The Complete Peanuts, 1997-1998

The Complete Peanuts #24

by Charles M. Schulz

Charlie Brown gets involved in a sports memorabilia forgery ring and Snoopy gets his driver’s license in the penultimate volume of the best-selling comic strip reprint series.

Even the most devoted Peanuts fan will be surprised by revisiting Schulz’s last decade of work. Schulz’s cartooning has never been more expressive, and his sense of humor never more unencumbered by formula or tradition. In this volume, Charlie Brown gets caught up in a fake celebrity autographs racket, Rerun gets accused of sexual harassment, the infamous “Crybaby” Boobie returns, Snoopy’s brothers go on a quest to find Mickey Mouse, Snoopy gets his driver’s license, Rerun continues to pursue the underground arts, Linus starts his own church of Great Pumpkin believers and is declared a false prophet, and other surprises that make these last few years of Peanuts ripe for reconsideration. This is the 24th volume (of 25) of the bestselling series collecting every single one of the 18,000-plus strips created by Schulz from 1950-2000. Also available is the holiday boxed set, offering Vols. 23 and 24.

Genres: Comics, Humor, Graphic Novels, Comic Strips, Comedy, Fiction, Classics

344 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2015

About the author

Charles 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.”

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the penultimate collection of Peanuts comics. It leans on Rerun Van Pelt a bit hard but there's also a good deal of Peppermint Patty and Marcie so it evens out.

[Baal Of · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something deeply sad about this volume, that seems to go beyond the usual existential melancholy of Peanuts in general. There are few genuine laugh out loud moments, and those few have a sense of despair hidden under the humor. Schulz seems to me to hone in on the ultimate futility of life, which at this time of my life and certain circumstances I have recently gone through, resonate deeply. I'm not sure how good it is for me to be reading things like this that reinforce my tendencies toward nihilism, but I'll think that way whether or not I read more Peanuts, so fuck it, I'll keep going.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The end is in sight and I think anyone who has made it this far in The Complete Peanuts is committed to complete the cycle and my guess is that anyone who would read this falls into the same category as me. In this issue covering the years 1997-1998, Charles Schulz takes on a range of issues, topics, neuroses, and one gets the sense that he knows his best days are behind him. Yet there are moments of genius, like the Sunday strips when Snoopy is serving in Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War or the occasional meeting of his brother Spike in the trenches of WWI. Rerun, younger brother of Lucy and Linus, gets lots of frame time that edges his siblings to the sidelines. He tries mightily to get Snoopy to play with him, but he'll be lucky to get the beagle in his role as solicitor.

The best strip was one of the rare ones when he exposed his political views. Charlie Brown and Snoopy are getting the bureaucratic run around in search of a fishing license. As they run into people who license everything but fishing, Charlie ponders if they can get any. In the final frame, Snoopy is marching behind him with an assault rifle on his shoulder. Would he be more political today, 21 years later?

[Jim Kuenzli · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot more development with Rerun which was actually some of the funnier stuff in this volume. His relationship with Snoopy was quite fun. A little more variety in this one as well. Not as predictable. Unfortunately, the next book is the last in this 50 year series.

[Brandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I post reviews of The Complete Peanuts I usually don't discuss the content of the volume because the fifty year run of Peanuts is one of the classic expression of the comics medium on the "funny pages" and Charles Schulz would likely appear on any comics Mount Rushmore given his contributions to the genre. So instead I usually post my favorite strip from the collection I am reviewing. I am going to do so here, but as with my previous review, I want to indulge in talking about this penultimate volume of The Complete Peanuts.

While I have enjoyed reading The Complete Peanuts (especially since I am almost done and have read the complete run of the comic), reading the volumes consisting of Schulz's work in the 1990s has also been difficult, because it is obvious that the 1990s Peanuts is evidence of Schulz in decline. The 1990s Peanuts is Schulz at his most self indulgent, using the cachet he had built up over the previous four decades of truly great work to follow whatever thread he wanted to on the comics page. And honestly, who would call him out for that? Peanuts by the late 1990s had become an indelible part of American culture, and Schulz and his Peanuts gang would forever become the staple of not only the comics page (in reprints), but also with the annual transmission of A Charlie Brown Christmas, other media as well.

This leads to the strip that I've included in my review. My all time favorite movie is Casablanca. As such when I saw this strip from April 26, 1998, I felt like I needed to include it in my review. While I love the fact that this strip centers on a scene from the film that contains my favorite line from the film ("Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine" is the original delivered by Humphrey Bogart) I think this strip is also indicative of the self indulgence I mentioned above. This strip is not particularly funny or clever, really--but as is common with latter day Peanuts, more of a monument to a film that Schulz likely loved as a young man.



As we now know, by February 2000, Peanuts would end, and Schulz himself would die the day before the last original Sunday strip would run. The daily strip concluded its run on January 3, 2000 and given that these strips were composed less than two years before those final strips, it is likely Schulz was aware of his retirement of the strip when he produced his Casablanca inspired strip. Honestly, I can't imagine producing this sort of quality work day in and day out for fifty years and yet Schulz did so, even when I believe that the joke on the page was ultimately for him, regardless of how others viewed it. I would say this is likely indicative of Schulz's greatness. The fact that so many people also valued his observations for so long is why Peanuts endures, even twenty years after his death.

[Gabriel Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sally: "I need help with my homework..."
Charlie Brown: "We all need help with our homework... We're all pleading for someone to listen... We're all desperate..."
Sally: "I live in the wrong house..."

[Erin Finlen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Normally I don't count the books I read my son to my reading challenge. But he had me read all 320 pages in one day so this counts.

[Stuart Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I have nearly completed the run. The sharpness and originality is waning but there is still warmth and humour. I particularly loved the ongoing skit of Snoopy's brothers, Olaf and Andy, looking for Spike and never finding him.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the penultimate volume in The Complete Peanuts series so I am feeling sad: only one more volume to go. There is some familiar brilliance, a few surprises, and a few strips that are stale ideas that perhaps might not have found their way to print a decade earlier. Schulz’s hand is not as steady so some lines quiver a touch. But in years 47 and 48 of doing Peanuts there is still much more that works than doesn’t. There are fresh spins on perennial jokes (Charlie Brown’s kick of the football held by Lucy; his love for the Little Red-Headed Girl; Snoopy’s fantasy life; Linus and his blanket; etc.) and a few new and topical takes. At least one joke repeats (Linus from a hiding place behind a tree flings a snowball at Lucy walking by; she keeps walking but issues a threat without turning her head and Linus in a panic outruns the snowball to catch it before it hits his sister—was also a strip in Volume 20. But actually it’s still funny. Sin forgiven.

Peanuts in its twilight remains an ethical world of shadow and light. Charlie Brown buys a fake autograph baseball and when he goes to complain he gets offered a job to forge signatures. He can’t do it and quits after signing a basketball with his dad’s name. “I don’t do fake autographs,” he tells his boss (also a kid), “that’s my dad’s name…he’s a barber.” The boss asks if he is famous: “Tell him to autograph a barber pole! We could sell it!”

Sally periodically through the two years of strips wrestles with a new working philosophy. “That’s my new philosophy. ‘Where will it all end?’” Charlie Brown credits her thinking and she replies, “Where will it all end?” Later her new philosophy is “No!” Charlie Brown verifies, “That’s your new philosophy, huh?” Sally replies, “Yes! I mean ‘No!’” Pauses. “You ruined my new philosophy.” Lucy tells Snoopy he is of no importance, just a tiny speck in the universe. Snoopy, undisturbed, thinks, “Then might as well go back to sleep.”

Rerun has to learn how to deal with a bully by sticking up for himself. “You looking for a punch in the nose, kid?” “Try it,” says Rerun, channeling his inner Lucy, “And I’ll trade you one for two.” The bully decides he maybe doesn’t need the red crayon after all and Rerun beams, a brilliantly rendered expression that in Schulz’s trademark simple lines still manages to capture startled joy and relief.

Charlie Brown doesn’t get his homework done one day. “Well I had to feed my dog, and take him for a walk and then read to him.” The teacher is surprised by that last chore. “Yes, ma’am, I read to my dog every night…And I never ask him to write a book report.” The last panel of five shows Charlie Brown in almost the same pose as the two previous ones, only instead he is apologizing. “Sorry, ma’am…that just sort of slipped out.” And, again, with almost no change in the rendering of Charlie Brown’s face, he has gone from looking relaxed to looking anxious.

Among my favorite strips are a handful that show the three Van Pelt children together. In one Rerun ponders aloud about the fate of the third child as the three play a board game. “If you’re the third child in a family, and your brother and sister are definitely weird, I wonder if it’s possible for that third child to develop an immunity to all the unfortunate things that occur in a family to that innocent third child who…” He doesn’t get to complete the thought. Rerun, suddenly a victim of homo evictus, is flying upside down out the front door. He observes, “So much for immunity.”

Another sequence I liked and that seemed familiar to me showed Charlie Brown trying to renew Snoopy’s dog license. Each visit to city hall results in a different license—first a driver’s permit, then a fishing license, finally a dog license. Charlie is explaining this to the clerk at the counter when in the middle panel he turns to respond to Snoopy. “No, she says you don’t need a license for that.” That being the automatic rifle Snoopy has over his shoulder. Boom! Schulz on gun control.

Final example of Schulz’s excellence: as a novelist, Snoopy continues to have his problems—mailboxes, for example, flee his most recent submissions. But still he writes: “She called him ‘adorable,’ and it caused him more trouble than anything that ever happened to him in his whole life.” Lucy, often Snoopy’s first critic, is impressed. “‘adorable’ hmmm. That’s a pretty good beginning.” Lucy’s unexpected praise is not the punchline. She goes on to talk about how important a good beginning is. Snoopy considers this and thinks, “This isn’t the beginning. It’s the ending.” There is something not just funny but poignant in this given it comes not at the beginning of Schulz’s career but near its ending. Poignant and goddamn impressive.

[Benn Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the penultimate volume of "The Complete Peanuts" book series, we once again find Rerun Van Pelt, Linus and Lucy's younger brother, one of the main characters in the strip. This isn't a bad thing as Rerun brought fresh energy and perspective to "Peanuts". Not that the strip needed it. Schulz, even in the final years of his career, was writing and drawing some of the best comic strips ever produced. That he was still coming up with fresh ideas and new ways of dealing with some of the tropes of "Peanuts" is a tribute to his talent. I wasn't going to buy another volume of these books once it got up to about the 1975 strips, but I decided to continue til the final volume. I'm glad I did.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Rerun. :)

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume sees the return of Crybaby Boobie, and Rerun Van Pelt really developing as a character. Andy and Olaf's misdirection seems to be the running gag of this volume, with one strip showing Snoopy writing thoughtfully about them and musing "we'll probably never see them again."

Did Charles Schulz just kill off two of his characters? I wondered when I read this. Continuing the thought, I realized that I was reading the penultimate volume and started wondering about the circumstances and timeline of Schulz's retirement and death. I was really worried! The question lead me to a piece in The Atlantic called "The Exemplary Narcissism of Snoopy."

As it turns out, Andy and Olaf show up again just a few pages later—and again and again after that. They spend much of this two-year volume looking for Spike, it seems, getting within visual distance of him in the night before continuing through the desert. But thinking about the fact that this is the second to last volume was important because instead of looking for firsts, I'm now looking for lasts.

It occurs to me that I may cry at several points during the last volume. The piece in The Atlantic referred to Schulz's later strips as "shaky," although haven't they always been a bit? But will I notice his physical issues in the work as I read that last book?

In 2004 I remember reading a NPR article about the incipient publication of the first volume of the series and Fantagraphics' plans to release the entirety of the work in 25 volumes over the course of 12 years. I vowed to read them all, but it was inconceivable at the time that I'd be on the other end of the task looking back. Now that I am near the point of looking back, I am still just as amazed and thankful to Fantagraphics for the amazing project they've completed and the hard work that went into it.

What will be next for me and Peanuts then? TO RE-READ THEM ALL!

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Peanuts series was clearly on the decline in the previous volume and it continues in this penultimate volume. You can't really fault Schulz for finally running out of steam so far into his monumental 17,897 strip run. But there's not really any gags at this point. Rerun is featured far too often. Snoopy still spends too much time World War I and now also spends time in Valley Forge for some reason. Snoopy's brothers (all of them) just aren't funny, and bringing in Olaf and Andy so often smacks of the trope where a television show starts adding characters late in its run.

There are still some of the greatest hits that you can always rely on in Peanuts. Lucy pulls the football out from Charlie Brown. The baseball team is terrible. Patty and Marcie tussle over Charlie Brown's affection. Patty fails at school. Oddly, I don't recall a single strip with Franklin, though.

The biggest surprise was the 12-30-97 strip.

Panel 1: Charlie Brown: "Yes, ma'am. We got the new dog license. We also go a driver's license and a fishing license."
Panel 2: Charlie Brown: "No, she says you don't need a license for that."
Panel 3: Snoopy walks off shouldering an assault rifle.

That's the most political Peanuts strip I can think of. And it's only become more timely over the intervening years.

The totality of Peanuts is astounding. And Schulz had loads in the tank for the bulk of that run. But it's evident maybe he could have learned to call it day earlier.

[Dave H · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a kid I read the comics page in the newspaper every day, religiously, every day. Charlie Brown was always a favorite. I checked out the small paperback collections from the library- these from runs in the 1970s. It was after high school I gradually fell out of love with the comics page, they just weren't 'as good anymore,' but that was probably just growing up and the things that appealed to me as a kid weren't as a appealing. I hadn't seen enough to see them as a grown-up, and didn't read much of good ol' Charlie Brown in the 1990s.

A number of years ago I started into the Fantagraphics collections, 1957 & 1958, so good! I came across a couple of strips from the late 1990s that were pretty good and decided to check in and see - was I wrong about comics in the 1990s? Was it Schulz or was it me? It was mostly me. The average strip from the Golden Age of Charlie Brown is better than at the end, the highs better, too. I loved the Spike lines as a kid, not so much now. Rerun is a star of these late strips (I didn't catch the cleverness of that name). Sally has some nice material. Amazing that Schulz consistently created so much at a grand level for so long - a treasure of America.

[Katie]

pp. 1-10 (Jan. 1997) - B&W

Summary:
Snoopy, a personified dog, and his quirky gang of human kid friends play simple pranks on one another. Snoopy takes on over-the top challenges and his friends fill in adult roles of accountant, psychiatrist, etc. Historical knowledge is not necessary to understand this timeless classic.

Visual Keywords:
- multi-panel
- sequential

Text Style:

Potential Readers:
- kids
- teens
- adults
- parents
- anyone
- dog-lovers

Awards:
- none noted

Other:
-

[Poet for fun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantástico, al igual que los 5 tomos previos. Más allá de las preferencias literarias o personales de cada lector, estos libros enriquecen y embellecen cualquier librero, biblioteca y colección; son una verdadera joya que marca uno de los puntos más altos de la literatura y el arte universal; poéticos como haikus y tragicómicos como las mejores escenas de los grandes dramaturgos, son totalmente encantadores.

Como nota curiosa: me extrañó un poco que algunas tiras decembrinas publicadas originalmente en 1990 fueran reutilizadas en el año 1997 para el mismo periodo.

[Ray Smillie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not Schulz at his peak but still very good. Olaf and Andy make several global trips to visit Spike after being denied a long stay with Snoopy as, for some reason, the dog food bill was sky high. ;) They never do get together with Spike although there were a couple of near misses. Meanwhile Spike spends some time in a veterinary hospital and is allowed tapioca (one of my favourite desserts from my childhood). Almost nearing the end of the Complete Peanuts which I don't want to end.

[Ki · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, I loved this book. I almost cried a few times, especially on pages 74 and 106. I can't believe how suspenseful those pages were. Each time I thought Andy and Olaf were gone for good and I wanted to shake Charles Schulz for doing this to me!!! Of course there were other adorable moments such as page 96 and the entire Snoopy panels on page 78. These books are so enjoyable and I'm sad that I'm almost finished with them.

[Al McCarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

We’re getting into the home stretch. Almost there. And in the year 1998, Schulz has repeated a joke for the second time ever. This time it’s Rerun, not Linus, who asks if he’s buttering too loud, and it’s inscribed to his daughter, who inspired the joke, decades earlier, for her birthday. I’ll let this one slide.

[Natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ingenioso y divertido. Snoopy y sus amigos son un grupo súper gracioso y entrañable cada uno con su personalidad extravagante, les coges cariño muy rápido. Snoopy el mejor, este perro hace de todo: escribe libros, reflexiona sobre la vida, es abogado, soldado, piloto, y hasta se saca el carnet de conducir 😭 te quiero Snoopy 🤍🖤

[Kimb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read all the old peanuts books I could get my hands on as a kid. For some reason I always assumed that the quality kind of tapered off at the end. But it's entirely the opposite. These strips from 1997-1998 are exceptionally good.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schulz is still in good form here as we approach the end of the strip's run. Rerun is a fairly major character during this period giving Schulz two educational levels to play with, kindergarten with Rerun and friends and whatever elementary grade Peppermint Patty and Marcie are in.

[Roy DeRousse · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some gems, but overall the strips in these years were not very funny. It was a struggle to get through.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of Rerun Van Pelt. I love this character. There is humor that addresses the issues of the time.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much Rerun but I liked the recurring Andy and Olaf bit and Spike got a good amount of focus.

[Lee Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot of Spike, Olaf, and Andy in this one, and Rerun keeps trying to borrow Snoopy. We are almost to the end.

[Michael Pedro Gellibert]

Can I read this

[Sadie-Jane Huff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Linus and Re-run.
Re-run outranks Linus slightly now.
Happy start to the work week!

[Stasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heavy on the Rerun. Love it!! 💜

[Mesim · Rating 5 out of 5]

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