The Complete Peanuts, 1961-1962

The series that launched a comic strip renaissance enters Schulz's second decade.

Launching into the 1960s, Schulz adds another new cast member. Two, in fact: The obnoxious Frieda of "naturally curly hair" fame, and her inert, seemingly boneless cat Faron. The rapidly maturing Sally, who was after all just born in the previous volume, is ready to start kindergarten and not at all happy about it. Lucy and Linus' war over the security blanket escalates, with Lucy burying it, cutting it apart, and, in the longest sequence of the book, turning it into a kite and allowing it to fly away. Aauugh! In fact, Linus' life is particularly turbulent in this volume, as he is forced to wear glasses, sees the unexpected return of his favorite teacher, Miss Othmar, and coaxes Sally into the cult of the Great Pumpkin (with regrettable results).

Snoopy, meanwhile, becomes a compulsive water sprinkler head stander, unhappily befriends a snowman or two, and endures a family crisis involving a little family of birds. (Woodstock—the bird, and the music festival, for that matter—is still a few years away.) And in one of the strangest continuities in the history of Peanuts, the (off-panel) Van Pelt parents acquire a tangerine-colored pool table and become obsessed with it! Plus baseball blowouts (including a rare team victory), Beethoven birthdays, plenty of dubious psychiatric help for a nickel, and an introduction by Diana Krall. 730 black-and-white comic strips