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Serendipitous Discoveries!
On Saturday, I took a trip into Toronto. One important goal was to deliver a birthday present to my brother, but on a much less noble note I also knew it was "Free Comic Book Day," and I had heard of one promotional pamphlet that particularly interested me. It was "Unseen Peanuts," a selected compilation with commentary of some of the Peanuts comics that hadn't been reprinted in books between when they first appeared in newspapers and when they helped give "The Complete Peanuts" its name.
On my way to a comics store I was pretty sure would have all the different "Free Comic Book Day" titles in, I decided to get off the subway one stop early and pass by a large used and remaindered book store I had noticed on my last visit to the city. Dropping in, I glanced at its small section next to the door of art books and manga... and spotted a two-decade old "Robotech" art book. With my interest in the title miraculously revived once again, I had been contemplating ordering a used copy from amazon.com, but all the copies there had seemed more expensive than I really wanted to pay, especially given the shipping fees. This particular copy was pleasantly cheaper, and I managed to find a discount hardcover of "The Art of The Phantom Menace" as well.
Finally arriving at the comics store, I picked up a copy of "Unseen Peanuts," along with a few other free titles and some stuff I did have to pay for. It turned out they had sold out of the very latest volume of "The Complete Peanuts," though, although I later found it at a bookstore near my brother's... also noticing in it a book criticising how modern society infantilizes adults to make them better consumers. Looking back on what I've written, I do wonder if I'm proving its point...
Still, "Unseen Peanuts" was pretty interesting. It seemed weighted towards material to appear in the very latest volume and the one to follow it in the fall, but that seems understandable enough as a preview of things to come. I did notice the editor suggesting that some strips had become "unseen" because of dated cultural references, but wondered if they would have dated that much by the time the reprint books were put together, a year or two after first newspaper publication. Then, I started wondering if I'd seen one of the strips in it before, one where Charlie Brown and Lucy are leaning on a wall and Lucy is giving unhelpful advice, prefiguring her charging five cents for it at her psychiatric help booth... and found that it had indeed been reprinted in "The Gospel According to Peanuts." I feel no compulsion to complain about a lack of truth in advertising, though.
On my way to a comics store I was pretty sure would have all the different "Free Comic Book Day" titles in, I decided to get off the subway one stop early and pass by a large used and remaindered book store I had noticed on my last visit to the city. Dropping in, I glanced at its small section next to the door of art books and manga... and spotted a two-decade old "Robotech" art book. With my interest in the title miraculously revived once again, I had been contemplating ordering a used copy from amazon.com, but all the copies there had seemed more expensive than I really wanted to pay, especially given the shipping fees. This particular copy was pleasantly cheaper, and I managed to find a discount hardcover of "The Art of The Phantom Menace" as well.
Finally arriving at the comics store, I picked up a copy of "Unseen Peanuts," along with a few other free titles and some stuff I did have to pay for. It turned out they had sold out of the very latest volume of "The Complete Peanuts," though, although I later found it at a bookstore near my brother's... also noticing in it a book criticising how modern society infantilizes adults to make them better consumers. Looking back on what I've written, I do wonder if I'm proving its point...
Still, "Unseen Peanuts" was pretty interesting. It seemed weighted towards material to appear in the very latest volume and the one to follow it in the fall, but that seems understandable enough as a preview of things to come. I did notice the editor suggesting that some strips had become "unseen" because of dated cultural references, but wondered if they would have dated that much by the time the reprint books were put together, a year or two after first newspaper publication. Then, I started wondering if I'd seen one of the strips in it before, one where Charlie Brown and Lucy are leaning on a wall and Lucy is giving unhelpful advice, prefiguring her charging five cents for it at her psychiatric help booth... and found that it had indeed been reprinted in "The Gospel According to Peanuts." I feel no compulsion to complain about a lack of truth in advertising, though.