What do you think?
Rate this book
The Complete Peanuts #12
The Complete Peanuts, 1973-1974
Tennis, anyone? Billie Jean King serves up an introduction... and we celebrate Woodstock!
The twelfth volume of Peanuts features a number of tennis strips and several extended sequences involving Peppermint Patty’s friend Marcie (including a riotous, rarely seen sequence in which Marcie’s costume-making and hairstyling skills utterly spoil a skating competition for PP), so it seems only right that this volume’s introduction should be served up by Schulz’s longtime friend, tennis champion Billie Jean King.
This volume also picks up on a few loose threads from the previous year, as the mysterious “Poochie” shows up in the flesh; Linus and Lucy’s new kid brother “Rerun” makes his first appearance, is almost immediately drafted onto the baseball team (where, thanks to his tiny strike zone, he wins a game), and embarks on his first terrifying journey on the back of his mom’s bike; and, in one of Peanuts’ oddest recurring storylines, the schoolhouse Sally used to talk to starts talking, or at least thinking, back at her!
The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974 also includes one of the all-time classic Peanuts sequences, in which Charlie Brown’s baseball-oriented hallucinations finally manifest themselves in a baseball-shaped rash on his head. Forced to conceal the embarrassing discoloration with a bag worn over his head, Charlie Brown goes to camp as “Mister Sack” and discovers that, shorn of his identity, he’s suddenly well liked and successful. 730 b/w comic strips
The twelfth volume of Peanuts features a number of tennis strips and several extended sequences involving Peppermint Patty’s friend Marcie (including a riotous, rarely seen sequence in which Marcie’s costume-making and hairstyling skills utterly spoil a skating competition for PP), so it seems only right that this volume’s introduction should be served up by Schulz’s longtime friend, tennis champion Billie Jean King.
This volume also picks up on a few loose threads from the previous year, as the mysterious “Poochie” shows up in the flesh; Linus and Lucy’s new kid brother “Rerun” makes his first appearance, is almost immediately drafted onto the baseball team (where, thanks to his tiny strike zone, he wins a game), and embarks on his first terrifying journey on the back of his mom’s bike; and, in one of Peanuts’ oddest recurring storylines, the schoolhouse Sally used to talk to starts talking, or at least thinking, back at her!
The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974 also includes one of the all-time classic Peanuts sequences, in which Charlie Brown’s baseball-oriented hallucinations finally manifest themselves in a baseball-shaped rash on his head. Forced to conceal the embarrassing discoloration with a bag worn over his head, Charlie Brown goes to camp as “Mister Sack” and discovers that, shorn of his identity, he’s suddenly well liked and successful. 730 b/w comic strips
344 pages, Hardcover
First published September 8, 2009
46 people are currently reading
569 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,037 books1,629 followersCharles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
August 11, 2023
This is a top of the line Peanuts collection despite taking me almost three weeks to get through it. All the pieces are on the board and in their familiar configurations. There's a little too much Snoopy but the rest of the characters are in the zone. Peppermint Pattie must have been Schulz' favorite character around this time because she gets some long-running stories in the dailies.
Bonus Feature - I dropped everything to solve this equation Peppermint Pattie gets hit with:
A man has twenty coins consisting of quarters and dimes. If the quarters were dimes and dimes were quarters, he would have 90 cents more than he does now. How many dimes and quarters does he have?
Bonus Feature - I dropped everything to solve this equation Peppermint Pattie gets hit with:
A man has twenty coins consisting of quarters and dimes. If the quarters were dimes and dimes were quarters, he would have 90 cents more than he does now. How many dimes and quarters does he have?
June 17, 2015
Some strips were perfection, others a bit meh. Rating sitting somewhere inbetween the two extremes.
July 14, 2021
Lucy: "Do you think that life has its peaks and valleys?"
Charlie Brown: "Yes, I'm sure that it has..."
Lucy: "Then, that means that there must be one day above all others in each life that is the happiest, right?"
Charlie Brown: "Yes, I guess that's probably true..."
Lucy: "What if you've already had it?"
Charlie Brown: "Yes, I'm sure that it has..."
Lucy: "Then, that means that there must be one day above all others in each life that is the happiest, right?"
Charlie Brown: "Yes, I guess that's probably true..."
Lucy: "What if you've already had it?"
August 3, 2018
This is an amazing collection of Peanuts comic strips from 1973-1974. The reproduction quality is beautiful. If you a fan of Charlie Brown and the gang, this is worth getting.
December 25, 2024
screw love, i want what snoopy and woodstock have
July 21, 2021
The usual eclectic mix of the fun and games with Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang. Rerun gets a voice, mostly concerning the danger of being on a bike with his mom, Snoopy is Snoopy and Charlie Brown is elected camp leader at Summer Holiday Camp, being known as Mr Sack. As always a joy to read.
October 29, 2023
I feel a little sense of loss with this one. I used to have many coronet paperbacks as a child. One of the newest had those wonderful sequences with Sally talking and making friends with the School building. I have now officially passed that point. So everything I read from now on is new or else only read once one day on the back of the Daily Mail.
No Great Pumpkin in 1974 again, but lovely to see a return of Beethovens birthday from the lesser used (in recent years) Schroeder.
There is also a personal landmark in that I am now reading Peanuts written within my own lifetime.
No Great Pumpkin in 1974 again, but lovely to see a return of Beethovens birthday from the lesser used (in recent years) Schroeder.
There is also a personal landmark in that I am now reading Peanuts written within my own lifetime.
July 24, 2025
Charlie Brown's elected camp president, Lucy sends Schroeder's piano down the drain and out a sea. A particularly good volume for Peppermint Patty. Peanuts staying in the groove as the 70s unfold.
March 2, 2025
I feel for marcie. if i had to choose one character of the peanuts gang who represents me, i think it's marcie!
September 27, 2015
Really enjoyed the Snoopy The Novelist strips (naturally), where his penchant for puns runs high (if you check the index, you'll note that this volume actually has a treasure trove of strips concerning this cherished chapter in the beagle's inner life)
Saddest strip:
Charlie is at Lucy's psychiatric booth. He says, "I'm worried about my dad. He doesn't watch TV anymore. He sits in the kitchen every night and reads his collection of old Big-Little books." Lucy asks, "How does he act? Does he seem happy or sad?" Charlie responds, "I don't know. He just sighs a lot." "Leave him alone," Lucy says with her hand held out palm up. "Five cents, please."
[Big Little books - you can still find them tucked away in antique stores, usually by the creepy dolls and rusted-out push-pedal cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lit... ]
Un-PC strip:
Patty is skating on ice as Franklin comes along sporting a hockey stick. She asks, "All right, Franklin, what do you think you're doing?" "Playing hockey," he says, readying his stick for a shot at the puck. "What does it look like?" Patty slides by him and says, "It looks like you're in my way, that's what!" Then she gets straight in his face and says, "I'm practicing for a skating competition!" Franklin raises his hands in anger and says, "What about me? I'm practicing to become a great hockey player!" Patty skates away and leaves this question hanging in the air: "How many black players in the NHL, Franklin?"
Saddest strip:
Charlie is at Lucy's psychiatric booth. He says, "I'm worried about my dad. He doesn't watch TV anymore. He sits in the kitchen every night and reads his collection of old Big-Little books." Lucy asks, "How does he act? Does he seem happy or sad?" Charlie responds, "I don't know. He just sighs a lot." "Leave him alone," Lucy says with her hand held out palm up. "Five cents, please."
[Big Little books - you can still find them tucked away in antique stores, usually by the creepy dolls and rusted-out push-pedal cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lit... ]
Un-PC strip:
Patty is skating on ice as Franklin comes along sporting a hockey stick. She asks, "All right, Franklin, what do you think you're doing?" "Playing hockey," he says, readying his stick for a shot at the puck. "What does it look like?" Patty slides by him and says, "It looks like you're in my way, that's what!" Then she gets straight in his face and says, "I'm practicing for a skating competition!" Franklin raises his hands in anger and says, "What about me? I'm practicing to become a great hockey player!" Patty skates away and leaves this question hanging in the air: "How many black players in the NHL, Franklin?"
March 5, 2013
i liked the book. SO MUCH. that i want to kiss it. i am going to read more peanuts.
September 19, 2022
This collection of Peanuts from the mid-1970s has some of the most memorable and oddest story lines from all of Peanuts. Marcie joins Patty's baseball team. Patty sleeps in Snoopy's doghouse when she thinks it's a guest cottage. Sally starts talking to the school building. Patty tries to get Marcie to help her prepare for a figure skating competition.
One of the more involved story lines starts when Charlie Brown develops a baseball rash on the back of his head due to his anxiety over baseball. This causes him to cover his head with a paper sack. This causes him to get elected camp president. The multiple stages of this story are spread across many weeks of strips, making it an impressive feat in a medium dominated by daily and weekly episodic content.
While there wasn't anything really laugh out loud funny in this collection, the oddity and uniqueness of the stories makes it stand out even from the Peanuts pack.
One of the more involved story lines starts when Charlie Brown develops a baseball rash on the back of his head due to his anxiety over baseball. This causes him to cover his head with a paper sack. This causes him to get elected camp president. The multiple stages of this story are spread across many weeks of strips, making it an impressive feat in a medium dominated by daily and weekly episodic content.
While there wasn't anything really laugh out loud funny in this collection, the oddity and uniqueness of the stories makes it stand out even from the Peanuts pack.
February 11, 2025
Another great couple of years for Snoopy and friends. The baseball team's first victory and gambling scandal. 'Sack' as camp president. Sally and her love/hate relationship with school. Lucy and Patty deciding to get their ears pierced. Snoopy's writing exploits and his usual shenanigans with Woodstock, including one of the best quotes from the serie: "My little friend of friends... Don't you realize that your heart is worth much much more than six dollars?!"
December 27, 2020
I started this one about five years ago, after binging the first eleven volumes and writing longish reviews of each. Life got in the way about halfway through, and I've finally gotten back to it, so I started from the beginning. I'm reading the rest of this series in the next few months, but I'll leave off writing detailed reviews. Maybe another time when I do a re-read of the series.
November 7, 2021
I love how Billie Jean King wrote the introduction for this one... especially finding out about the little code between her and Sparky. He didn't call, when he missed her, he wrote a strip with her name hence the few inside, in particular when Marcie gets mad and Peppermint Patty tells her she looks like BJK when she is mad *lol*
Love it.
Love it.
June 19, 2023
lots of funny and quirky gags but also made me 🧍🏿 sometimes.
I will say i adore snoopy and woodstock's friendship and my fave strip from this book has to be 1-15's when snoopy goes "Don't you realize your heart is worth more than six dollars ?!!"
I will say i adore snoopy and woodstock's friendship and my fave strip from this book has to be 1-15's when snoopy goes "Don't you realize your heart is worth more than six dollars ?!!"
August 27, 2023
The characters created by Charles M Schulz are endearing. We can read about them any number of times without getting bored.
Whether it is holding a send-off party to Charlie Brown or Patty coming over to stay at Snoopy's doghouse, it is all adventure and fun!
Whether it is holding a send-off party to Charlie Brown or Patty coming over to stay at Snoopy's doghouse, it is all adventure and fun!
Read
July 31, 2024Noone is more relatable than snoopy.
Having a minor mental breakdown because life has no meaning, and then seeing food and going 'ah, meaning!'
You can't tell me you don't do that on a daily basis.
Having a minor mental breakdown because life has no meaning, and then seeing food and going 'ah, meaning!'
You can't tell me you don't do that on a daily basis.
May 23, 2025
Two more excellent years. Schulz favours Snoopy (a little too much), Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty, but Sally also comes into her own. The physical humour is masterfully drawn, the existential comedy as reliable as ever. Plus, Schulz dabbles with dad jokes!
June 28, 2017
Includes one of my favorite Charlie Brown sequences, Mister Sack goes to Camp.
March 26, 2019
A lot of gag-a-day comics. Peppermint Patty does badly at school, and has a sequence about ice-skating. Snoopy is a Beagle Scout and gets lost in the woods; writes and submits stories; and does literature as puppet shows. Woodstock accidentally gets a bike for Christmas. Sally talks to the school. Rerun rides on his mother's bicycle. Charlie Brown goes to camp with a sack over his head and does very well.
September 30, 2019
Meet the Easter beagle! Sally falls in love with her school.......literally! Rerun's adventures on the back of his mom's bike.......
November 20, 2020
Sally really gets funny in this volume 😃
January 25, 2023
Peanuts, always good for a laugh! Very light reading and a chance to really put 'life' into perspective.
May 29, 2023
Brilliant, of course. Loving these editions.
I’d never see the ones with Rerun in his mother’s back seat on her bicycle being terrified of her erratic cycling- hilarious.
I’d never see the ones with Rerun in his mother’s back seat on her bicycle being terrified of her erratic cycling- hilarious.
June 27, 2023
Da igual cual se lea y cuando. Son todos maravillosos.
January 5, 2024
Lots of tennis in this one.
June 13, 2025
So much fun!! I think 1974 is the first time The Great Pumpkin is not mentioned. ☹️
August 23, 2025
Marci is introduced and Peppermint Patty and Franklin take on bigger roles. Patty and violet and Frida still make appearances but are slowly going to the wayside.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews