Fun With Peanuts

Peanuts Coronet #5

by Charles M. Schulz

Everybody knows Peanuts are more fun than anybody! Good Grief, Yes! So there!

Selected Cartoons from GOOD OL' CHARLIE BROWN VOL. 1

Genres: Humor, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Cartoon, Childrens, Comic Strips

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Charles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”

Reviews

[Hákon Gunnarsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy these collections, but I sometimes feel Pig-Pen doesn’t get enough room. In one story in this collection Charlie Brown laughs his head off at Pig-Pen, then walks away, and Patty asks him why Charlie was laughing. Pig-Pen says it’s because he told Charlie that he one day he was going to become a white collar worker. The problem is that he would of course never be happy as one. With his relationship with the soil, he is destined to become a gardener.

[Mary Forbes · Rating 5 out of 5]

these were some of the best peanuts i’ve read - i don’t usually count these on my reads but considering im also reading sylvia plaths 500+ journals…i needed something

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Brown stands alone in his dark room the night before the first baseball game of the season and ponders...."I wonder if Casey Stengel is asleep".

Charlie Brown had a hard life.

Patty and Violet are walking along (they disappeared from the strip later, but we Peanuts fans remember) and Violet says that sometimes Charlie Brown is pretty clever. Three big boys were chasing him at school that day. What did Charlie Brown do? "Suddenly he organized a discussion group!"

[Michael P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collection of some great old Peanuts comic strips. The title is apt.

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume collects strips from the mid 1950s. A good number feature a not often seen character, Pig Pen. Compared to later collections, the humour here has more of an edge, is less surreal. Nevertheless, always a joy to reread.

[The Bauchler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a load of Peanuts/Charlie Brown books as a kid. I loved them dearly.

Sadly I can only remember a couple I actually owned from perusing the covers.

The fact I remembered this one suggests It was a good un so without any proof other than this it gets a 4*

Good grief.

[Eric Fisk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic peanuts. Clean and family fun.

[Roberto Galindo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite kinder innocent, some adult anger but rest, a beauty. Historically rich.

[ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

the illustrations were so adorable. i’m so upset i got it second hand and that one of the previous owners drew all over it in pen :/

[lauren beckers]

Very fun.

[Aimee Lowe]

Think I prefer the 70s & 80s era of Peanuts

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1955, this is another one of the early Charlie Brown collections. Even at that, it displays the humor that characterized the comic strip.

One strip. . . Charlie Brown tells his catcher, Schroeder (in a baseball game) "The catcher is supposed to be the backbone of his team." This included yelling or whistling. Then, Schroeder whistles--Chopin's "Nocturne in E Flat Major." To which, Charlie Brown responds--"Good grief!"

And so on. . . . Nice Schulzian humor. . . .

[nush · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the characters

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn't like Peanuts.