The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 7: 1963-1964

4:20 pm 25 March 2020

Another enjoyable couple years for the Peanuts gang. Charlie Brown gets "Eraserphagia" and "Little Leaguers Elbow", Lucy discovers Rachel Carson, Linus gets stage fright at the Christmas pageant, and Snoopy has bird problems. Many plot points for the soon-to-be-produced "Charlie Brown Christmas" special were pulled from these years as well.

The only really odd, unique thing about this volume was the introduction of '5' and his sisters '3' and '4'. They were renamed by their father because of the country's new mania for zip codes. 5's full name is 555 95472. It makes sense that the gang are Californians.

The rest of the strips are engaging and funny, of course, Schultz didn't need to reinvent the wheel to get laughs. My favorite strips were when Lucy and Frieda are commenting on the baseball game and how they might even win, and they ask each other if they even like baseball, and then Charlie Brown's finally one-upping Violet by pointing out that his father doesn't have to be the best bowler, because his dad loves him and that's enough. D'awww.

These are still a great investment, beautifully packaged and the end-papers keep getting better.

And, because Linus is on the cover - here's my Hungerford Vinyl Linus doll from ~1961, he's missing his blanket, but he's great and I'll keep my eyes out for the rest of the set: there's a Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy, baby Schroeder (with detached piano) and Sally and Pigpen.