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From the Bookshelf: The Complete Peanuts 1987-1988
As I've said before, by now I start into each new volume of The Complete Peanuts sort of wondering if it'll will be the one I can't quite say anything about. I did take note of the introduction being by Gary Trudeau, but realised as soon as I started reading it (after a first excerpted drawing where Charlie Brown worries "I have a great fear of being boring...") that, save for its final lines, it had in fact been written back when Charles M. Schulz retired, and that might have left me wondering as well. As I worked into the comics, though, I began thinking once more that there were still things I could say (or, at least, that there were plenty of amusing quotes to mark the rest of the entry with...)
After one last Sunday strip at the start of the volume introduced with "Peanuts featuring 'Good ol' Charlie Brown,'" the logo changes to the plainer block lettering used for the rest of the strip. Then, on leap year's day in 1988, the familiar four-panel layout that had been used for almost thirty-eight years (save for a few strips that subdivided those panels into six or eight, seemingly no more than could be counted on the fingers of one hand) goes away. My first reaction, I have to admit, was to think of rigidly three-panel strips such as Garfield (mentioned in the context of greeting cards in this volume, in fact) and Dilbert, and to wonder a little about thinking of them. However, some experimentation begins to appear before too long, allowing for the more musing, contemplative two-panel or one-panel strips.
Linus continues to obsess over the "aren't you too old for me?" girl, who seems to be named Lydia, although this changes with her moods. Before I could begin to wonder too much about the whole thing feeling ever so slightly different when it comes to "girls tormenting boys," I did remember some storylines with Marcie and Peppermint Patty frustrated with Charlie Brown not quite getting how they think about him. There was also a storyline that caught my attention with Snoopy worried over needing knee surgery ("I was playing hockey... Wayne Gretzky tripped me!"), although it ends with a joke, one that does get addressed a bit later. A bit later, there's a strange yet memorable story where Snoopy the Beagle Scout, guiding Peppermint Patty and Marcie on a hike, changes into the World-Famous Attorney and chews a lot of wintergreen candy to get home in the dark. There were, anyway, things to talk about anyway in this volume.
After one last Sunday strip at the start of the volume introduced with "Peanuts featuring 'Good ol' Charlie Brown,'" the logo changes to the plainer block lettering used for the rest of the strip. Then, on leap year's day in 1988, the familiar four-panel layout that had been used for almost thirty-eight years (save for a few strips that subdivided those panels into six or eight, seemingly no more than could be counted on the fingers of one hand) goes away. My first reaction, I have to admit, was to think of rigidly three-panel strips such as Garfield (mentioned in the context of greeting cards in this volume, in fact) and Dilbert, and to wonder a little about thinking of them. However, some experimentation begins to appear before too long, allowing for the more musing, contemplative two-panel or one-panel strips.
Linus continues to obsess over the "aren't you too old for me?" girl, who seems to be named Lydia, although this changes with her moods. Before I could begin to wonder too much about the whole thing feeling ever so slightly different when it comes to "girls tormenting boys," I did remember some storylines with Marcie and Peppermint Patty frustrated with Charlie Brown not quite getting how they think about him. There was also a storyline that caught my attention with Snoopy worried over needing knee surgery ("I was playing hockey... Wayne Gretzky tripped me!"), although it ends with a joke, one that does get addressed a bit later. A bit later, there's a strange yet memorable story where Snoopy the Beagle Scout, guiding Peppermint Patty and Marcie on a hike, changes into the World-Famous Attorney and chews a lot of wintergreen candy to get home in the dark. There were, anyway, things to talk about anyway in this volume.