Customer Reviews

Who's on First, Charlie Brown

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When Ballantine announced that they were going to release a brand-new collection of Peanuts baseball comics, my heart skipped a beat. I thought, "finally" and then waited to get my hands on a new copy.

Alas, the day came and I bought it. It filled the gaps in my Peanuts collection and it's truly great...but it would have been a FANTASTIC book had they included every single baseball strip. Most Peanuts fans probably won't notice but there are some strips that are missing from this mix.

But, let me stress the great points before I start by sounding like a pessimist.

First, and foremost, nearly every baseball strip is here for your comic-reading pleasure. They bring back many memories and Ballantine has packaged it nicely in a 272-page masterpiece (about as thick as a copy of Vogue magazine) that spans the last 50 or so years of Charlie Brown and his team's exploits on the baseball diamond.

It begins with a nicely-written foreword by Cal Ripken, Jr. who recounts that he started reading "Peanuts" when he copied his Dad's morning paper-reading habits at the breakfast table and took joy in the fact that Schulz would often do a baseball strip.

After this, you get to read strips ranging from 1951 to 1999. It's fun to see Schulz grow in his artistry and his humor and there are many references and parallels to our baseball timeline and current events in general. This includes a classic series of strips which chronicles Snoopy's race against Hank Aaron for Babe Ruth's homerun record. If you remember correctly, Aaron was deluged with hate-mail and death-threats during that time (Barry Bonds sadly got the same treatment when he was going after McGuire's single-season record) and Schulz cleverly parallels that fact when Snoopy is sent hate-mail during his quest for the record. Also here is the drafting of Rerun who ends up giving the team their first win EVER when, due to his size, the opposing team fails to strike him out with the bases loaded...their joy is short-lived but I won't say why. It still ends up making you laugh.

Now comes the bad news.

As I said before, it is NOT all here. Ballantine keeps their reputation intact by stating that this is a "brand-new collection" and not a "complete compilation". Fine, but to give us half a series of strips is unacceptable. Snoopy's homerun race is incomplete as is the first win by Charlie Brown's team via Rerun's walk at the plate. Several other strips go unaccounted for as well.

Of course, I am a hardcore Peanuts fan and a bit of a comic collector. I own the original baseball strip book entitled, "Sandlot Peanuts" which sports a worn dust jacket over a hard cover. I read it almost every baseball season. I also have a beat-up old Peanuts 25th anniversary book with Snoopy's entire race in it. Both books belong to my Mom but "Sandlot Peanuts" is the one book that seems like it has gotten the most attention.

To not include all the strips in the new book is baseball blasphemy. I know that when Schulz died, we saw tons of new books with archived strips in them. I wonder what kind of printing rights were given upon his death. Most of what Ballantine has released seems like a bunch of quickees marketed as "collector's items". When I saw the thickness of this collection, my thoughts about Ballantine vanished a bit...but then reappeared once I finished the book.

All in all, this is a nice book and a much-welcomed edition to any baseball-collector's bookshelf or any Peanuts collector's shrine, I just hope that Ballantine gets the rights to print every baseball strip someday.

As Rerun says to his sister in the book, "I'll drink to that!"

--Matt

This is wonderful book that shows every Baseball related Peanuts strips spanning from 1951 to 1999! There also is a fun-foreward by Cal Ripken Jr. It also shows the amazing evolution of Sparky's drawing style and charactor development through the decades. It is such a fun read!!

This is one of the most exciting bookstore finds I've made in a long time. It includes, I think, every single baseball-themed strip ever created by Charles M. Schulz.

Charlie Brown and Baseball are a classic combination, and when The Library of America recently published their excellent collection of American baseball writing, I thought that Schulz would have been right at home among America's classic baseball writers. Who can think about baseball without imagining the visual gags of Lucy getting bonked in the head with fly balls, or Charlie Brown literally getting his socks knocked off by line drives up the middle? Such images are as much a part of the collective consciousness as "Casey at the Bat" and "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." But there are not just single-strip gags, there are also ongoing stip-by-strip stories. The one about Charlie Brown's hapless team nearly winning a game, only to have Chuck load the bases in the ninth inning, then balk in the tying AND winning runs is not only funny, but as poignant as any baseball story I've read. Every fan knows such heartbreak. It might as well be the "fan interference" at Wrigley Field, or a routine grounder to a RedSox first baseman. The volume includes, too, the great and forgotten stories of Charlie Brown's baseball-inspired nervous breakdown, and his quest for a card representing his hero, Joe Schlobotnik. These strips find Schulz at his best, capturing his own love for the game and mixing great humor with the gentle sadness that pervades his work.