| The Complete Peanuts 1967-1968 | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles M. Schulz
Creator: Seth
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Category: Book
List Price: $28.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 17985
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 344
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 6.6 x 1.5
ISBN: 1560978260
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9781560978268
ASIN: 1560978260
Publication Date: April 23, 2008
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"You've Got Yourself a Used Dog, Charlie Brown." August 3, 2008
While it's Violet who's given the front cover for this book (more about the strip this image came from later...), it's Snoopy and Peppermint Patty who come into their own in this book.
Snoopy's stint as the WWI Flying Ace is not nearly as strong as before, but it begins to to interact with the other characters (other than Charlie Brown, who HAS to interact with Snoopy on a regular basis) and affect their actions, as does some other of Snoopy's alternate characters. Snoopy is also given a back story involving a former owner who was unable to keep him (a plot which was expanded into its own movie).
Peppermint Patty, having developed from a blank slate looking for something to believe in to a character strong enough to solo in late 1966, is now further expanding into what would become her role as Charlie Brown's female, power-filled alter-ego. With Jose Peterson (.850 in North Dakota?), Roy and Franklin (a Summer of '68 introduction) in tow and a possible peak at Marcie, Peppermint Patty is now the leader of her own gang - a Female Charlie Brown, only a competent leader of a group chosen for their strengths and winning ways (as compared to Charlie Brown, whose team is pretty much a collections of locals who don't really like him too much and are chosen more-or-less because of habit and closeness). Peppermint Patty's weaknesses would round out her character in the future, but here it's her strengths that are propelling her.
Given the growth in Snoopy and Peppermint Patty, the other characters work more in support. Charlie Brown already has become more a handmaiden to Peppermint Patty's attempts to improve her team (at first CB's team, then her own) and Snoopy's escapades more and more involve and affect the people around them. The Red-Haired girl again affects CB in bad ways, this time even going so far as to force CB to live in the dark of his bedroom for a whole week. And Freida still appears, still doggedly trying to turn Snoopy into the hunting dog she's always dreamed of owning.
And finally, the image on the front cover of this book comes from the "missing strip" in the book: Violet solo, shooting forth a cutdown only for us to learn of its weakness (May 3, 1967). Maybe the compiler thought it a bit odd that Violet, once able (with or without the original Patty) to rip into CB with a force powerful enough to destroy living men (never mind struggling boys with no self-esteem) weakened to a mere "nyaah." Anyway, it was replaced with the strip from two days before in the book. You can find a copy online and consider the irony of an image used in the front of a book that it's been banished from (unintentionally, but banished nevertheless).
Buy this book. Buy the books before this one as well, if you haven't done that yet.
PEANUTS -- Keep Getting Better July 7, 2008
The Complete Peanuts l967-68 takes me back to the founding of my Peanuts related company, Aviva Enterprises, with Elliot Steinberg in l968. Every Peanuts 'fan' -- should own this entire collection. It is a wonderful gift to leave for future generation in your own families.
Peanuts rule! June 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love Peanuts, but there is no doubt it deteriorated in the last 10-15 years it was made, one was bound to run out of original ideas sooner or later. However, this book is from what was the heydays of the series, and is great reading.
Keep 'Em Coming May 12, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
It's getting harder and harder to come up with new things to say that will convey how much I enjoy reading these old Peanuts strips. This comes from a period where I am less familiar with the strips themselves, so there are some surprises for me.
In this volume we find the strips that will be the inspiration for the animated special, Snoopy Come Home, in which we find out Snoopy has an owner before Charlie Brown who is ill and in the hospital. This is the era where Franklin makes his first appearance, giving Charlie Brown one of his rare emotional boosts. There is also plenty of Snoopy as the WWI flying ace and numerous baseball games.
All in all, as always, this volume is a great collection of wonderful Peanuts comic strips. Charles Schulz rarely disappoints.
(Prospective buyers of this volume should be aware that the first edition has an error: the May 1, 1967 strip is printed twice, leaving the May 3, 1967 strip missing. Later editions of this volume are supposed to correct the error and the missing strip will also be printed in the 1969-1970 volume.)
"Well, there was this ocean, see..." May 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Tongues are stilled to silence. Commentary fails. By 1968, the neurotic and often surreal Peanuts comic strip ruled newspapers' daily fibers. Another decade would roll by before any real competition emerged. Though Ruminations on the 1960s rarely include "Charlie Brown and Snoopy," their utter ubiquitousness in papers, magazines, toy stores, television and, after 1969, film makes that lacuna seem almost irresponsible. The stunted ageless self-conscious Freudian windbags were simply everywhere. Only very recently, following Charles Schulz's passing, the closing of the Mall of America's "Camp Snoopy" and the glacial disappearance of Peanuts reruns, does its grip on popular culture seem at an ebb. Nonetheless, historians of popular culture will doubtless continue to acclaim Peanuts as the pinnacle of the comic medium. Especially as the classic comic strip format fades into history, with the inevitable dissolution of newspapers into web bits, Peanuts represents something that will not likely occur again. Thankfully, Fantagraphic's magnum opus, "The Complete Peanuts," lets readers revisit the strip's colossal 50 year run. Fanatics unite!
This ninth volume includes every strip, including Sundays (though not in color), from 1967 to 1968. By this point the development of the strip's main characters plateaued. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Sally, Peppermint Patty, and the "birds" that would become Woodstock (next volume - try to hold it!) appear in familiar form (though some characters began to appear with less frequency, such as Violet, Frieda, and "Pig-Pen" - Violet's appearance on the cover remains a little enigmatic since she appears only 15 times in minor roles; "Pig-Pen" only appears 3 times). Snoopy's "WWI Flying Ace" transformation (in the previous volume) arguably represents the strip's peak. This level of quality was maintained until the 1980s. Schulz became a multimillionaire in charge of a global empire. Peanuts gradually seeped into every possible crack, including junk food and insurance. Snoopy became as recognizable as Mickey Mouse. This cultural domination did not ruin the comic's self-consciousness or self-deprecating undertone. As profits and honors soared, it kept reflecting on the lives of losers, misfits, and the depressed.
As with all volumes, this one contains many highlights, including: Lucy sort of meets her arm wrestling match in "The Masked Marvel" ("Succumb you dark-haired fiend!" 2/14/67); Snoopy attempts to compete in the Grenoble Olympics, only to be deterred by an ocean (12/21 - 12/22/67); Snoopy trips over a blighter (5/11/67); Linus pats birds on the head, which many find socially unacceptable; the birds rebel (5/22 - 6/3/67); "Bird Hippies" appear (7/12/67, 7/13/67, and 11/1/67); the baseball team loses again ("Winning isn't everything, Charlie Brown..." "That's true, but losing isn't anything") and Charlie Brown trades Snoopy to Peppermint Patty's team. Guilt ensues (11/8 - 11/20/67); a rare and bizarre front view of Snoopy (1/13/68); "Even stupid questions have answers!" (2/21/68); The "Easter Bunny" (later "Easter Beagle") appears (4/14/68); Snoopy tries to find Petaluma with a globe (4/30 - 5/1/68); a proverbial "sad" strip: "But who cheers up the World War I flying ace?" (5/16/68); Bird chomps on worm, Snoopy gets sick (5/20/68); Lucy serves "Goop" (5/27, 5/28 and 6/1/68); a proto-Marcie, named either "Clara," "Sophie," or "Shirley," appears at Peppermint Patty's camp (6/18/68); Birds carry election signs (7/1 - 7/6/68); Franklin appears, for the first time, on the beach (7/31/68); Charlie Brown finds out the truth about Lila, and Lila appears - a rather bizarre sequence (8/20 - 8/31/68). Here's yet another great collection in a series planned to continue until 2016. That's exhausting even to think about. But please keep them coming!
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