in no other
\nbook.<\/p>\n
I wouldn’t recommend this book as a Christmas present,
\nsimply because people’s enthusiasm for Christmas things
\nseems to end with Christmas Day itself; they may not
\nwant to be reading Christmas-themed strips in the days
\nfollowing. However, it should make a nice book to leave
\non your coffee table during the Christmas season. Its
\ncover is attractive (even if surprisingly similar to the
\nA Joy Of A Peanuts Christmas book) and the strips are
\ngood to flip through and read a bit at a time. (The
\nconstant Christmas theme does make some of them feel
\nredundant if the book is read all at once.)<\/p>\n
A PEANUTS CHRISTMAS is a 156-page full color dust jacketed
\nhardcover book, 9″x11.5″. It has a cover price of $25.95,
\nbut you can slash more than seven bucks off of that price
\nby ordering it through:
\n
\n http:\/\/AAUGH.com\/go.htm?0345453514
\n
\n————————————————————-
\n
\nBEWARE THE CHRISTMAS FLEECE<\/p>\n
I know I’ve said this before, but with the holidays
\ncoming and people eager to find that special gift,
\nI need to say it again: *Don’t* buy Schulz-autographed
\ngoods on online auctions. The commercial autograph
\nis rife with fraud; some studies have shown that *most*
\nof the major sports star autographs sold are fraudulent,
\nand there’s little reason to believe that other categories
\nof valuable autographs are any different. (I’ve also
\nseen a fair number of dubious “Schulz” sketches lately.)<\/p>\n
At this moment, I am monitoring an online auction of a
\nSchulz-signed copy of the 2000 edition of Peanuts
\nTreasury (with Certificate Of Authenticity!), a book
\nthat was not issued until after Schulz had died. Even if
\ncopies had been printed before Schulz passed, a man
\nsuffering from the multiple ailments that Schulz faced
\nwas not likely to have had either the ability or the
\ndesire to scrawl recognizable generic signatures for
\nadoring auctioneers.<\/p>\n
Does that mean that all Schulz signatures are fraudulent?
\nOf course not. But don’t expect all frauds to be as
\nblatant as this. And if you want to get your loved ones
\nsomething that only looks like it was signed by Schulz,
\nyou might as well save money and forge it yourself!<\/p>\n
An autograph can be a cool momento of your having met
\nsomeone interesting, or it can be a way to make a
\nbook that you buy as a gift something special, showing
\nthat you were willing to go to a little extra effort
\nfor the recipient. But when you start stepping away from
\nsuch sentimental value and get involved in supposed
\nfinancial value of a signature, you’re dealing in a
\nrealm fueled by illusion. If you want a valuable
\nsignature, get it on the bottom of a check.
\n
\n————————————————————-
\n
\nIT’S A HARDCOVER, CHARLIE BROWN<\/p>\n
The special gift edition of the kids book adaptation of
\nA CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS is now shipping. I announced
\nthis as a hardcover edition with a CD of music from
\nthe special. However, if you saw the listing for the book
\nthat Amazon put up, you’d learn that it was a paperback.<\/p>\n
Amazon is wrong. The book is a hardcover. Order lots.
\n
\n http:\/\/AAUGH.com\/go.htm?0689853572
\n
\n————————————————————-<\/p>\n
Well, that’s all the rants and raves for now. As ever,
\nthere will be a new newsletter when there’s enough new
\nnews for a new newsletter.<\/p>\n
Have a happy Halloween, and keep sending me your notes,
\nquotes, jokes, pokes, and new email addresses!<\/p>\n
\n–Nat, nat@AAUGH.com
\n
\n Proprietor
\n
\n http:\/\/AAUGH.com<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
* ANOTHER EDITION I CAN’T OFFER YOU * SCHULZ COLLABORATOR INTERVIEW ONLINE * REVIEW: A PEANUTS CHRISTMAS * BEWARE THE CHRISTMAS FLEECE * IT’S A HARDCOVER, CHARLIE BROWN ANOTHER EDITION I CAN’T OFFER YOU Barnes & Noble has published a new paperback edition of PEANUTS TREASURY, a collection of primo … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaugh.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}