THE COMPLETE PEANUTS: 1959–1960

Of course, after reading the Charles M. Schulz biography, I had to revisit the work itself. I still own the two old collections (Peanuts Treasury and A Snoopy Festival) I used to reread obsessively as a child, but I wanted to see some strips that were new to me, and luckily Fantagraphics is releasing the entire comic sequentially in gorgeous editions, of which my library carries a few. The earlier ones (before the strip became so Snoopy-centric in the late 1960s/early 1970s) have always been my favorites, so I picked the oldest one on the shelf. It turned out to be a landmark two years: the birth of Sally, the first mention of the Great Pumpkin, Linus’s love for Miss Othmar, Lucy’s psychiatric practice, and the famous “happiness is a warm puppy” strip. Smart, alternately bleak and sweet, and even better than I remembered.