Customer Reviews

The Complete Peanuts 1955-1956

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This book constitutes the third in a proposed 25 volume series setting out the entire history of the Peanuts comic strip (this book covers the years 1955 and 1956). I have reviewed the first two books of the series and had nothing but great things to say about these books. The presentation of this new volume is great as always (with a surprise of Pig Pen making the cover). If you have read Peanuts strip books over the years, a lot more of these strips are going to be familiar to you than the previous two books as many of these strips have been published many times over the years. But there are still plenty of strips that you probably haven't seen in this book that should bring a smile to your face.

You'll see in this book Linus mature from a toddler to the well-spoken and intelligent character he was for the strips 40+ remaining years. Snoopy truly becomes "Snoopy" with his thought balloons and imagination taking over (the imitations of Violet, Lucy, a moose and Mickey Mouse are dead on). Schroeder assumes the straight man role from Shermy, whose role is significantly reduced in these two years. Lucy becomes the world champion fussbudget (with an impressive library of books on fussing for research). Charlie Brown becomes Charlie Brownier as his losing ways magnify during this time (with the highlight being Lucy's first pulling of the football strip).

As with the previous volumes, there are some strips presented of lower quality due to the fact the publishers haven't been able to find good qulity strips for reproduction. I can live with this so long as they have something.

My only complaint about the series is that two volumes a year just isn't fast enough! That will mean the last volume will be published in the spring of 2016!

On a final note, to the first reviewer, I did read somewhere that there is a good chance there will be a box set that will contain this volume plus the fourth volume to be published in the fall, so keep checking Amazon (it isn't listed now).

Anyone who is reading this doesn't really need to be told the joys of Peanuts; otherwise you wouldn't have bought this book. And the joys of these little volumes are legion, from the introductions by various writers (this time Matt Groening of Simpsons fame) to the comic strips themselves. Overall, this volume, covering 1955-1956, is another triumph.

The only reason I wanted to make a particular comment about this volume is that, for the first time, I read strips that I knew. Granted, I wouldn't even be born for more than a decade so I never saw these strips in their first run but this is part and parcel of the Peanuts story. When I was a kid and I visited my grandmother's house, she had paperbacks containing old Peanuts strips. I don't even remember the titles, but I remember the strips: they all starred Snoopy and they showed him impersonating other animals (like the python) and other characters (like Lucy). All these strips are in this volume.

In the previous two volumes my key joy had been seeing the beginning and reading strips I had never seen before. In this volume there was still some of that but my overriding feeling was that of visiting my grandmother's house when I was a kid. It is a nice feeling.

Third "verse," same as the first and the second... well, sort of. As in the first and second volumes, TCP V3 serves up straightforward, black-and-white, chronological helpings of the daily and Sunday Peanuts strips, with a celebrity introduction (by Matt Groening, in this case), a generic Schulz mini-bio, and a useful (but somewhat incomplete) index tacked on for good measure. As in the second volume, some of the previously unreprinted strips do not reproduce well because of low-quality source material (though the fuzziness seems a little less pronounced than in V2, perhaps because there were more client papers to choose from by this time). The one big difference this time around: Many of these strips will be recognizable to long-time Peanuts fans. We are now standing on the edge of an immense ocean of heavily reprinted material from the strip's true glory days, and so there will be fewer surprises in store for those seeking the new and unfamiliar. It will be interesting to see how mass-market sales are affected by this shift.

Not that there aren't a goodly number of "Ooh, I never knew THAT" moments in this collection. Schulz started to work direct pop-culture references into his work at about this time -- many Peanuts fans may recall a strip or two in which Charlie Brown wears a Davy Crockett hat, or Snoopy imitates "Msssp Mssspe" (Mickey Mouse) - but until now, I wasn't aware of how many of them there actually were. You'll find references to Miss Frances (of "Ding Dong School"), Howdy Doody, impending satellite shots, Duke Snider, American agricultural policy, missile defense, sci-fi movies, the mid-50s "pink and charcoal" fashion fad, and numerous riffs on the Crockett phenomenon. (Charlie Brown, surrounded by Crockett merchandise, is moved to cry, "Where will it all end?" - and by volume's end, characters are wondering whatever happened to ole Davy what's his name.) There might even be some references to then-popular ad campaigns that I haven't yet been able to identify. Schulz was a creative genius independent of any outside influences, but he was evidently willing to hang gags on ephemera almost from the beginning.

During this period, Charlie Brown really began to mutate into the "Rats/Good grief/I can't stand it" "eternal loser" we all know and love. In these early days, though, his constant whining about how no one likes him, how inept he is, etc. can get on one's nerves. He has not yet acquired the *Sigh*-laden fatalism of later years and can often react quite violently and emotionally when he is thwarted, frustrated, or just feeling depressed. In this volume, Schulz really puts Charlie through the wringer in three agonizing "continued" stories: his first losing fight against a not-yet-kite-eating-but-certainly-kite-absorbing tree, his first really big failure in a baseball game, and his failure to receive a Christmas card (he is ultimately reduced to going out and buying himself one). Rest assured, he does not take any of these misfortunes well. Also remember that it was this version of Charlie that first attracted many readers to the strip. Postwar angst, anyone? Thankfully, you need no neuroses to continue to enjoy this marvelous project. It's a must purchase for anyone who loves great cartoonery and American pop culture.

The Peanuts that became world famous begins to show itself in this volume. As great as the first two volumes were, Schultz really hit his stride in 1955-1956. The characters begin to take on the characteristics that they continued to have for over 40 years.

The most obvious development is Snoopy's. Before 1955, Snoopy more or less played the role of a typical dog (with some brilliant exceptions). By the end of this volume Snoopy has flowered into the famous dog that most kids still recognize on sight (just go to the Mall of America's "Camp Snoopy" and observe the number of young kids screeching "Snoopy! Snoopy!"). He does imitations of animals, of other characters, he dances gleefully, slides on the ice, drips with sarcasm, develops "weed claustrophobia", demands potato pancakes, adds an air conditioner to his dog house, puts on a sad and happy expression, says "If I were a human being I wouldn't even own a dog!", swoons to Chopin, and does countless other things that everyone now associates with Snoopy. Though he continued to develop somewhat in later years, the fundamentals of his character can be found in this volume.

Linus grows up from the last volume. He speaks constantly, and begins to accomplish the amazing feats that irk Charlie Brown. The blanket shows up with full force. He also uses his finger pistol to "BANG!" Lucy when she shafts him in some way.

Lucy has been toned down a little bit from the last volume, where she resembled nothing less than a destructive whirlwind. She destroys fewer things here, but the insults from her tongue make up for it (one of the best is "YOU STRUCK OUT!!" on 8/18/56). She continues being over-confidently naive with a definite nasty twist. She also looks at bugs (good one on 7/30/55) and serves Charlie Brown hot root beer (9/29/56).

Charlie Brown becomes even more miserable. When Shermy asks him if he knows what he'll be when he grows up, Charlie Brown answers "Lonesome" (1/31/56). When Patty tells him "And that's all you'll ever be!! Just 'Good Ol' Charlie Brown'" he stands alone dejected and says "What's the sense in living?" (2/28/55). Schultz proved back in the 1950s that comic strips are capable of evoking complicated emotional reactions (and he wasn't the first to do so). Should we laugh at Charlie Brown? Feel sorry for him? Wonder how he arrived at his state? Pity him? Probably some of all the above. Peanuts was never a simple "HA HA!" comic strip. Its complexity and depth hiding under the seemingly banal simple guarantees its staying power and ranking as one of the greatest comic strips ever. Those who say that entertainment cannot be art have the example of Peanuts to contend with.

Other characters pervade the strips: Schroeder plays Beethoven and reveals his closet full of Beethoven busts; Shermy hangs around less than in previous volumes; Charlotte Braun even makes some very brief appearances (she's the one who talks loud); by the beginning of this volume even Schultz seemed to recognize that he'd run the gamut of "loud jokes"; Pigpen continues his crusade against cleanliness (the best pigpen line comes from Charlie Brown: "I think he's probably cooled by several layers of clay" 7/31/56).

No adults appear in this volume (unlike the last one), but they do speak.

Longtime fans of Peanuts will recognize a lot of the strips in this volume. But many more probably haven't been reprinted in years. The number of good strips here piles up quickly. As far as content goes, this volume is probably the best so far in the series, which says quite a lot.

By continuing this series (scheduled to go for more than a decade) Fantagraphics provides a great service to the comics community. Peanuts was one of the best strips to ever grace a newspaper, and these volumes continue to prove that Q.E.D.

I wasn't aware until just a month ago that this project was underway. I can't say how thrilled I am. I agree with another reviewer, however, that two volumes a year isn't fast enough.

Reading this volume has brought back many feelings I had as a child growing up. Of course, I was only 7 and 8 when these appeared and I don't believe I had discovered Peanuts yet. However, they are a comment on the time in which they were written, 1955 and 1956. I think at some point in the far, far future, history students may be assigned reading various volumes of this effort to get a flavor for the time they were written. I also think that publishing them in their original order is wonderful. I'm not sure that the original chronology has been followed before.

This book, the previous volumes and all that follow are for those of us that are diehard, dedicated Peanuts fans. Reading this volume has also made me appreciate just how rich our lives have been because of talented creators like Charles Schulz. I can't wait for the next one.

This series has been one of my favorite comic projects in years. It's amazing to see all these early strips, many of which I've never read before, collected in such a high-quality volume. This book, the third in a 25-volume series, includes several significant firsts in Peanuts history -- Linus's first words, the beginning of Snoopy's rather overactive fantasy life, and the first time Lucy ever pulled that football away from Good Ol' Charlie Brown.

This book also features an introduction from "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. His piece doesn't particularlly shed any new light on the comic strip or on Schulz himself, but it's still a fairly touching piece on what Schulz meant to him, in his career, and that's probably what you can expect for a lot of these volumes.

"Peanuts" was, and remains, my favorite comic strip of all time. This series is something I've been waiting for for years, and I'm delighted to see it doing so well.

With this volume of Peanuts the classic characters are on the road to full realization: Charlie Brown is now a chronic loser, Lucy has assumed her role as fuss-budget in chief, Snoopy's fantasy world is taking shape, and Linus is a philosopher in training with security blanket in tow. I'm particularly glad to see Pig Pen is so prominent as he is one of my favorite characters, sadly neglected in the last couple of decades.

As always, one of the most interesting aspects of this Peanuts volume is the references to events which were current at the time the strips were first printed. You get the flavor of the mid 1950s and a sense of fads and fancies coming and going, for example, the strips when all the boys are wearing coonskin caps, and then a few weeks later, Charlie Brown asks "Whatever happened to Davy Crockett?"

This book is the third in the series of books planning to reprint the complete run of Peanuts. It covers 1955 and 1956. Charles Schulz was definitely hitting his stride at this point. No new characters were introduced at this time, but the already established characters settled comfortably into the roles and personalities that played out for years to come. This is a great book and I highly recommend it.

This is a wonderful compilation of the Peanuts series from the 1950's. A fun read, especially when you consider the timeframe and the current world events that were taking place during the origination of these 1950's strips. A classic and must-have for any fan of Charlie Brown and the other Charles Schultz creations. Highly recommended.

Another great two years of early Peanuts comics from the mid 1950s. Over 300 long lost comics. No one new comes and Charlotte Braun is given the old hook.

Lucy is really and I mean really funny. Linus begins to talk to people and he always has his blanket. Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown for the very first time.

The word stupid becomes a word that will be used in Peanuts for many years to come. Snoopy begins to talk much more. The wall is used for the first time and much more other great things to see. This is a great book to get.