Wah wawa wah, wuhn wah wah... wah wah. Wuhn wah hwah wah wah, wuhn wah hwah wahn.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
To be honest, I have no idea what possessed me to order this book. My interest in Peanuts during its final years was negligible. I got tired of the baseball jokes, the Lucy-as-psychiatrist jokes, Snoopy's obsession with Linus's blanket and the kite jokes and the disappearing football routine. By the time I became aware of Peanuts, it was already an American institution, a well-established piece of pop culture known the world over. To me, it was this unchanging entity that was just too old-school for my tastes.
So imagine my surprise when I discover a freshness in the property in its origins from more than 50 years ago. The genius of Peanuts and its creator is revealed in this comprehensive volume. You only thought you knew Charlie Brown and Snoopy, folks. Characters I'd never heard of before and radically different takes on cartoon icons make for a fascinating and ultimately fun read. This book breathes new life into old characters by revisiting the old strips (does that make any sense?).
There's a surprisingly surreal tone to some of these early scripts. The kids plant flowers on dogs and eat mashed potatoes on ice-cream cones. There's a child-like sweetness in many of the strips and a corny sense of humor that only kids would find hilarious. The tone of the strip is ever changing in this volume. Sometimes, it's wonderfully clever, and at others, it's conventional. It's always entertaining, though.
It's remarkable to note how different these characters look as compared to their modern incarnations. There was a much simpler tone at play when the strip debuted, but by 1952, there's a little more depth. There's also a stronger sense of personality and attitude by that point, one that reminds me of Bill Watterson's art. I never would have thought that Calvin & Hobbes would owe much to Peanuts, but after reading this book, I'd have to say the influence is undeniable.
The real source of entertainment in this book is witnessing an evolution. These strips don't jibe with our memories of Charlie Brown and the gang, and it's mesmerizing to see how different they were when Schulz first envisioned them. There's not just an evolution in his art style, though it's plain to see, not to mention how it shifts so much over the course of those first two years. No, there's an evolution in the characters as well. One of the things I didn't enjoy about Peanuts in its latter years is that the characters never grew. They were stuck. But in this book, we see them grow, even if it's just a little.
In the past, whenever someone has referred to the "genius" of Charles Schulz, I was always at something of a loss. Sure, there was no denying the immense contribution he made to pop culture, but "genius?" I just didn't see it. Well, Fantagraphics Books has opened my eyes.
