The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960 (Charles M. Schulz)

I AM NOT READING THEM, BUT I AM COLLECTING THEM SLOWLY, AS I THINK THEY ARE WORTH HAVING, AND I CAN PASS THEM ON TO MY GRANDCHILDREN EVENTUALLY. I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED PEANUTS, AND THIS SEEMED A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY TO GO OVER THEM ALL AGAIN.

Great things happen in this book. Many firsts like Sally and the Great Pumpkin and many more cool stuff in this great book. Sally also falls in love with Linus and Linus falls in love with his teacher. Some of these comics are ones they used in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. I gave it four stars though because it is still early Peanuts and the later years were the best. I would give it five stars now but I don't think the computer will let me.

What is happiness? On April 25, 1960, Charles Schulz, through his character Lucy told us: Happiness is a warm puppy. This immortal sentence is just one of the things that appears in the fifth volume of The Complete Peanuts, which comprises the years 1959 and 1960. As in previous volumes, we see once again why Peanuts is considered by many to be the best comic strip ever. In some sense, things have not changed from past volumes: Linus still has his blanket, Charlie Brown still can't fly a kite and Lucy is a champion fussbudget. On the other hand, things do move forward, albeit slowly. As original character Shermy (the first to ever speak in a Peanuts strip) becomes less significant, we get a new character with Charlie Brown's sister, Sally. Before she can even talk, she will have her heart broken by Linus, but don't worry, she'll recover fast. Resiliency is the key to many of these characters, none more so than the strip's centerpiece, Charlie Brown. Constantly luckless a... Read more

This issue gives us the first shots of Sally, plus some other developments. The baseball themes are being fleshed out (complete with mass-quitting of CB's team) and the Psychologist's Stand makes its debut. What's most interesting is watching the beginning of Sally's crush on Linus. While the reprinted strips of before show Sally falling in love and Linus responding with revulsion, the new strips reveal some interesting tacks. First, early on in the book (in a strip that hadn't seen the light of day in the reprints I had read over the years), Linus actually expresses an interest in Sally, wondering if she would be dateable at 17 (when he would be 22). One gets the idea that Schultz actually wanted to develop a situation where Linus was in love but his object was unrequited. Later on in the book, Schultz hits gold: Sally falls, Linus is embarassed. While some of these strips are familiar, the section where Sally's heart breaks is new to my eyes. Towards the end of this book is ... Read more

The fifth volume of "The Complete Peanuts" covers the years 1959 and 1960. During this period, the four main characters are Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus Van Pelt, and Snoopy. Schroeder, Violet, and Patti all have fewer appearances in the strip. Although, Schroeder has a clearly defined role which makes his character stand out more than the other two. Similarly, Pig Pen has a specific role while Shermy is a throw in character, despite the fact that both appear rarely. During this period, we have the first new character since the short-lived Charlotte Braun almost five years previously. Sally Brown is born on May 26th of 1959, we find out her name on June 2nd, and she makes her first appearance in the strip on August 23rd. We see her walking for the first time on August 22nd of the following year. There are some classic firsts which appear in this book. One is the first strip to have Lucy's Psychiatrist stand, in which she offers the classic advice "Snap out of it!" to Charli... Read more