What do you think?
Rate this book
Peanuts: Friends Forever
“It’s good to have a friend.”—Snoopy
Everyone loves Peanuts ! And now to celebrate the sixty-fifth anniversary of characters known around the world comes Friends Forever, an original collection of full-color comic strips featuring the whole gang. Charlie Brown ponders Life. Linus waits up all night for the Great Pumpkin. Peppermint Patty tries (and fails) to whip the baseball team into shape. Lucy proves time and again that she cannot be trusted with a football. Through ups and down, these beloved friends remind us why Charles M. Schulz’s cherished creation remains the most popular comic series of all time.
Everyone loves Peanuts ! And now to celebrate the sixty-fifth anniversary of characters known around the world comes Friends Forever, an original collection of full-color comic strips featuring the whole gang. Charlie Brown ponders Life. Linus waits up all night for the Great Pumpkin. Peppermint Patty tries (and fails) to whip the baseball team into shape. Lucy proves time and again that she cannot be trusted with a football. Through ups and down, these beloved friends remind us why Charles M. Schulz’s cherished creation remains the most popular comic series of all time.
- GenresGraphic NovelsFiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2015
25 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,035 books1,646 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 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 19, 2023
Nice colored reprints of strips from the Sixties, but they're presented in no sort of order.
December 9, 2016
Charles M Schulz truly created quirky and fun characters, and I read this collection with a huge smile on my face. Getting this from my best friend left a warm imprint on my heart, and I loved how all various kinds of friendships are shown in this book- friendships between siblings, friends, and humans and their pets. I couldn't help seeing similarities between Linus and I and his older sister, Lucy, and my older sister Meg. Brought back fun memories! I highly recommend these comics for all ages.
April 17, 2019
My family’s love for Peanuts spans generations. This was a fun book to read and giggle over. I miss reading the Sunday comics-some days I think of subscribing to a newspaper just so I can read them again. But the book form is okay too.
December 8, 2024
4.99 could’ve had more schroeder and lucy.
December 19, 2016
Special Valentine's Day gift that I looked forward to reading before bed many nights. Definite reread!
January 28, 2023
Book 22 of 200 ~ 2023
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Again, PEANUTS.
Short review only - I LOVE THE PEANUTS SO IT IS ALWAYS 5 STARS.
Okthxbye
#book22of200 #amreading #tbrpile #instareads #readstagram
#reading #bookreview #bookreviewer #booklover #booksAreLife #booksForTheWin #peanuts #thisbookfairyisreading #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagramfeature #bookshelf #booksofinstagram #bookish #bookworm #goodreads #booklovers #theSGbookfairyReads #theSGtrekkiereads #bookaholic #bookaddict #bookchallenge2023 #reviews #lovebooks #booknerds
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Again, PEANUTS.
Short review only - I LOVE THE PEANUTS SO IT IS ALWAYS 5 STARS.
Okthxbye
#book22of200 #amreading #tbrpile #instareads #readstagram
#reading #bookreview #bookreviewer #booklover #booksAreLife #booksForTheWin #peanuts #thisbookfairyisreading #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagramfeature #bookshelf #booksofinstagram #bookish #bookworm #goodreads #booklovers #theSGbookfairyReads #theSGtrekkiereads #bookaholic #bookaddict #bookchallenge2023 #reviews #lovebooks #booknerds
March 17, 2019
I really loveeeee this. Lucy and Linus are so cute I can’t get enough of them. There’s a lot of laugh out loud strips. Really want to read more from Charles M.Schulz
January 25, 2020
Simply delightful. A real gem. Who said you cannot have imaginary friends? Well, the gang is here and they will be around tomorrow too because they are classic friends worth keeping
September 10, 2020
Peanuts characters like Schroeder, snoopy, linus & good ol Charlie Brown never fails to put a smile on my face.
Read
December 20, 2023Great book
November 7, 2015
It's a lot of Linus and Lucy, but I love their relationship, so I really enjoyed it. What's interesting, though, is that we see the beginning of Peppermint Patty and she at first wanted Linus. She's not in here a lot, but when she is she's into Linus. I don't think I realized she had it bad for anyone other than Chuck.
December 1, 2015
Solid collection of Schulz comic strips. One strip had a rather spiteful jab at the New York Mets that I quite enjoyed :)
September 7, 2020
I just loved it.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews