Monday, January 23, 2012

Peanuts: You Can Be Anything!

Peanuts: You Can Be Anything! Review



Based on the comic strips of everyone’s favorite canine, this book reminds the kid in all of us that we can be anything! From an astronaut to a lawyer or a World War I Flying Ace to just plain cool, the many faces of Snoopy serve as inspiration. This hardcover picture book has great gift appeal for new baby, graduation, celebrating milestones, and moving up in the world.


Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Complete Peanuts 1981-1982 (Vol. 16) (The Complete Peanuts)

The Complete Peanuts 1981-1982 (Vol. 16) (The Complete Peanuts) Review



"Marbles” is introduced, Sally gets fat... plus baseball stories! Introduction by Lynn Johnston!

With this volume, The Complete Peanuts ventures into the lesser-known 1980s, and Peanuts fans are sure to find plenty of surprises.

In Snoopy-family news, Spike is drafted into the Infantry (don’t worry, it’s only Snoopy’s imaginary World War I army), and a brand new brother, “Marbles” (with the spotty ears) takes his bow. We also see two major baseball-oriented stories, one in which Charlie Brown joins Peppermint Patty’s team, and another in which Charlie Brown and his team lose their baseball field.

In other stories, Peppermint Patty witnesses the “butterfly miracle,” Linus protests that he is not Sally’s “Sweet Babboo,” Sally (in an unrelated sequence) gets fat, the Van Pelts get into farming, and two of the most eccentric characters from later Peanuts years, the hyperaggressive Molly Volley and the whiny “Crybaby” Boobie, make a return engagement.

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts world will never grow old, and Fantagraphics’ complete reprinting of this masterpiece, now in its eighth year — still lovingly designed by world-class cartoonist Seth — has firmly established itself as one of the very finest archival comic-strip projects ever done. 730 black-and-white comic strips


Friday, January 20, 2012

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (Peanuts)

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (Peanuts) Review



Valentine’s Day is here, but will Charlie Brown get a Valentine? While the rest of the Peanuts gang is busy making cards and buying presents, Charlie Brown is still waiting to see if his first ever Valentine’s Day card will come, maybe from that little red-headed girl! This adaptation of everyone’s favorite Valentine’s Day cartoon is a great collector’s edition and a perfect gift for your own Valentine!


Thursday, January 19, 2012

My Life with Charlie Brown

My Life with Charlie Brown Review



While best known as the creator of Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000) was also a thoughtful and precise prose writer who knew how to explain his craft in clear and engaging ways. My Life with Charlie Brown brings together his major prose writings, many published here for the first time.

Schulz's autobiographical articles, book introductions, magazine pieces, lectures, and commentary elucidate his life and his art, and clarify themes of modern life, philosophy, and religion that are interwoven into his beloved, groundbreaking comic strip. Edited and with an introduction by comics scholar M. Thomas Inge, this volume will serve as the touchstone for Schulz's thoughts and convictions and as a wide-ranging, unique autobiography in the absence of a traditional, extended memoir.

Inge and the Schulz estate have chosen a number of illustrations to include. With the approval and cooperation of the Schulz family, Inge draws on the cartoonist's entire archives, papers, and correspondence to allow Schulz full voice to speak his mind. The project includes his comics criticism, his introductions to Peanuts volumes, his essays about philanthropy, his commentary on Christianity, his newspaper articles about the creation of his characters, and more. My Life with Charlie Brown will reveal new dimensions of this legendary cartoonist.


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Complete Peanuts 1955-1956

The Complete Peanuts 1955-1956 Review



Over half of the strips in this volume have never been printed since they ran in newspapers decades ago! Even the most dedicated Peanuts fan is sure to find many new treasures. Introduction by Matt Groening.

The third volume in our acclaimed series takes us into the mid-1950s as Linus learns to talk, Snoopy begins to explore his eccentricities (including his hilarious first series of impressions), Lucy's unrequited crush on Schroeder takes final shape, and Charlie Brown becomes...well, even more Charlie Brown-ish! Over half of the strips in this volume have never been printed since their original appearance in newspapers a half-century ago! Even the most dedicated Peanuts collector/fan is sure to find many new treasures. The Complete Peanuts will run 25 volumes, collecting two years chronologically at a rate of two a year for twelve years. Each volume is designed by the award-winning cartoonist Seth (It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken) and features impeccable production values; every single strip from Charles M. Schulz's 50-year American classic is reproduced better than ever before. This volume includes an introduction by Matt Groening (The Simpsons) as well as the popular Complete Peanuts index, a hit with librarians and collectors alike, and an epilogue by series editor Gary Groth. 2005 Eisner Award winner, Best Archival Collection/Project. 730 black-and-white comic strips


Monday, January 16, 2012

The Complete Peanuts 1963-1966 Box Set

The Complete Peanuts 1963-1966 Box Set Review



Collecting the seventh and eighth volumes of The Complete Peanuts (1963-1964 and 1965-1966) in one handsome collector's slipcase designed by the cartoonist Seth, this is the perfect gift book item.

In The Complete Peanuts 1963-1964: "My name is 555 95472 but everyone calls me 5 for short... I have two sisters named 3 and 4." With those words, Charles Schulz introduced one (in fact, three) of the quirkiest characters to the Peanuts universe, the numerically-monikered 95472 siblings. They didn't stay around very long but offered some choice bits of satirical nonsense while they did. As it happens, this volume is particularly rich in never-before-reprinted strips: Over 150 (more than one-fifth of the book!) have never seen the light of day since their original appearance over 40 years ago, so this will be a trove of undiscovered treasures even for avid Peanuts collectors. These "lost" strips include Linus making a near-successful run for class president that is ultimately derailed by his religious beliefs (two words: "great" and "pumpkin"), and Snoopy getting involved with a group of politically fanatical birds. Also in this volume: Lucy's attempts at improving her friends branches out from her increasingly well-visited nickel psychiatry booth to an educational slideshow of Charlie Brown's faults (it's so long there's an intermission!). Also, Snoopy's doghouse begins its conceptual expansion, as Schulz reveals that the dog owns a Van Gogh, and that the ceiling is so huge that Linus can paint a vast (and as it turns out unappreciated) "history of civilization" mural on it. Introduction by Bill Melendez, animator of all the Peanuts TV specials starting all the way back with A Charlie Brown Christmas!

In The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966: We are now in the mid-1960s, one of Schulz's peak periods of creativity (and one third of the way through the strip's life!). Snoopy has become the strip's dominant personality, and this volume marks two milestones for the character: the first of many "dogfights" with the nefarious Red Baron, and the launch of his writing career ("It was a dark and stormy night..."). Two new characters—the first two from outside the strip's regular little neighborhood—make their bows. Roy (who befriends Charlie Brown and then Linus at summer camp) won't have a lasting impact, but upon his return from camp he regales a friend of his with tales of the strange kids he met, and she has to go check them out for herself. Her name? Peppermint Patty. Introduction by film director and writer Hal Hartley (Flirt, Amateur). 1461 black-and-white comic strips


Monday, January 9, 2012

You Buy the Peanut Butter, I'll Get the Bread: The Absolutely True Adventures of Best Friends in Business

You Buy the Peanut Butter, I'll Get the Bread: The Absolutely True Adventures of Best Friends in Business Review



Best friends and business partners, two remarkable women share their secrets to starting and succeeding in your own business

Part inspiring business story and part insider’s how-to, You Buy the Peanut Butter, I’ll Get the Bread shares the lessons two best friends learned while making their business dreams come true. The co-founders of Noelle-Elaine Media, Inc.—a New York City–based event management, media relations, video and technical production firm with many notable corporate and celebrity clients—Kirsten and Renée give aspiring small-business starters the real deal on what it takes to succeed and endure, both professionally and personally.

With refreshing honesty and sisterly counsel, they offer an up-close look at the daily highs and lows of starting, managing, and maintaining a business in the midst of developing and losing friendships, dating, falling in and out of love, and getting married—as well as the particular challenges women business owners face. Despite some peanut butter sandwich dinners, Kirsten and Renée made it happen, and their story will empower entrepreneurs everywhere that they can too.


Friday, January 6, 2012

The Gospel According to Peanuts

The Gospel According to Peanuts Review



While Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have enjoyed the kind of success most cartoon characters can only dream about--becoming pop culture icons of the highest order and entering the global consciousness practically as family members--Robert Short's The Gospel According to Peanuts also has found a place in the hearts of many readers, with sales now totaling more than ten million copies. This anniversary edition features a new cover, a new interior design, and a new foreword by Martin E. Marty. Whether coming to the book for the first time or taking a second look, a delightful experience awaits in this modern-day guide to the Christian faith, fully illustrated with Peanuts.


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Peanut Butter Poetry

Peanut Butter Poetry Review



Peanut Butter Poetry captures the moods and feeling of the author - as a child, a wife, a person with a serious illness, and as a person late in life Some poems within are full of whimsy, some are bittersweet, some are social commentary, others autobiographical. Altogether, they are delicious as warm peanut butter cookies out of the oven.


Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter (Give Yourself Goosebumps, No 6)

Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter (Give Yourself Goosebumps, No 6) Review



A hair-raising adventure of food gone bad--way bad--invites readers to take a taste of the spookier side of the sandwich that sticks to the roof of your mouth, in a story with more than twenty possible endings.