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
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.
Matt Groening (b. 1954) is an Emmy Award-winner, best known for co-creating animated TV series such as
The Simpsons and
Futurama. He also cartooned a long-running alt-weekly strip called
Life In Hell, for which he won a Reuben.
