Review by Woodrow Phoenix
During the 1960s and 1970s Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts newspaper strip occupied a massive position in popular culture worldwide, influencing countless cartoonists, artists and writers to follow in its footsteps. The number of catchphrases and situations it contributed to public consciousness probably peaked with the fourth human spaceflight in the United States’ Apollo program, and the second to orbit the Moon: NASA’s 1969 Apollo 10 mission named their lunar and command modules after Charlie Brown and Snoopy.
It’s astonishing that despite the kind of ubiquity very few cartoon creations have or will ever achieve hardly any of the fifty years of Peanuts strips were kept in print, and the majority of the series had not been seen for decades by the time Schulz died in 2000. There had never been any shortage of official merchandise, toys, animated cartoons and tie-in products, but the actual strips themselves were almost an afterthought until their systematic reprinting began in 2004. Since then, the supply of comics reprinting all kinds of rarities from 1950 to 2000 has made the brilliance of this material accessible again. Fans who want to read the comics have been spoiled for choice over the last few years, and now this new highly deluxe book package arrives to mark the 75th anniversary of Peanuts and explore the life and impact of Charles M. Schulz.
The Essential Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz: The Greatest Comic Strip of All Time is an archive in a silver-foiled, embossed cardboard slipcase. A 336-page hardcover book in landscape format like the Peanuts Sunday books is the main event. After funny and fact-filled intros from writer Mark Evanier, cartoonist Patrick McDonnell, and a foreword by Jean Schulz, there are 75 strips chosen to represent the 75 years since the creation of Peanuts. Each one features commentary and notes to explain its significance, often accompanied by quotes from Schulz. A vast number of collaborators and comrades from Schulz’s 50-year career are showcased here with anecdotes and behind-the-scenes recollections. There is also a real rarity: a little-seen transcribed talk that Schulz delivered at the 48th Annual Reuben Awards weekend hosted by the National Cartoonists Society in La Jolla, California, in May 1994.
The book is accompanied by a card folder showing every iteration of Snoopy and Charlie Brown through the run of the strip, and a who’s who of every character; eight postcards of selected images featuring the main cast; eight watercoloured prints of the characters as they appeared in the 1960s; five circular vinyl stickers; an iron-on patch of Snoopy in a spacesuit for the USA’s Apollo 10 mission; and a reproduction of a 60s-style Peanuts comic book. There’s enough variety, novelty and density to the material in this collection to satisfy new fans and those who think they’ve seen it all already. Good news: you haven’t. And you can put that Snoopy patch on your jacket afterwards.
