Snoopy atop his doghouse, Lucy's five-cent psychiatric booth, the Great Pumpkin, Miss Othmar, and Sally all debut. All this, and "Happiness is a warm puppy." Nearly 200 rare or unseen strips! Introduction by Whoopi Goldberg. As the first decade of Peanuts closes, it seems only fitting to bid farewell to that halcyon decade with a cover starring Patty, one of the original three Peanuts. Major new additions to classic Peanuts lore come fast and furious here. Snoopy begins to take up residence atop his doghouse, and his repertoire of impressions increases exponentially. Lucy sets up her booth and offers her first five-cent psychiatric counsel. (Her advice to a forlorn Charlie Brown: "Get over it.") For the very first time, Linus spends all night in the pumpkin patch on his lonely vigil for the Great Pumpkin (although he laments that he was a victim of "false doctrine," he's back 12 months later). Linus also gets into repeated, and visually explosive, scuffles with a blanket-stealing Snoopy, suffers the first depredations of his blanket-hating grandmother, and falls in love with his new teacher Miss Othmar. Even more importantly, several years after the last addition to the cast ("Pig-Pen"), Charlie Brown's sister Sally makes her appearance―first as an (off-panel) brand new baby for Charlie to gush over, then as a toddler and eventually a real, talking, thinking cast member. (By the end of this volume, she'll already start developing her crush on Linus.) All this, and one of the most famous Peanuts strips ever: "Happiness is a warm puppy." Almost one hundred of the 731 strips collected in this volume (including many Sundays) have never been collected in any book since their original release, with one hundred more having been collected only once in relatively obscure and now impossible-to-find books; in other words, close to one quarter of the strips have never been seen by anyone but the most avid Peanuts completists. The introduction is by comedienne extraordinaire Whoopi Goldberg, who reveals which Peanuts character she has tattooed on her body (and where)―as well as telling of her meeting with "Sparky" Schulz, and her fascinating theory on Snoopy's brother Spike. As always, this volume is gorgeously designed by award-winning cartoonist Seth. The Complete Peanuts continues to receive national and international media attention for its sophisticated treatment of one of the 20th Century's defining American classics. A 2007 Eisner Award winner: Best Archival Collection/Project: Strips; a 2007 Harvey Award winner: Best Domestic Reprint Project. 730 black-and-white comic strips The fifth volume in Fantagraphics Books' Complete Peanuts series welcomes a new character: Sally, Charlie Brown's baby sister. It's interesting to see how the perpetually beleaguered CB--criticized for having a "face" face or a "failure face--now takes on the responsibility of worrying about the world his sister will grow up in. His role as manager of the baseball team continues to bring him woe, losing 600-0, losing all 20 games of the season, making a daring attempt to steal home, and having to miss a game to push his sister's stroller. Linus, at first wondering if Sally will someday go out with him, gets his answer in spades: "Isn't he the cutest thing?" But he'd much rather lavish his attention on the new teacher, Miss Othmar ("I'm very fond of the ground on which she walks"), even if his eggshell project doesn't work out as planned. Snoopy, though threatened by a hanging icicle and a possible freeway through his home, still finds joy in being a gopher, the Big Man on Campus, or the Mad Punter. "Peanuts" was well into its classic years in the 1959-60 period, with such signature moments as "Happiness is a warm puppy" and a lot of material that would become familiar staples of the Christmas and Halloween television specials. --David Horiuchi During 1959-60, Schulz premiered several Peanuts essentials. Snoopy now lounges atop his doghouse rather than in it, Lucy establishes her psychiatric practice, and Linus observes the first of his fruitless Halloween vigils for the Great Pumpkin. Charlie Brown's sister debuts, giving him more to be depressed about ("I thought that having a baby sister would change my whole life, but it hasn't"). What's more, the period includes the famous "Happiness is a warm puppy" strip. Librarians should appreciate a two-week sequence in which Charlie Brown despairs over losing a library book ("You're a dead duck," Lucy tells him). By this point, Schulz's always-appealing artwork has been pared to perfection, and yet he would make it simpler still in decades to come. Gordon Flagg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Undeniably crackling... the illustrations are a marvel of simplicity and the insights are haunting." ― Publishers Weekly "One can scarcely overstate the importance of Peanuts to the comics, or overstate its influence on all of us who have followed.