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The Complete Peanuts #14
The Complete Peanuts, 1977-1978
Many new characters, in one of Schulz’s most creative periods! With an introduction by Alec Baldwin.
As the 1970s wind down, the last two recurring Peanuts characters have fallen into place: Snoopy’s brother Spike and the youngest Van Pelt sibling, Rerun. But that doesn’t mean Schulz’s creativity has diminished; in fact, this volume features an amazing profusion of hilariously distinctive new one- (or two-) shot characters!
For instance, in an epic five-week sequence, when Charlie Brown, found guilty by the EPA of biting the Kite-Eating tree, he goes on the lam and ends up coaching the “Goose Eggs,” a group of diminutive baseball players, Austin, Ruby, Leland, and―did you know there was a second black Peanuts character, aside from Franklin?―Milo.
Also: a tennis-playing Snoopy ends up reluctantly teamed with the extreme Type “A” athlete Molly Volley... who then reappears later in the book, now facing off against her nemesis, “Crybaby” Boobie. (Honest!) Add in Sally’s new camp friend Eudora, the thuggish “caddymaster” who shoots down Peppermint Patty and Marcie’s new vocation, an entire hockey team, and a surprise repeat appearance by Linus’s sweetheart “Truffles” (creating a love triangle with Sally), all in addition to the usual cast of beloved characters (including the talking schoolhouse and the doghouse-jigsawing cat, who gets hold of Linus’s blanket in this one), and you’ve got a veritable crowd of characters.
It’s another two years of the greatest comic strip of all time, full of laughs and surprises. 730 black-and-white comic strips.
As the 1970s wind down, the last two recurring Peanuts characters have fallen into place: Snoopy’s brother Spike and the youngest Van Pelt sibling, Rerun. But that doesn’t mean Schulz’s creativity has diminished; in fact, this volume features an amazing profusion of hilariously distinctive new one- (or two-) shot characters!
For instance, in an epic five-week sequence, when Charlie Brown, found guilty by the EPA of biting the Kite-Eating tree, he goes on the lam and ends up coaching the “Goose Eggs,” a group of diminutive baseball players, Austin, Ruby, Leland, and―did you know there was a second black Peanuts character, aside from Franklin?―Milo.
Also: a tennis-playing Snoopy ends up reluctantly teamed with the extreme Type “A” athlete Molly Volley... who then reappears later in the book, now facing off against her nemesis, “Crybaby” Boobie. (Honest!) Add in Sally’s new camp friend Eudora, the thuggish “caddymaster” who shoots down Peppermint Patty and Marcie’s new vocation, an entire hockey team, and a surprise repeat appearance by Linus’s sweetheart “Truffles” (creating a love triangle with Sally), all in addition to the usual cast of beloved characters (including the talking schoolhouse and the doghouse-jigsawing cat, who gets hold of Linus’s blanket in this one), and you’ve got a veritable crowd of characters.
It’s another two years of the greatest comic strip of all time, full of laughs and surprises. 730 black-and-white comic strips.
344 pages, Hardcover
First published September 27, 2010
43 people are currently reading
540 people want to read
About the author
Charles M. Schulz
3,037 books1,631 followersCharles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
June 3, 2023
Someone else won half the Peanuts books I bid on so here we are at 1978. I skipped a bunch of years but it's not like there's a tight continuity.
Anyway, Sally Brown is in full swing, defending her sweet babboo Linus from Eudora. Snoopy plays tennis with Molly Volley and sometimes Crybaby Boobie. Lucy continues for force unwanted advances on Schroeder. Marcie and Peppermint Pattie show they could easily have taken over the strip if Sparky needed them too.
There weren't a lot of negatives in this, although I missed Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin in 1978. Also, Snoopy's wedding story ended pretty abruptly. I wonder if Sparky had second thoughts about that. Charlie Brown actually isn't in these volumes all that much, which is fine with me. I wonder if Schulz decided to space out Chuck's misery.
I don't think these series would have lasted half as long if Schulz hadn't added a new character every couple years for the rest of the cast to bounce off of. I read Schulz developed a tremor in his hand sometime in his career and I have to think it was between this volume and the last 1960s volume I read. I notice a little bit of squiggle but I think it gives the art a little more character.
After reading a bunch of these, it's becoming apparent to me that Bill Watterson must have read these religiously as a kid. Calvin and Hobbes has a lot of Peanuts in it.
Four out of five stars. I forget how many more of these I have in the basement.
Anyway, Sally Brown is in full swing, defending her sweet babboo Linus from Eudora. Snoopy plays tennis with Molly Volley and sometimes Crybaby Boobie. Lucy continues for force unwanted advances on Schroeder. Marcie and Peppermint Pattie show they could easily have taken over the strip if Sparky needed them too.
There weren't a lot of negatives in this, although I missed Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin in 1978. Also, Snoopy's wedding story ended pretty abruptly. I wonder if Sparky had second thoughts about that. Charlie Brown actually isn't in these volumes all that much, which is fine with me. I wonder if Schulz decided to space out Chuck's misery.
I don't think these series would have lasted half as long if Schulz hadn't added a new character every couple years for the rest of the cast to bounce off of. I read Schulz developed a tremor in his hand sometime in his career and I have to think it was between this volume and the last 1960s volume I read. I notice a little bit of squiggle but I think it gives the art a little more character.
After reading a bunch of these, it's becoming apparent to me that Bill Watterson must have read these religiously as a kid. Calvin and Hobbes has a lot of Peanuts in it.
Four out of five stars. I forget how many more of these I have in the basement.
August 15, 2021
Charlie Brown: "Sometimes I think I don't know anything about life. I need help. Tell me a great truth! Tell me something about living that will help me..."
Lucy: "Do you ever wake up at night and want a drink of water?"
Charlie Brown: "Sure... Quite often."
Lucy: "When you're getting a drink of water in the dark, always rinse out the glass because there might be a bug in it! Five cents, please..."
Charlie Brown: "Great truths are even more simple than I thought they were..."
Lucy: "Do you ever wake up at night and want a drink of water?"
Charlie Brown: "Sure... Quite often."
Lucy: "When you're getting a drink of water in the dark, always rinse out the glass because there might be a bug in it! Five cents, please..."
Charlie Brown: "Great truths are even more simple than I thought they were..."
July 31, 2021
Another nostalgic and fun filled Peanuts, including the helicopter rescue services of Woodstock (pilot) and Snoopy (helicopter). Charlie Brown offering his services as coach to a very young baseball team (no prizes for guessing who the visiting team were), Snoopy's Cheshire dog trick and Snoopy getting involved in playing doubles tennis with Molly Volley against Crybaby Boobie and her brother, Bobby. Top notch tomfoolery.
May 9, 2025
Rerun worries riding on the bike with his mother are so relateable it's not even funny.
September 12, 2020
The Complete Peanuts books themselves are beautifully designed. This particularly volume, if you take off the dustjacket, has different renderings of Peppermint Patty on the cover, made into a work of art. The flyleafs and title pages are just as beautiful (and show the pathos of Peanuts - go look at it, and you will understand what I mean). These aren't my favorite peanuts strips, but there are still some good ones here. As usual, they mostly involve Peppermint Patty and Marcy. It's clear that in the 70s, Schulz was exploring these two characters more, as well as Snoopy and Woodstock's relationship. It's now that characters like Violet and Patty essentially disappear. Too much golf and tennis for my taste though; obviously Schulz loved sports, and Peanuts wouldn't be Peanuts without golf and tennis and other sports gags and jokes, but these are never my favorite.
August 11, 2017
Solid work.
Linus, Woodstock, and Snoopy all get into a fight with World War II (the cat next door). Snoopy is a helicopter. Woodstock's bird friends are named (Bill, Conrad, Olivier). Truffles makes another appearance. Cristo wraps Snoopy's doghouse. We are introduced to Eudora (who Sally meets at camp) and Molly Volley (Snoopy's hyper-aggressive mixed-doubles tennis partner). Snoopy is the Cheshire Beagle and gets stuck that way. Sally reads a report to her class about Santa and his rain gear. Spike steals Snoopy's bride-to-be on the day of Snoopy's wedding. Charlie Brown takes a bite out of the kite-eating tree and goes on the lam to avoid the E.P.A.
Linus, Woodstock, and Snoopy all get into a fight with World War II (the cat next door). Snoopy is a helicopter. Woodstock's bird friends are named (Bill, Conrad, Olivier). Truffles makes another appearance. Cristo wraps Snoopy's doghouse. We are introduced to Eudora (who Sally meets at camp) and Molly Volley (Snoopy's hyper-aggressive mixed-doubles tennis partner). Snoopy is the Cheshire Beagle and gets stuck that way. Sally reads a report to her class about Santa and his rain gear. Spike steals Snoopy's bride-to-be on the day of Snoopy's wedding. Charlie Brown takes a bite out of the kite-eating tree and goes on the lam to avoid the E.P.A.
August 18, 2019
Snoopy ruled the Peanuts roost in 1977-78. In these strips, the beagle woos minor character Eudora as a smooth disco dancer, embarks on camping trips with Woodstock and his friends, cowers in fear over the destructive cat next door, jogs, and plays tennis with shrill Molly Volley. Sweet, safe, and all too predictable. There are, however, a lot of genuinely hilarious strips with Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Sally—enough to give this volume an edge over the previous two Complete Peanuts.
July 14, 2020
Two consistently sublime years of history’s greatest comic strip. There are few wasted days and, even putting philosophical wit aside, Schulz demonstrates unparalleled mastery purely as a cartoonist, his minimalist panels capturing moment after perfect moment of character, emotion and physical humour.
May 24, 2025
Excellent collection from before the sports pages became my primary interest in our daily LA Times. Plenty of longer storylines involving sharply drawn characters like Molly Volley the youth tennis shark and the goofy Eudora.
June 26, 2021
4.5☆
Alec Baldwin went on and on..
Then the good stuff started. How do you not give Peanuts 5 ☆??
When Alec Baldwin bores the bejesus out of you with the introduction...
Alec Baldwin went on and on..
Then the good stuff started. How do you not give Peanuts 5 ☆??
When Alec Baldwin bores the bejesus out of you with the introduction...
September 13, 2023
A wonderful blast from the past!!!
Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the gang provide so many great laughs. Just the book for a fun, light read!!!
Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the gang provide so many great laughs. Just the book for a fun, light read!!!
July 19, 2024
Cheshire Snoopy and "If life were a camera, I'd have the lens cap on".
March 31, 2012
Starting to play a little too much into the times for me to think it the ultimate in comic expression. There is a LOT of material about jogging, tennis—even a week with Snoopy dressed as John Travolta and doing disco! Some great obscure characters happen by, like Truffles (introduced in the last book) and Eudora. Molly Volley and Crybaby Booby are colorful tennis players Snoopy encounters in tournament. Sadly, there is one joke that gets overused in this volume—the cat next door swiping a pattern into Snoopy's doghouse. However, when the cat, Linus, Woodstock, and Snoopy get in a massive fight to regain Linus' blanket, the winner may surprise you. And in a slightly squishy moment, Peppermint Patty asks Charlie Brown if he loves her. Aww. Not the best Peanuts volume to my mind, but I can't really dislike any of them...
January 15, 2020
An above average Peanuts collection from this time period. Most of the annoying elements are nonexistent here, which allows the better aspects of Peanuts to shine.
I really enjoyed the longer story lines, which help move the strip from a series of one liner gags to true story telling. The most notable of these plots starts with Charlie Brown being found guilty by the EPA of biting a tree and so Charlie Brown escapes to a nearby town and becomes the head coach of their baseball team. To travel that winding path in a daily comic strip at the time feels unique to me.
There are more contemporary references than I prefer, since practically any celebrity name falls flat for me. You can also tell there was a jogging fad and a surge in tennis during these years based on the recurring strips with Snoopy jogging and the long story of Snoopy playing mixed doubles with Molly Volley.
Then you get wonderful stuff like this:
I really enjoyed the longer story lines, which help move the strip from a series of one liner gags to true story telling. The most notable of these plots starts with Charlie Brown being found guilty by the EPA of biting a tree and so Charlie Brown escapes to a nearby town and becomes the head coach of their baseball team. To travel that winding path in a daily comic strip at the time feels unique to me.
There are more contemporary references than I prefer, since practically any celebrity name falls flat for me. You can also tell there was a jogging fad and a surge in tennis during these years based on the recurring strips with Snoopy jogging and the long story of Snoopy playing mixed doubles with Molly Volley.
Then you get wonderful stuff like this:
May 18, 2021
So I skipped the book before this because I don’t own it. I wanna read it, I just don’t have it. So I can’t. It’s not in my local library, either. I’m pretty sure it’s also not on Hoopla but I could be wrong. Who knows? Not me.
So it was kinda confusing.
I did like it when Linus got stuck on that roof, though, after the girls were fighting over him. Rerun is cool, but I only ever see him on his mom’s bike so yeeeeaaaaaaah.
Charlie Brown suffers as always. But you can expect that form poor, Good Ol’ Charlie Brown.
Idk. Idk what was going on for awhile. So yeah.
Good book, good stuff, good laughs. Yeah
So it was kinda confusing.
I did like it when Linus got stuck on that roof, though, after the girls were fighting over him. Rerun is cool, but I only ever see him on his mom’s bike so yeeeeaaaaaaah.
Charlie Brown suffers as always. But you can expect that form poor, Good Ol’ Charlie Brown.
Idk. Idk what was going on for awhile. So yeah.
Good book, good stuff, good laughs. Yeah
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2022
Sin perder ni un ápice de calidad prosigue este volumen recopilando las historias de Charlie Brown. Destacar la historia de la fuga de Carlitos al convertirse en un forajido por atentar contra el árbol devorador de cometas, en su fuga encuentra un equipo de pequeñajos a los que entrenan al baseball, para encontrarse que son los rivales de los Peanuts. Destacar tambien el triángulo amoroso entre Sally, Linus y Truffles. Snoopy protagonizará varios partidos de dobles de tenis con Molley "Volley" de compañera. El momento mas hilarante para mi gusto el enfrentamiento de Linus, Spnoopy y Woodstock con el gato vecino por la manta de Linus.
April 14, 2019
A generally nice read this one. Few out and out laughs compared to the likes of Calvin and Hobbes and Get Fuzzy, but at the same time it does feel reasonably real, despite all the talking animals and the like :) The general absence of parents makes the kids seem quite adult in their own ways with their approaches and commentaries on life. The only bit I didn't enjoy so much was the repetitive jokes with the 'dumb' cat next door.
July 9, 2019
This is the Peanuts that was published when I was a baby, and so the strips that were being republished around the time when I was beginning to read them from the school library - filled with Charlie Brown's trademark pathos, of course, but beginning to swing towards a deeper absurdity, often in the form of Snoopy's transformations, as evidenced by, say, his turn as a canine helicopter with whirling ears for blades. Rereading these strips was deeply comfortable.
December 26, 2017
Rok 77' to w mojej ocenie spadek formy. Ale w 78' Schulz powraca do życia! Chociażby dla kibicowania Peppermint Patty w potyczkach z systemem szkolnym (jak ona zdawała?) czy cierpliwości Schroedera do Lucy... No i trzeba przeczytać kolejny tom, żeby dowiedzieć się co to za ruda dupka, w której kocha się Charlie Brown xD Fistaszki to prawdziwa szkoła życia!
December 31, 2017
After a fairly grueling, post holiday work week it was nice to get a few Peanuts strips in before bed.
Perhaps this volume doesn't reflect Mr. Schulz's best work, but as a part of the entire Peanuts oeovre, I am no less amazed!
Perhaps this volume doesn't reflect Mr. Schulz's best work, but as a part of the entire Peanuts oeovre, I am no less amazed!
October 6, 2018
Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Snoopy, and Woodstock were heavily featured in this volume. I think Sally would have grown up to be a great comedian, she made me laugh out loud a couple times. Especially with her Christmas school report.
August 20, 2023
Solid collection of the Peanuts strips from 1977-78. Heavy emphasis on Peppermint Patty. Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Marcie and Sally are also key figures. You still see a few unnamed appearances of Violet. Amusing read, which is the point.
January 9, 2018
Classic Peanuts. (And now that the books have reached the late 70's, I find that I remember reading some of them from the original newspaper printing rather than the Fawcett paperbacks.)
December 14, 2019
Snoopy plays mixed doubles with Molly Volley! Sally goes to summer camp, and meets Eudora. Lots of fun new characters.
Read
September 24, 2022Ahh! That was fun 🥰
December 8, 2023
Some great and varied skits. There is no nostalgia element but the strips remain of the very highest quality
October 1, 2024
Helicopter Snoopy 😂
January 26, 2025
Exceptional!
New characters!
Names for Woodstock's friends!
Disco Snoopy!!!
New characters!
Names for Woodstock's friends!
Disco Snoopy!!!
August 7, 2025
Snoopy as a helicopter with Woodstock as pilot, need I say more?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews