It's a Dog's Life, Snoopy (Peanuts) [Paperback]

Charles M. Schulz (Author)

Book Description

Series: Peanuts | Publication Date: April 3, 2001

FRIENDS FOREVER!

Charlie Brown and his friends . . . Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Marcy, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, and Franklin! Life is about good friends, those you’ve come to know and love through the years. Now, for the first time in book form, It's A Dog's Life, Snoopy presents a brand-new collection of your old favorites, bringing all your familiar friends from Peanuts together again for more great times and hilarious fun!

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

FRIENDS FOREVER!

Charlie Brown and his friends . . . Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Marcy, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, and Franklin! Life is about good friends, those you?ve come to know and love through the years. Now, for the first time in book form, It's A Dog's Life, Snoopy presents a brand-new collection of your old favorites, bringing all your familiar friends from Peanuts together again for more great times and hilarious fun!

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (April 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345442695
• ISBN-13: 978-0345442697
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just Peanuts, April 9, 2001

By 

Steve Oswald (Oceanside, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's a Dog's Life, Snoopy (Peanuts) (Paperback)

Once again Ballantine has put out a wonderful collection of previously unpublished Peanuts strips. The collection size is nice, a full year's worth of strips including all the Sunday strips, which other publishers have left out. And what can I say about Charles Schulz that hasn't been said already? He's the worlds greatest cartoonist and these strips stand as proof! Despite what some critics have said, "Sparky"(as he was known to his friends) never lost his cleverness, his last decade of work on the strip in my opinion is some of his best work ever! The only problem I have is in the book production itself, all the daily strips have been colorized which takes away from Sparky's line work and his wonderful use of zip-a-tone shading, the strips were meant to be in black and white and that's the way they should remain. One other small complaint is the Sunday strips set up, they are arranged in such a way that the second panal is left out of all the Sunday strips. Other then that this is a great book for Charles Schulz fans or anyone that enjoy a good strip! (no that pun was not intended but feel free to laugh anyway)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great book!, June 4, 2003

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It's a Dog's Life, Snoopy (Peanuts) (Paperback)

This wonderful book contains 168 pages of Peanuts cartoons, and all of them are in color! All of these 1998 cartoons are reproduced in wonderful quality, and are a joy to read. Snoopy's brothers (Spike, Olaf and Andy) are here, including Spike spending time in the trenches of World War I! Also, in this book, we get to learn where the zambonis go at night, see Snoopy at Valley Forge, and see Woodstock become a test pilot.

This is a great book! My daughter had some money saved up, and when she saw this book, she just had to get it. After that, she spent hours poring over it, and reading the stories aloud. She loves this book, and considers her money well spent. We both highly recommend this book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Material From a Great Cartoonist!, May 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: It's a Dog's Life, Snoopy (Peanuts) (Paperback)

This book is a good example of how good Charles M. Schulz's comic strip "Peanuts" was, even this late in it's run (1998). Some really good material appears in this book, including appearances by Snoopy as a revolutionary war soldier, Charlie Brown and Snoopy going to a dance where Snoopy imagines himself as F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby, and more strips featuring the entire Peanuts gang. Rerun was also starting to shape up very nicely as a major Peanuts player in the mid-to-late 90's, as can be seen in this collection. Now if someone would stop coloring in the daily strips, (They're supposed to be in black and white! Why do you think all that dotted shading is in there?) and print the Sunday strips without reformatting the art and dropping a frame per strip, maybe future Peanuts books would get FIVE stars.