The Complete Peanuts 1967-1968: Vol. 9 Hardcover Edition

Snoopy finds himself almost completely engrossed in his persona as the World War I Flying Ace -- to the point where he goes to camp with Charlie Brown and maintains his persona throughout the entire two-week period (much to Peppermint Patty's bafflement).

Still, Snoopy looms large, so this volume (a particularly Snoopy-heavy one) sees him arm-wrestling Lucy as the Masked Marvel and then taking off for Petaluma for the national arm-wrestling championship; impersonating a vulture and a Cheshire Beagle; enjoying golf and hockey; attempting a jaunt to France for an ice-skating championship; running for office on the Paw ticket; being traded to Peppermint Patty's baseball team, then un-traded and installed as team manager by a guilt-ridden Charlie Brown; as well as dealing with the return of his original owner, Lila. If you're surprised by that last one, imagine how Charlie Brown feels...

Lila makes only a brief appearance (as does José Peterson, a short-lived -- and short -- star member of Charlie Brown's baseball team), but this volume sees the appearance of what would be Schulz's most controversial major character: Franklin. (Yes, in 1968 the introduction of a black character caused a stir.) Peppermint Patty, working toward her ascendancy as one of the major Peanuts players in the 1970s and 1980s, also has several major turns, including a storyline in which she's the tent monitor for three little girls (who call her Sir -- a joke Schulz would pick up later with Peppermint Patty's friend Marcie).

Stories involving other characters include a sequence in which Linus's flippant comment to his Gramma that he'll kick his blanket habit when she kicks her smoking habit backfires; Lucy bullies Linus, pesters Schroeder, and organizes a crab-in; plus Charlie Brown copes with Valentine's Day depression, the Little Red-Haired Girl, the increasingly malevolent kite-eating tree, and baseball losses. In other words: Vintage Peanuts! All this, plus an introduction by beloved transgressive filmmaker John Waters and award-winning design by Seth.

Author: Charles M. Schulz
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Published: 05/01/2008
Pages: 344
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.99lbs
Size: 6.76h x 8.66w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781560978268
Audience: Ages 9-12


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 05/01/2008 pg. 77

About the Author
Waters, John: - Director, screenwriter, and well-known raconteur of American kitsch and camp, John Waters' films include Pink Flamingos and Cecil B. Demented. In 2002 his film Hairspray was made into a hit Broadway musical.Schulz, Charles M.: -

Charles M. Schulz was born November 25, 1922, in Minneapolis. His destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the newspaper strip Barney Google). His ambition from a young age was to be a cartoonist and his first success was selling 17 cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post between 1948 and 1950. He also sold a weekly comic feature called Li'l Folks to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press. After writing and drawing the feature for two years, Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three counts, he quit.

He started submitting strips to the newspaper syndicates and in the spring of 1950, United Feature Syndicate expressed interest in Li'l Folks. They bought the strip, renaming it Peanuts, a title Schulz always loathed. The first Peanuts daily appeared October 2, 1950; the first Sunday, January 6, 1952. Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz retired from Peanuts at the end of 1999. He died on February 13, 2000, the day before Valentine's Day-and the day before his last strip was published, having completed 17,897 daily and Sunday strips, each and every one fully written, drawn, and lettered entirely by his own hand -- an unmatched achievement in comics.