Peanuts: A Golden Celebration: The Art and the Story of the World's Best-Loved Comic Strip (Hardcover)

by Charles M. Schulz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Charles M. Schulz has been cartooning for an astonishing 50 years (the "Peanuts" strip itself debuted October 2, 1950, but he drew an earlier incarnation called "Li'l Folks" before that). Peanuts: A Golden Celebration is a remarkable collection of strips spanning that time period. Readers get to see the first appearance of Linus, Marcy, Pigpen, and Woodstock, and even the momentous first time Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Schulz comments on the cartoons and his inspirations via notes in the margin, ranging from boyhood stories about his father (a barber, just like Charlie Brown's) to an account of the time the narcolepsy experts at Stanford University expressed concerns over Peppermint Patty's constant sleeping in class. One of the most interesting inclusions is that of several letters of complaint, ranging from readers whose religious sensibilities have been offended to a 1969 missive from Schulz's own syndicate asking him not to depict Franklin in the same school as the white students anymore. Naturally, the much-loved "Peanuts" holiday specials are covered, as is the musical adaptation You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, but it's the strips that really make the book. Readers can follow the evolution of Schulz's drawing style--deliberately less realistic as the years went on--and even check out a few panels drawn by Schulz's own cartooning heroes. This is a terrific compilation that serves well both as a chronicle of popular culture and as just a really funny collection of comic strips. Don't wait for the Great Pumpkin to bring you one. --Ali Davis

Product Description

Will Charlie Brown ever get to kick the footballs? Will Schroeder finally return Lucy's love? Will Linus give up his security blanket? Will Peppermint Party ever pass a test? And, most importantly will Snoopy--that canine literary ace--ever be published?

"To take a blank piece of paper and draw characters that people love and worry about is extremely satisfying. It really does not matter what you are called or where your work is placed as long as it brings some kind of joy to some person some place." -- Charles Schulz

Peanuts: A Golden Celebration honors the momentous 50th anniversary of Charlie Brown and the gang with over 1,000 carefully selected strips that tell the story of Peanutslike no other book before. In Schulz's own words we learn how he came to create the world's most popular comic strip characters from nostalgic and sometimes painful memories of growing up--such as the agony of classroom Valentine exchange and the longing for a little red-haired girl.

From the debut of Peanuts on October 2, 1950, to the golden jubilee, here are fifty years of the favorite episodes and the..."firsts," such as the first time Lucy pulled the football away from Charlie Brown. Included are scenes from the beloved Charlie Brown television. specials and the latest revival of the Broadway musical, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

These are the strips and events that have made Peanuts an awesome phenomenon, appearing in 2,600 newspapers worldwide everyday. Not bad for a round-headed kid called Charlie Brown.

Let the celebration begin!

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (September 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062702440
• ISBN-13: 978-0062702449
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 10 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #99,909 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book to Have Now That Peanuts is Gone, January 6, 2000

By A Customer

I bought this book a couple of months before Charles Schulz announced he was retiring Peanuts due to illness. Now it is very hard to find.

The 50th anniversary book is a must for a true Peanuts fan, but it is disappointing in that it is very poorly edited. A couple of the same strips are shown twice (in fact two of the same comic appear right on top of each other - can't believe no one caught that). When a series of strips are presented a couple of times, they are shown out of chronological order. I also question the need for the section where Schulz shows some letters sent to him by people criticizing some of his more religious strips; it just doesn't seem appropriate for a Peanuts "celebration".

Schulz' insights to some of the comics are enlightening and even touching at times. It was also nice to see some of the older strips that I had never seen before.

Overall, it's a good book to have if you are a true Peanuts fan, but it could have been better. I'm hoping that someday we will see a CD-ROM package that will contain all of the strips in the Peanuts 49+ year history.

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Collector's Item Of The Highest Order!, January 30, 2000

By	David M. Koss (Rockville, Maryland) - See all my reviews

PEANUTS: A GOLDEN CELEBRATION is a remarkable celebration of one of two of the great achievements of American popular culture: the life of Charles Schulz and the quintessential comic strip of this or any generation. This magnificent volume is both a coffee-table book for the Peanuts fan and a skillfully-presented history of the Peanuts strip. Filled with entertaining examples of the Sunday and weekday strips, anyone who collects 20th century iconography, and any historian who will want to someday chronicle the feelings and foibles of the last five decades of the American people will want a copy of this book.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Legendary!, February 17, 2000

By	W. Langan "take403" (the end of the world to your town!) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It seems like once every 5 or 10 years, there has been a book about the history of Peanuts. This one is almost complete, considering it came out a month or 2 before Schulz's surgery right before his retirement (which I think helped alleviate the devastation of the sad news on 12 February). It'll probably be a collector's item since Schulz stated in this book he had no plans to retire.

This book features some of the best Peanuts cartoons, and touches only briefly on the classic Charlie Brown TV specials (the book's only disappointment).

Mostly, this book emphasizes what I love about Peanuts. I love Charlie Brown because he's the perfect everyman, somone like you and me (mainly me). I love Linus for his philosophical viewpoints (he has the answer to everything except why the Great Pumpkin never pays him a visit!). I love Lucy because she's dared to say and do the things we only wish we could! And I love Snoopy because he can do it all (a shortstop, a World War I Flying Ace, a vulture, a dancer, an author, and Joe Cool!)!

Goodbye, Sparky, and thanks for everything! You'll be missed!