Synopses & Reviews
surges into the 1970s with Schulz at the peak of his powers and influence: a few jokes about Bob Dylan, Women's Liberation and "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex" (!) aside, these two years are as timeless as ever was. Sally Brown--school phobia, malapropisms, unrequited love for Linus and all--elbows her way to center stage, at least among the humans, and is thus the logical choice for cover girl... and in her honor, the introduction is provided by none other than Broadway, television and film star Kristin Chenoweth (), who first rose to Tony-winning fame with her scene-stealing performance as Sally in . Two long Summer-camp sequences involve Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty, who has decided that Charlie Brown is madly in love with her, much to his clueless confusion. Snoopy shows up at camp as well, as does Peppermint Patty's new permanent sidekick, the one and only Marcie. The eternally mutable Snoopy mostly shakes off his World War I Flying Ace identity and turns into Joe Cool, college hipster extraordinaire. And in three long sequences he writes a fan letter to his favorite author, Miss Helen Sweetstory, then goes on a journey to meet her, and finally enlists Charlie Brown's help when her latest opus, , falls afoul of censors. Also, Woodstock attends worm school, falls in love with a worm (perhaps the most doomed unrequited love story ever!), and is nearly eaten by the neighbors' cat... Peppermint Patty is put on trial for another dress code violation and makes a very ill-advised choice in terms of lawyers... Snoopy turns Linus's blanket into not one but two sportcoats... Lucy hits a home run...and the birth of one Rerun Van Pelt!
Review
"[A] towering comic-strip masterpiece...as you turn the pages, you can feel Schulz finding his rhythm. There's a restless intelligence there, pacing behind the panels... An extraordinary publishing project." Time
Review
A "must have" for collectors of Charles Schulz's work, highly recommended. --Michelangelo Matos
Review
With elegant simplicity and deftly constructed shorts, the esteemed author captured so much of what life is about. --James A. Cox
Review
Beautifully designed by comic artist Seth (Palookaville), the volumes already out are a spectacular tribute to Schulz's work....Peanuts remains surprisingly fresh and timeless. Although Charles Schulz wrote these strips over 20 years ago, the ongoing popularity of the made-for-TV holiday specials means that the Peanuts gang continue to remain relevant in popular culture. It would be a pity, however, to relegate Peanuts to special occasions only Schulz's work should and can be enjoyed all year round. --Nik Mercer
Review
Sally gets the cover in this 11th volume of The Complete Peanuts... Schulz is still in top form here in my opinion. There are few books I laugh at more, or enjoy more thoroughly than these fine collections. Highly recommended! --Ewa Beaujon
Review
Reading [The Complete Peanuts 1971-72 and 1973-74] in one fell swoop, I've kind of come to the conclusion that this period is really the apex of Schulz's career. ...he was never as consistently hilarious or as poignant as he was in the early to mid-70s. If you're only buying two volumes of this series, it should be these two. --Todd Klein
Review
[S]hows Schulz's staggering talent in the prime of his career. --Chris Mautner
Review
These hardcover editions are produced with such love and reverence that it's fun to just pick them up and page through them, at least for a bibliophile like myself. Not to be missed. --Jonathan Kuehlein
Review
"It's no exaggeration to call the most successful comic strip in human history." Michelangelo Matos
Synopsis
Peanuts surges into the 1970s with Schulz at the peak of his powers and influence. Sally Brown - school phobia, malapropisms, unrequited love for Linus and all - elbows her way to center stage, at least among the humans, and is thus the logical choice for cover girl... and in her honor, the introduction is provided by none other than television, Broadway and film star Kristin (
Pushing Daisies, Wicked) Chenoweth, who first rose to Tony-winning fame with her scene-stealing performance as Sally in
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Speaking of introductions, Peppermint Patty's new permanent sidekick, the one and only Marcie, makes her debut, and then there's the birth of one Rerun Van Pelt Also, Snoopy as Joe Cool, Woodstock in worm school, and much more
Synopsis
The Great Pumpkin of strip collections enters Schulz's most successful decade!
About the Author
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).In his senior year in high school, his mother noticed an ad in a local newspaper for a correspondence school, Federal Schools (later called Art Instruction Schools). Schulz passed the talent test, completed the course, and began trying, unsuccessfully, to sell gag cartoons to magazines. (His first published drawing was of his dog, Spike, and appeared in a 1937 Ripley's Believe It or Not! installment.) Between 1948 and 1950, he succeeded in selling 17 cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post--as well as, to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press, a weekly comic feature called Li'l Folks. It was run in the women's section and paid $10 a week. After writing and drawing the feature for two years, Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three counts, he quit.He started submitting strips to the newspaper syndicates. In the spring of 1950, he received a letter from the United Feature Syndicate, announcing their interest in his submission, Li'l Folks. Schulz boarded a train in June for New York City; more interested in doing a strip than a panel, he also brought along the first installments of what would become Peanuts--and that was what sold. (The title, which Schulz loathed to his dying day, was imposed by the syndicate.) 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.