The Complete Peanuts: 1950-1952 Dailies & Sundays

Sooooo I wasn't raised with Snoopy or the Peanuts gang or anything (certified Archies comics kid). BAsically, I went into this not necessarily blind, but just having no expectations bc my knowledge of Peanuts was just the licensing of Snoopy and Woodstock. I saw that a few years ago there was a complete collection published over 26 volumes, so (in my quest to become a Snoopy girl) I bought the first volume, one from the 60s, one from the 70s and I think one from the 90s. In finished the first one this delightful Christmas Eve and ohhhh my gosh!!

I am SO glad I'm reading this as an adult!! Schulz writes so brilliantly! I feel like heartfelt can be disingenuous, bc while there is a cosiness to them, it's not all sugary and sweet? I think show more sooo much media that centres on children is incredibly preachy and always teaching kids how to be good or role modelling that to them (even Bluey does this). I really like how Schulz gives depth to his characters and I like how they can flip between rude and kind. I think it's incredibly sincere, and I think sincerity can be so hard to do in a 4 panel comic strip.

I ended up loving this waaaaay more than I thought I would. I also appreciate how this edition had a nice long interview with Schulz, and I agree w/ him about how the marketing of Peanuts to kids is so off. I think there's incredible wit that he uses when he writes and 90% of the gags would go over most kids' heads.

This is only the first volume too!! The comic isn't even in its fully realised form yet!! I'm wondering if I should read all 26 in order or jump around a bit. Either way, my quest to become a Snoopy Girl is much easier than I expected it to be LMAO. show less

Growing up I enjoyed Peanuts quite a bit, but as I got older I began to look down on the strip. It wasn't as sophisticated or trendy or edgy or topical as my favorite strips were in the late 80s and early 90s. However, I'd often think about some of the Peanuts strips that I had read over and over again as a kid; I could remember specific panels and punchlines, which wasn't always true of the strips I was reading at that time.

Now, looking back, I can see a lot of the elegance and humor at work in Peanuts, and going back to the beginning of the strip's run is fascinating. The earliest strips in this volume show a very different comic than the one most of us know from the TV specials. The characters are just being introduced and are slowly show more developing their personalities. Characters like Violet and Sherman, who will eventually fade from view, are front and center in this volume. Charlie Brown is something of a smart ass. Snoopy actually has thought balloons! For a long time it's difficult to figure out who owns Snoopy. And the character designs are much more basic (although I think the early Snoopy is even cuter than his more famous look). The strips are basic, but they're charming and funny. They're tinged with sadness and melancholy, but that's part of both their charm and humor. It's very interesting stuff. show less

Well produced book with introduction by Garrison Keillor, and includes interviews with Schulz at the back. I found these extras the most interesting part, having read snoopy books from an early age. I agree with the artist "Peanuts" is not a great title for the comic strips! I enjoyed reading the characters' developments from the beginning. Woodstock has yet to appear, and Linus doesn't own a blankie!

Everybody, and I do mean everybody, loves Peanuts (and if there really should be a some poor souls out there who do not, they should be pitied and are anyway far too few to be in any way relevant).

It really is quite astonishing when you think about it – kids and grown-ups, men and women, the uneducated and the academics – no matter what people’s age, gender, level of education, no matter whether they love reading or hate it, whether they love comics or despise them - they all, almost without exception love Peanuts. Many better minds than I have attempted to explore what lies at the heart of that enduring popularity, with varying degrees of success, so I’m not even going to attempt that here; I just want to marvel for a moment at show more just how awesome this is. I mean, everybody loves Peanuts. Just think about it – you could stand up from your computer now, walk out on the street and address the first stranger you come across with “Aren’t Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts just great?” True, he or she would probably look at you somewhat strangely but they’d know what you’re talking about, and – assuming you could get them to overcome their suspicions at this weird stranger – will almost certainly agree with you, too. And this is true for almost every country, and over sixty years after the first Peanuts strip was published. Is there any other work of art, literary or graphical, high-brow or low-brow, of which one could say that? Mickey Mouse is probably as popular, but hardly as well liked, Alice in Wonderland is probably as well-beloved but hardly as well-known.

Peanuts, then, quite obviously strikes a chord, and maybe the most astonishing as well as the most enduring thing about the comic is that it shows that there is such a chord to be struck, that across all differences in age, gender and cultural background there is something so essentially human in all of us that we all love the adventures of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy and their friends. But then, this might just be an indication of how far the worldwide Americanization of everything already has progressed…

The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 is the first instalment in what is going to be a complete collection of all Peanuts daily and Sunday strips. I am struggling on how to read this – I am thinking that the best way to go about it would be to read them like they were published, one strip a day – but seeing as the comic was running for fifty years this is not an option, as at that rate, I’m not likely to live long enough to read the final volume. I can’t really see myself reading a volume in one sitting either, so I went for reading a few weeks of strips whenever I felt like it – and ended up taking over two years to finish the volume. This means I’ll have to think of another way to tackle the remaining volumes, and it means also that I after starting it that long ago, don’t really have any substantial to say on this particular volume.

The early strips are really quite different, and the main interest of this first volume is really to see how the comic settles into its groove, how the familiar characters pop up one after the other and how the characters gradually assume their familiar look, and how the strips slowly begin to take on that particular world-wise melancholy that is maybe the series main characteristic. This is a beautifully made book, and apart from the strips it contains a lengthy and very interesting interview with Charles M. Schulz – who, I was rather surprised to find out, did not like the title Peanuts at all because he did not think it was appropriate for his “dignified” comic. I find his emphasis on a category like dignity quite intriguing, and it might be worthwhile to keep that in mind while reading the series. I might even return to the subject in my post on the next volume – which hopefully it won’t take me another two years to read. show less

It’s so interesting to see how Charlie Brown started out. I’ve always enjoyed the Peanuts, but only really seen them here and there.

The characters are so fun, and it was cool to watch them be created and fleshed out. I enjoyed figuring out who was who, and what the original concept looked like. I wonder what happened to Violet tho, she was an OG who seemed to have a limited existence after a while.

The art style has always appealed to me, I enjoy the simplicity. It’s funny that Charlie Brown really has stayed the same design almost from inception. The iconic jagged stripe on his shirt was added a bit into the Peanuts run.
Snoopy’s original design is the cutest thing. I think it was a mistake to change him, but maybe he show more wouldn’t have been as popular if he didn’t have such an iconic nose. OG Snoopy is still cuter tho.

I wasn’t expecting the extras at the end of the book. I hated the mini biography about Schulz- I just don’t like the way the author wrote it. I did enjoy the interview with Schulz, though I must admit that I skimmed it at parts.

I might seek the next volume, eventually. show less

This is a terrific collection: thorough, high-quality production and printing, and including great secondary material (an essay about Schulz's life and an extended interview with him, both covering a wide array of topics in which his strong opinions -- including his strong opinions about not having strong opinions -- come through clearly). It even has an exhaustive index of topics covered in the strips!

I really enjoyed reading this book containing the first three years of Peanuts comic strips. Although I'd seen many before in a "selections from" collection there were other strips I'd never read before including: Violet's mudpie baking (she adds eggs and cream), Charlie Brown's first appearance wearing his trademark zigzag shirt, bratty Lucy in her crib, and later on we are treated to the first time Charlie Brown has Lucy hold the football for him.

Schulz' work is timeless despite being almost 70 years old. My copy is from Kindle, but I liked this so much that I might get the hardcover version as well.