The Complete Peanuts, 1973-1974
“Peanutswas an amazing comic. Charles Schulz was an amazing artist. Fantagraphics'Complete Peanutsseries are great and [1973-1974] is the best one yet. The humor is unparalleled and the stories are great. ... Charles Schulz was a sad and funny guy and this book features him at his saddest and funniest. If you bought some of the earlier volumes in this series and then forgot about it, then it's time to catch up.” (Nick Gazin - Vice)“Fantagraphics Books continues its series devoted to chronologically packaging the strip and has not missed a step along the way. ... I’m pleased to inform that the latest edition, the twelfth in the series, is as lovingly curated as the first.” (Dw. Dunphy - Popdose)“Reading [The Complete Peanuts 1971-72and1973-74] in one fell swoop, I've kind of come to the conclusion that this period is really the apex of Schulz's career. ...he was never as consistently hilarious or as poignant as he was in the early to mid-70s. If you're only buying two volumes of this series, it should be these two.” (Chris Mautner - Robot 6)“Schulz had gone from a fairly grounded sense of consensus reality to Snoopy's flights of fancy to outright weirdness... That seems to be the essence of Sparky Schulz to me: even with the pressure of the daily grind and his position as the linchpin of what had become a vast empire, Schulz wrote to amuse himself...    At his best in this volume, Schulz gave the readers some of the best stories of his career.” (Rob Clough - High-Low)“Most comic strips today, especially those that are humor strips, often avoid topical subjects. Schulz embraced the topics of the era. They may date the strip, but it never leaves them outdated. ... Schulz was also not afraid to carry on-going storylines for several days or in some cases, even a couple of weeks. ... [The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974] also features all the favorite subjects like Linus’ annual wait for the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’s trip to Summer camp, and Sally’s letters to Santa Claus. This is why Peanuts is the greatest strip ever!” (Tim Janson - Newsarama)“Even though Woodstock casts a large shadow on the cover of Fantagraphics’The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974, it’s Peppermint Patty who should get star billing. Not to take anything away from Snoopy’s yellow-feathered avian sidekick—who does make several appearances through the hardcover tome—it’s just that Patty eventually gets the brunt of character development attention, while Woodstock exists as the perfect foil for Snoopy. ... Also of note is Schulz’s repeated use of standard gags (Lucy pulling the football from Charlie) along with a few new ones, including the consoling 'Poor, sweet baby.' Because of his tendency to keep running gags contained within a year’s span, it makes a trade collection work better than with most comic strips.” (Christopher Irving - Graphic NYC)“[S]hows Schulz's staggering talent in the prime of his career.” (Jonathan Kuehlein - Toronto Star)“It’s impossible to think of another popular art form that reaches across generations the way the daily comic strip does…at the pinnacle of that long tradition, there was Charles Schulz.” (Seattle Times)“Really strong stuff here, including the "Charlie Brown wears a sack on his head to summer camp" sequence, surely the "Poison River" ofPeanuts.” (Patrick Markfort, - Articulate Nerd)“Charles M. Schulz is my favorite cartoonist, so I was excited to see that the twelfth volume in the series has an introduction by the legendary Billie Jean King... This is a important series of books which I give an ‘A Plus’ and I think it would be the ultimate part of aPeanutsfan’s collection!” (The Catgirl Critics)“The best way to celebrate Schulz and his work is the ongoing series being published by Fantagraphics. The latest volume—The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974—is a lovingly produced volume that includes every strip from those two years in a handsome hardcover book designed by Seth. Like earlier editions, it's a thrill to read the strip chronologically and in one fell swoop.” (Michael Giltz - The Huffington Post)“These hardcover editions are produced with such love and reverence that it's fun to just pick them up and page through them, at least for a bibliophile like myself. Not to be missed.” (Greg Hatcher - Comic Book Resources)“Where most American gag strips were about the silly things that happen every day,Peanutswas about how to keep on living when you don't get what you want. It was still vital and true at this point, even if more and more of the stories focused on Snoopy quaffing root beers with Bill Mauldin, or writing bad novels, or playing tennis.” (Andrew Wheeler - The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.)“What more can I say about these wonderful collections? I’ve enjoyed each one immensely so far; they make me laugh and grin and even smirk a little from time to time... Top notch book. You can’t have a much better time than reading these collections. Highly recommended.” (Todd Klein, comic book letterer, designer, and writer)