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Peanuts!  Get Yer Peanuts!

It’s news like this that makes me squeal “Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!” like a little kid.

Fantagraphics is going to be reprinting every single Peanuts strip from its entire 50-year run in a series of chronological hardback volumes!  I can’t even tell you how excited I am at the thought of this.

At two volumes per year, it will take 12 and half years for the entire set to be completed.  And according to the article, half of the first volume has never been reprinted since its debut back in 1950.  That’s a real treat for me because I particularly love the earliest strips.  Schulz’s drawing style hadn’t yet evolved to its simplistic shaky perfection, the gang was more innocent and childlike, and Snoopy actually looked like a dog.

As a bonus coup, Toronto cartoonist Seth will be designing the books.  Other than maybe Chip Kidd who designed the gorgeous Art of Charles M. Schulz book I can’t think of a better choice than Seth.  Apart from being a known collector of comic art and comic-related books, Seth’s own artwork itself harkens back to the 1950’s with its Saturday Evening Post look (I also just read news somewhere that Schulz’s pre-Peanuts comics from said magazine will be published in the coming year as well!)

Fantagraphics is currently putting out complete reprints of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat.  With Peanuts on the way in 2004, I wonder if we can expect any other complete archival projects like this.

I’ll cross my fingers for Walt Kelly’s Pogo and EC Segar’s Thimble Theatre (aka Popeye).  I’ll also be on the lookout for this heavy brick of a book. 

I’m going to need to get a new bookshelf. Good Grief, Charlie Brown!