charles m schulz

BookBin2014: The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976

~ LobaBlanca

peanuts7576

This is going to be a very quick review, denizens. Apparently, that’s all I have time for these days. Really, though, there’s not a whole lot to say about this read. While wandering through parts of the library I’d never been in before (read: the kids’ section), I stumbled across a small collection of some of the books from the Complete Peanuts comic collection that has been slowly hitting the shelves.

I really want all these books, and I don’t know why I haven’t been buying them as they come out. I even went so far as to add them to my wish list, to remind me to buy them. And yet, I have not. I love the Peanuts. I used to save all the Sunday comics when I was a kid. By then, of course, the strip had lost most of its bite, which made them perfect for young readers but, I realize now, must have been quite disappointing for readers who loved the edginess of the early strips.

Apparently, the edge was dulling even in the mid-1970s. Lots of focus on Snoopy, including what I guess was Spike’s first big foray into the comic strips. I remember Spike was a strip stalwart in the 80s, so I found it interesting to see his official big-scale arrival. I also got a little bit of a kick seeing the comic strip that originally ran the day I was born. Because, really, who doesn’t love a shot of narcissism with their Peanuts?

This wasn’t a bad collection to thumb through on a snowy Sunday, but it did rekindle one of my primary concerns with this collection, and what I think is ultimately causing my hesitation: At what point do I stop buying the books? We all know that I have a slight bit of OCD. It was difficult enough for me to stop buying X-Files seasons (hell, I’m still vacillating on that decision!). Can I handle not having the entire collection? What if I miss something really good because I drew the line too soon? Should I draw the line? Or do I just buy them all and deal with the fact that later books won’t be nearly as good as the earlier stuff?

This. This is what I deal with all the time, denizens. Be thankful I filter. Most of the time.

Final Verdict: I really do need to start collecting these books. When does that tax return come in?

BookBin2013: Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography

~ lobablanca

schulzandpeanuts

Some friends recently asked me to name 15 artists who have influenced me and who will always remain important in my life. Honestly, I haven’t been able to answer the request, because I haven’t identified 15 who have been so monumentally influential that they will always and forever be in my pantheon of artistic awesomeness.

What? Doesn’t everyone have such a pantheon?

However, when I tried to reach the full 15, Charles M. Schulz was most definitely there. The “Childhood” chapter of my life story would be notably incomplete without Schulz and his “curiously independent” cast of un-childlike children. I grew up in what has been called the waning years of Peanuts glory, a time in which many considered the strip past its prime and much softer and far less esoteric than it once was. I didn’t know any of this at the time; all I knew was that I enjoyed reading the comics and I loved all my Snoopy stuffed animals and other paraphernalia.

It wasn’t until my teen years that I became more curious about this comic’s evolution through its impressively long existence, and I started seeking out the early Peanuts comics. And my love for Peanuts grew even greater. It was almost as if I were discovering this comic and its characters for the first time. Indeed, those later strips with which I was so familiar seemed subdued and rather banal in comparison with Schulz’s early dark, philosophical, somewhat nihilistic strips. His work in the 80s hooked me as a child. His work through the 50s-70s is what made me a lifelong fan.

When I heard that David Michaelis had written Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, I remembered being incredibly excited. However, early reviews made me wary enough that I didn’t bother picking up a copy until I found the book in a beachtown bargain bin in 2009. I bought it…and promptly abandoned it to a shelf when I got home.

True to my promise this year, I’m trying to make my way through some of the backlogged biographies/autobiographies/memoirs I have. And how could I resist this book’s smexy Charlie Brown-inspired cover?

[Apparently, quite easily, since it’s been almost four years since I bought this book…but I digress.]

For a 600+-plus-page biography, I kind of expected to walk away with more insight on Schulz beyond the fact that he was shy, self-effacing in that intrinsically Midwest way, somewhat pedantic, thoughtful, introspective…but also a bit emotionally incompetent (as detrimentally introverted people can be), especially when it came to the relationships he tried to form throughout his life. Honestly, I had long suspected this last part, and I think it was one of the reasons that I didn’t want to read this biography. Sometimes, we simply want to believe that our heroes are just that