The Peanuts Collection: Treasures from the World's Most Beloved Comic Strip - Hardcover

Nat Gertler is the founder and author of Aaugh.com, a comprehensive resource for Peanuts collectors and fans. Gertler has written for Speed Racer, Flintstones, and NASCAR Adventures. He has authored horror works for Pocket Books, written a number of titles in the Complete Idiot's Guide series, contributes regularly to Hogan's Alley, a comics-related magazine, and is the founder and publisher of packager About Comics.

It’s been a decade since the death of cartoonist Charles Schulz, but the popularity of his comic strip Peanuts shows no signs of abating: reprints of vintage strips appear in 2,200 newspapers, TV adaptations remain perennially popular, and Charlie Brown and his friends continue to adorn T-shirts worldwide. The millions of die-hard fans who sustain the strip’s success will delight in this lavish offering, which draws on the holdings of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and the family’s archives. The succinctly informative text, along with a representative handful of strips, is the crux of the volume, but the bulk is devoted to a motley yet fascinating assemblage of memorabilia: rare photos, preliminary sketches, toys and games, promotional materials, and advertisements featuring the characters. Scrapbook-type items are housed in pouches, including coloring-book pages, a facsimile animation cell, trading cards, and even correspondence from fans. The result is a treasure trove for Peanutophiles. Libraries that have had circulation success with the recent volumes reprinting the entire 50-year run of Peanuts should supplement that series with this lovingly curated tribute. --Gordon Flagg