The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966 [Hardcover]

Charles M. Schulz (Author), Hal Hartley (Introduction), Seth (Designer)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2006

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.

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. With an introduction by filmmaker Hal Hartley. 730 black-and-white comic strips

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

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, thereby putting his canine nature quite behind him. Here, too, is the maiden appearance of the strip's most successful "second generation" cast member, brash tomboy Peppermint Patty, who lives across town but would become an integral member of the troupe. Flagg, Gordon

Review

By this point, Schulz's always-appealing artwork has been pared to perfection, and yet he would make it simpler still in decades to come. -- 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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 326 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560977248
• ISBN-13: 978-1560977247
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 8.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Fantagraphics
  • #93 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Comic Strips

More 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I'm looking for a kid named Chuck Brown...", August 21, 2007

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take403 - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966 (Hardcover)

This is another transitional 2 years in Peanuts (with cartoons that appeared in You Need Help, Charlie Brown, The Unsinkable Charlie Brown and You'll Flip, Charlie Brown). Sally has lazy eye and has to wear an eye patch (which Snoopy often steals to play pirates, until he gets "scuttled" by Captain Sally). A bird who has trouble flying (he still has yet to make his formal debut, but he still looks like Woodstock) flies on Snoopy's nose ("Good grief, the return of the native!"). Snoopy debuts 2 of his alter ego's- a novel writer ("It was a dark and stormy night...") and the World War I Flying Ace ("Curse you, Red Baron and this stupid war!"). Charlie Brown watches in bemusement and thinks "Some people have dogs who chase cars, some people have dogs who bite the mailman... I think MY dog has finally flipped!" Lucy is the arm-wrestling champion on her block (later used in It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown), but can she withstand the paw of the Masked Marvel? Charlie Brown tries his hand (or foot) again with the football with a new twist up his own sleeve. Also, he has to endure dandelions on his pitcher's mound is covered with dandelions, which Frieda and Lucy beg him not to cut because he looks so cute up there with them (even Schroeder agrees). Snoopy falls in love with a dog on the beach and tries to impress her with his surfing skills. The next winter, he's still not over her and tries to forget through... eating, what else? Also Snoopy's doghouse gets burned down (Schulz got a lot of sympathy cards in real life on behalf of the beagle!). Also, Linus and Lucy move away (later used in Is This Goodbye, CB?) and Schroeder reluctantly admits he misses her (he sees her face by the piano long after her demise and thinks "Don't tell me I've grown accustomed to THAT face!"). Charlie Brown deals with the loss of his buddy Linus by taking up blanket-toting and of course, gets clobbered by Snoopy, who thinks he's still playing games with Linus! Needless to say, the Van Pelts move back (Sparky got a lot of letters requesting their reinstatement, which he had planned all along!). Charlie Brown finds something he's good at- spelling, though he gets maze confused with Willy Mays' last name (later used in the bigscreen debut of A Boy Named Charlie Brown). In the fall of 1966, Charlie Brown is promoted to traffic director and takes his new job a little too seriously. 2 new characters make their debut- a kid named Roy (who looks a little like Shermy with wavy hair) whom we see in the camp episodes of 1965 and 1966 and Peppermint Patty, a tomboy who has a lot of athletic ability but not much on brains. Roy is introduced as a shy, lonely kid and Charlie Brown feels honored to have finally made a friend (after his cabin mates ridicule him and criticize his lack of baseball skills; doesn't he get enough of that at home?). Linus meets Roy the next year, whom he asks "Say, aren't you that weird kid who totes a blanket with him everywhere he goes?". Linus also gets a box of jelly-bread sandwhiches from his otherwise crabby sister. Beyond that, Roy is also responsible for bringing Peppermint Patty to the neighborhood, who clobbers Charlie, or in her case, Chuck Brown at baseball (Charlie Brown gets a new nickname as does "Lucille" VanPelt). Linus fills Peppermint Patty's ears with stories of the Great Pumpkin. Later, at the end of 1966, the Sunday cartoons have the following caption: "Peanuts Featuring Good Ol' Charlie Brown." As if that's not enough, the Peanuts gang makes its television debut in 1965.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece In Full Flower, September 9, 2007

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John D. Cofield - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966 (Hardcover)

With this volume of The Complete Peanuts we see Charles M. Schulz's world in full flower. The main characters are in their prime, particularly Snoopy, who at long last climbs into his Sopwith Camel and takes off after the Red Baron. We also see the introduction of Peppermint Patty, an inspired addition to the neighborhood. She's wise and clueless at the same time, rendering her a fit companion for "Chuck", "Lucille" and "the Funny Looking Kid with the Big Nose." In this volume we also see the first appearances of some favorite neuroses, especially queen snakes and kite eating trees. As always, some of the best strips include references to current events in the news and entertainment during 1965 and 1966, such as Schroeder's groaning "don't tell me "I've grown accustomed to THAT face!" after realizing he misses Lucy during her family's brief move away from town. (Funny to think that Schroeder took time to see "My Fair Lady" in between practicing Beethoven on his toy piano.) But its also nice that we see little or no hint of the truly disturbing assassinations, wars, riots, and other traumas which raged during those two years: Schulz realized his readers needed a little escapism every now and then.

This volume is a particular favorite of mine since it includes the strips that I first remember reading on my own at the age of 8 and 9 in the daily paper. Having the date of each strip clearly established helps me recreate my own early years and also leads to some intriguing discoveries, including that Sally Brown and I had amblyopia at precisely the same time! (She got away with wearing an eye patch, but I had to have surgery!)

This volume also includes all of the original Snoopy vs Red Baron strips that eventually were dramatized in "Its The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!", first shown in October 1966. Schulz must have drawn them at about the same time the dramatization was being created, meaning that the collaboration which makes both the strips and the TV specials immortal was even closer than I realized. I hope to see the 1967-1968 volume soon!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PEANUTS at its pop-culture peak, October 12, 2007

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Christopher Barat (Owings Mills, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966 (Hardcover)

One can get into a lively debate as to whether the mid-60s represented the peak of PEANUTS in an aesthetic sense. It would be hard to argue the point, however, that the period during which this latest clutch of strips appeared saw Charles Schulz "in tune" with pop culture to a degree that he had never been before and would never be again. Snoopy's debut as the "famous World War I flying ace" is only the tip of the salient (to borrow a term from WWI's far less glamorous trench warfare). Schulz's creation of Peppermint Patty caught the mood of the times as well. PP was a character unlike any Schulz had ever devised: smart-alecky, self-confident (at least on the surface), and cocky. Schulz was wise to use her as a "special guest star" for as long as he did; it gave him time to fashion the foibles and flaws that would ultimately give PP her hard-won status as a full-fledged member of the PEANUTS universe. As an occasional walk-on, PP is nothing less than dynamite.

Though PEANUTS DID become more "commercial" during this time (I blame one of those "big Eastern syndicates" Lucy always talked about), the bittersweet tone of the late 50s and early 60s continued to form the background music of the strip. Snoopy's ill-fated romance with a girl beagle (who wore a bikini on the beach???) is a very heartfelt sequence. In a strip that I don't believe had ever been reprinted until now, Snoopy actually faces the audience and asks them to "wish [him] luck" as he prepares to pop the question. Charlie's crash-and-burn in the school spelling bee (which later inspired the plot of the feature film A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN), Snoopy's doghouse's destruction by fire, and the Van Pelt's aborted move out of the neighborhood are also featured here; each continuity has its share of painful moments. Most touching of all, perhaps, is the Halloween sequence in which Charlie Brown alienates Linus by refusing to buy the "Great Pumpkin" story. "Why did I deliberately go out of my way" to insult Linus, Charlie asks Snoopy in a strip that had been omitted from previous reprintings of this continuity. "Linus is really a wonderful little guy... You know that I need all the friends I can get." Linus WAS the closest thing Charlie Brown had ever had to a friend up to this point in the strip's history, and this strip openly acknowledged that fact. Perhaps this was the reason why the strip was never reprinted; it suggested that Charlie, the "eternal loser," may have shared some of the blame for his plight. Now there's a reason to "seek psychiatric help," whether it costs five cents or not.