The Complete Peanuts: 1965-1966

The strip that launched a renaissance continues.

We are now in the mid-1960s, one of Schulz's peak periods of creativity (and one third of the way through the strip's life). Snoopy has become the strip's dominant personality, and this volume marks two milestones for the character: the first of many dogfights with the nefarious Red Baron, and the launch of his writing career (It was a dark and stormy night...).

Two new characters — the first two from outside the strip's regular little neighborhood — make their bows. Roy (who befriends Charlie Brown and then Linus at summer camp) won't have a lasting impact, but upon his return from camp he regales a friend of his with tales of the strange kids he met, and she has to go check them out for herself. Her name? Peppermint Patty.

The Complete Peanuts: 1965-66 features a new introduction by Hal Hartley, writer/director of acclaimed independent films Trust, Henry Fool, Kimono, Simple Men, The Unbelievable Truth, and Fay Grim.

Peanuts is the most successful comic strip in the history of the medium. A United Media poll in 2002 found Peanuts to be the second most recognizable cartoon property in the world, recognized by 94 percent of the total U.S. consumer market and a close second only to Mickey Mouse (96 percent).

"The scope of Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts' was much narrower — his cast, aside from Snoopy, was almost entirely children who barely aged over the course of the strip's half-century — and his attitude toward the passage of time was much darker. Schulz's impassioned kids are still working out their place in the world, but their childhood is a rehearsal for an adulthood of pain and regret. In this eighth... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) volume of 'The Complete Peanuts,' lovingly designed by the Canadian cartoonist Seth and collecting strips from 1965 and "66, Linus finds a message from his mother in his lunch: 'Study hard today ... make us proud of you ... the future is in the hands of your generation ... I suppose in many ways our generation has failed yours, but we did try ... please judge us with mercy.' 'Mom gets carried away,' he notes.

By the mid-"60s, Schulz had hit his prime — even if you don't read his jokes, the facial expressions and body language of his characters are hilarious — and the 1965 TV special 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' brought him even greater fame (Linus' famous reading from Luke is reprised in a 1966 Sunday strip). Most of his characters took a while to develop, but Peppermint Patty, introduced here, is fully formed by her first appearance, her unkempt hair represented by a dozen less-casual-than-they-look pen strokes. Two strips later, when she calls Charlie Brown 'Chuck,' she's found her role: a note-perfect caricature of the kind of person whose jovial confidence in her own worldview can't be dented by little things like reality.

Douglas Wolk is the author of 'Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean.'"

Reviewed by Douglas Wolk, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"Schulz makes the heartbreak and disappointment feel fresh, as he re-emphasizes how a deeply painful moment for one person can be just another lazy afternoon for someone else. That's either a reassuring thought, or a coldly harsh one... (Grade: A)" Onion A.V. Club

"The latest chronological Peanuts volume includes the debut of one of the strip's most beloved recurring devices, Snoopy donning the goggles of a World War I fighting ace and battling the Red Baron....Here, too, is the maiden appearance of the strips most successful second generation cast member, brash tomboy Peppermint Patty..." Booklist

"One can scarcely overstate the importance of Peanuts to the comics, or overstate its influence on all of us." Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes

The New York Times best-selling series continues!

The Complete Peanuts will run 25 volumes, collecting two years chronologically at a rate of two a year for twelve years. Each volume is designed by the award-winning cartoonist Seth (It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken) and features impeccable production values; every single strip from Charles M. Schulz's 50-year American classic is reproduced better than ever before. This volume reprints all daily and Sunday strips from 1965 and 1966.

The mid-1960s was one of Schulz's peak periods of creativity. Snoopy has his first "dogfight" with the Red Baron, Charlie Brown and Linus go to summer camp, and Peppermint Patty makes her debut.

The "New York Times" bestselling series continues. This volume reprints all daily and Sunday strips from 1965 and 1966.

Charles M. Schulz was born November 25, 1922 in Minneapolis. His destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two days, the nickname "Sparky" (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the newspaper strip Barney Google). The first Peanuts daily appeared October 2, 1950; the first Sunday, January 6, 1952. Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz retired from Peanuts at the end of 1999. He died on February 13, 2000, the day before Valentine's Day — and the day before his last strip was published — having completed 17,897 daily and Sunday strips, each and every one fully written, drawn, and lettered entirely by his own hand — an unmatched achievement in comics.