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| The Complete Peanuts 1961-1962 | 
 enlarge | Authors: Charles M. Schulz, Charles M. Schulz
Creators: Seth, Diana Krall
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Category: Book
List Price: $28.95
Buy New: $17.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 46712
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 346
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 6.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 1560976721
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9781560976721
ASIN: 1560976721
Publication Date: October 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
By 1961-62, "Peanuts" was truly the comic strip that we all still know and love, with situations and sayings that would cement its place as one of the most memorable literary creations of all time. Linus is firmly center stage, and if not for baseball would probably eclipse Charlie Brown in status. His efforts to defend his blanket are legendary (Lucy buries it and turns it into a kite), he gets glasses, and his favorite teacher, Miss Othmar (now known as Mrs. Hagemeyer) returns, which leads to some consternation when he (1) learns that she's accepting money to teach and (2) tells her he'll give up his blanket if she gives up biting her fingernails. There's a new character, Frieda with the naturally curly hair, and her floppy cat strikes terror throughout the neighborhood. Oh, about that baseball team. Everyone quits when Schroeder gives up baseball for Beethoven (leading CB to take out a personal ad to manage another team), they decide their pep talk is making them hypocrites, and Linus is assigned to scout the opposing team. As much as "Peanuts" is a reflection of its era ("Why couldn't McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?"), it also had a self-awareness as a comic strip (Linus: "The most recent criticism is that there is too little action and far too much talking in the modern-day comic strip. What do you think about this?" CB: "Ridiculous!") that proved just how far Charles M. Schulz was ahead of his time. With fellow pianist Schroeder on the cover, Diana Krall wrote this volume's introduction. --David Horiuchi
Product Description
The series that launched a comic strip renaissance enters Schulz's second decade.
Launching into the 1960s, Schulz adds another new cast member. Two, in fact: The obnoxious Frieda of "naturally curly hair" fame, and her inert, seemingly boneless cat Faron.
The rapidly maturing Sally, who was after all just born in the previous volume, is ready to start kindergarten and not at all happy about it. Lucy and Linus' war over the security blanket escalates, with Lucy burying it, cutting it apart, and, in the longest sequence of the book, turning it into a kite and allowing it to fly away. Aauugh! In fact, Linus' life is particularly turbulent in this volume, as he is forced to wear glasses, sees the unexpected return of his favorite teacher, Miss Othmar, and coaxes Sally into the cult of the Great Pumpkin (with regrettable results).
Snoopy, meanwhile, becomes a compulsive water sprinkler head stander, unhappily befriends a snowman or two, and endures a family crisis involving a little family of birds. (Woodstock—the bird and the music festival, for that matter—is still a few years away.) And in one of the strangest continuities in the history of Peanuts, the (off-panel) Van Pelt parents acquire a tangerine-colored pool table and become obsessed with it!
Plus baseball blowouts (including a rare team victory), Beethoven birthdays, and plenty of dubious psychiatric help for a nickel. With an introduction by Diana Krall.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
The Masterwork At Its Height November 6, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Here we have Charles M. Schulz at his height. The Peanuts world is almost complete, with the main caste of characters set: Charlie Brown the neurotic, Linus the philosopher, Lucy the loudmouth, and Snoopy the . . . well, Snoopy. Other characters include the original Shermy, Violet, and Patty, who are beginning to fade away, Schroeder, who is playing Beethoven with ever greater intensity, and little Sally, who must have had one of the fastest infancies in history! The newest character is Frieda with the naturally curly hair. Frieda caused one of Schulz's few missteps, when he had her introduce a cat (which he then realized, too late, that he couldn't draw) which made Snoopy act too much like a real dog. Fortunately Schulz realized the problem right away, and Faron the cat only appears in a few strips.
The old standbys are here: the Great Pumpkin, Lucy and the football, the hapless baseball team, and Snoopy's rich fantasy life. I also enjoyed the random references to American life in the early 1960s: especially an eerie strip from 1962 in which the kids speculate on the possibility of the Bomb dropping, with Lucy screaming "Don't Say It!" Schulz could not have known that that October the world would come closer than ever before or since to nuclear holocaust, so this is further evidence that Peanuts' popularity stems from its links, conscious and unconscious, to our own inner lives and fears.
Its hard to wait six months or so between volumes in this series, but we can endure it in happy anticipation of the advent of treasures yet to be revealed, such as the first time Snoopy climbs into that Sopwith Camel
"Polkas, Schottishes, and Waltzes" October 21, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
After twelve years most comic strips plummet in quality or fizzle out altogether. But by 1962 Charles Schulz was still only revving his engines. Peanuts had hit its stride. Not only that, the main characters, with the possible exception of Snoopy, had developed into the personalities that would endure to the strip's finale. Charlie Brown had lost the few scraps of confidence he possessed from the 1950s. Now everything he touched turned putrid - a kind of reverse King Midas syndrome. Lucy and Linus, defying accusations of perpetual youth, grew up. They were babies in the 1950s, remember? Then adults were completely obliterated. Schultz would never again experiment with inserting grown ups into his comic. They were instead reduced to muted trombone blats in the tv specials and invisible off-screen abstractions within the strip. Schulz must have realized that portraying adults made the half-child half-adult characters seem more childlike than intended. Thrusting pairs of towering full grown legs into the frame made it harder for adult readers to identify with those precocious dumbell shaped children. This juxtaposition gave them too much context in the real world and compromised their abstraction. So, for the sake of the adult readers, out went the adults. Peanuts was never a kiddie strip. And, following more than a decade of publication, it reached a level of sophistication rarely attained on the funny pages.
This sixth volume closes with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy firmly established as the strip's core cast. Schroeder and Sally, though they appear often, remain more supporting characters. Some previous mainstays such as Shermy, Violet, and Patty have started to fade into the periphery. In their stead some new ones arrive. Linus introduces Charlie Brown to Frieda with her naturally curly hair and her gelatinous cat, Farron. She, much like Pigpen, remains a one joke character. Schulz does create chemistry between her and Snoopy, though. Frieda often exhorts him to get off his duff and chase rabbits. Snoopy finally agrees, but doesn't admit to her that "I don't even know what a rabbit smells like." She also comes between Lucy and Schroeder, albeit temporarily. Snoopy gives Lucy pouncing lessons, and she puts them to use to mangle the intruding newcomer. Although she appears often in this volume, Frieda never became a true regular.
Snoopy remains the ever phantasmagoric dog. He continues to imitate animals such as vultures, gorillas, rabbits, a calf ("Mooo!"), a gargoyle, and even a teddy bear. When Linus starts wearing glasses, he pilfers them and role plays: "Gentlemen, I'd like to present to you the new chairman of the board!" To aggravate Schroeder he plays "Polkas, schottishes, and waltzes" on a concertina. Snoopy always represented the height of anthropomorphism. Proto-Woodstocks invade his house day and night. Some sleep there, some have meetings there, and some just have cold feet. Also, in a wave of pathos, Snoopy befriends numerous snowmen only to watch them melt into puddles. He clutches at them and sobs as they disintegrate, but Charlie Brown notices that "he wasn't too sensitive to eat the carrot." One could argue that Snoopy was responsible for the majority of Peanuts' success. He added more than a touch of slapstick surrealism to the comic. Not only that, he also remains one of the most recognizable characters in American popular culture.
Linus' traumatic blanket loss reoccurs throughout this volume. Many get in on the action. Lucy buries it, makes flannelgraph shapes with it, and cuts it into glass wipes. Snoopy often snags it right out of his hands. Linus also loses a bet with Miss Othmar, who we never see, and she garnishes his tapestry of security. Never underestimate a blanket as a weapon, though. On January 3rd, 1961 Linus violently whacks a nickel out of the sky with the corner of his blanket. Also, in one of the more bizarre strips, July 18th, 1961, he scares off taunters by using the blanket to disguise himself as Count Dracula. They run in terror. Security blanket, indeed.
Schulz often referred to the May 28th, 1961 Sunday page in interviews. Apparently his daughter asked "am I buttering too loud for you?" one morning at breakfast. This became the answer exemplar for the inevitable question "so where do you get your ideas?"
Schulz also appreciated history, as evidenced by his later D-Day anniversary Sunday panel. In 1961 he celebrated the centennial of the Civil War by putting Union hats on Charlie Brown, Linus, and Snoopy. At first he doesn't explain them, but soon other characters start to ask "when does the centennial end?" Such subtle touches added immeasurably to the strip's depth.
Peanuts showed no signs of stagnation at the end of 1962. Many traditions, such as the Great Pumpkin and the annual pulling away of the football, were already established. Those who read Peanuts in the 1970s or 1980s would instantly feel at home in the 1960s strips. That's because, with the exception of some later additions, Schulz had his groundwork fully laid down by this time and continued to ride a rising wave. Peanuts would later dominate popular culture, though some would deride it as overly commercial. In hindsight, the strip speaks for itself regardless of the Dolley Madison and MetLife spots. Peanuts invigorated the comics page, but also set an impossibly high standard to follow. No subsequent strip, possibly excepting Calvin and Hobbes, has come close to the breadth and depth that Charles Schulz put into his semi-adult semi-child balls of neuroses.
Thanks for Bringing these Back. December 8, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
It's another teo years of Peanuts.
What happened in the 1961 & 1962 years that would intice you to get this book?
Well let's see. Charlie Brown's baseball team didn't do very good. Lucy is dispensing Psychiatric Care at 5 cents a shot. Linus is having a hard time keeping his blanket. But at least he got an 'A' on his report card - only it turned out to be the principal's middle initial. Beethoven's birthday comes on a Sunday. We're waiting down in the pumpkin patch for the appearance of the Great Pumpkin.
Does it really matter what else happened?
The book is a delight, it brings back memories from some things I remember (from 1961, boy am I getting old), it has a bunch that I missed or have forgotten. It was a couple of good years for Peanuts, but that's the case with all of them.
We all need to give Fantagraphics a thanks for bring back these strips from so long ago.
"Welcome to 1962!" October 13, 2006
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
It's almost 45 years since Sally uttered this rather sarcastic prophecy to Linus after he filled her ears with tales of the Great Pumpkin (much of this story featured here in The Complete Peanuts Volume 6 would later make its way in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown). The cartoons in this anthology would be featured in Holt paperbacks such as We're On Your Side, Charlie Brown, You Can't Win, Charlie Brown, Snoopy Come Home and You Can Do It, Charlie Brown. Other cartoons featured here would include one of the 1st Beethoven birthday parties hosted by Schroeder (featured on the cover of this volume), though one year he'd forget Beethoven's birthday and sink into a deep depression and would resign as catcher in order to devote more time to practicing his piano ("You're what?!" asks a devastated Charlie Brown, several times). Also, a new character named Frieda would make her debut. She was known for her vanity ("How do you like my naturally curly hair?") and harrassing Snoopy ("Why aren't you chasing rabbits?"). She would later get a cat to spite Snoopy, whose attitude towards cats is typical of any dog "Cats are the crabgrass in the lawn of modern life!" Also, one of the great characters you never saw in person is mentioned quite a bit in the Van Pelt household- Linus's blanket hating grandma! Linus defends his blanket after being teased by Violet and Patty ("I am the Count Dracula of Transylvania!") and takes the brunt by a disappointed Sally after a night of sitting in the pumpkin patch. In 1962, he'd be featured wearing glasses, which Snoopy would often steal, along with his blanket. He and Charlie Brown are best buddies, though Charlie Brown doesn't share his beliefs in the Great Pumpkin and they get in an argument when Charlie Brown reveals to Linus that Miss Othmar gets paid for teaching (imagine the shock and depression when Linus discovers Charlie Brown is right!). He pulls a fast one on big sister Lucy, congratulating her for being crabby at him every day for over a year. Charlie Brown has trouble flying a kite (he almost buys a kite until Lucy preaches to him how cruel that would be to the kite!) and is bereaved when his baseball hero Joe Shlabotnik is sent to the minors (he stays loyal to his baseball hero, for the "blockhead" knows quite well the agony of defeat). He is given his own t-shirt which reads "Manager" and will not call off a ballgame just because of rain (Linus erects a wooden shade to protect him) and this is one of the only times his team wins a game! But he takes a chance on stealing home and slide as he might, he doesn't make it and becomes the goat again. Lucy gives some advice for free "The sooner you forget about it, the sooner everybody else will. Good night, goat!" Shermy says "Well, Charlie Brown, there a lots of pills we must swallow." Charlie Brown says he'd rather cancel his prescription! Charlie Brown admits he wishes he could be known as "Flash" Brown! The Van Pelts get a pool table and the entire Peanuts gang gets upset when their mothers spend more time playing pool than taking care of them. Sally is thrilled to get her own library card, gets frustrated with jumpropes and fears entering Kindergarten. Lucy is still Lucy, crabby to Linus ("Am I buttering too loud for you?")and Charlie Brown("AUUUUGH!"), she's hopelessly in love with Schroeder (painfully, too, since he often yanks the piano away from her head!) though admittedly the "fussbudget" knows nothing about his hero Beethoven after the Beethoven shindig and offers advice for anyone who has 5 cents (quite often good ol' wishy washy Charlie Brown). Snoopy's imagination still runs wild as he makes friends with a snowman who melts before his eyes and imitates a ferocious vulture, much to the chagrin of the Peanuts gang. As you can guess, Snoopy is less than thrilled with rabbit chasing (he'd rather make friends with them) and the prototype of Woodstock is featured here (though it'd be 8 years before he'd be introduced by name). The beagle gets a turkey as a Christmas present and poignantly reflects "Happiness is a thoughtful friend!" Also, look forward to an intro by Diana Krall, who like Schroeder, is an accomplished pianist.
How consistant can you get? April 8, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This volume of The Complete Peanuts cover the years 1961 and 1962 in their entireties. The most noteworthy event of this book is the introduction of Frieda, the girl with the "naturally curly hair". Soon after her debut, the running gag where Frieda tries to get Snoopy to chase rabbits is used for the first time. Also introduced at this time was Frieda's cat Faron, who only made a few appearances before disappearing. Many of the jokes from this volume were later used in Peanuts television specials, most notably the Christmas and Halloween specials. Peanuts was one of the greatest comic strips of all time, and 1961 and 1962 are certainly among it's best years. Highly recommended.
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