The complete Peanuts 1965 to 1966, de Charles M. Schulz

Another couple of years of Snoopy’s gang have come to an end. Or, as Charlie Brown himself puts it in this volume’s last strip, ‘another year has come and gone’. The 8th book in Fantagraphics’ Complete Peanuts series has three major surprises: the first stories of Snoopy as the World War I flying ace, the appearance of Peppermint Patty, and the beginning of Snoopy’s writing career based on his remarkable formula “It was a dark and stormy night”. In the past 4 years it is quite noticeable how the strips have developed into long sequences of many panels giving continuance to the same story, only interrupted by the Sunday strips that always bring something different. The best ones in this book are: the gang by the beach; how Snoopy falls in love for the first time with a girl beagle but is prevented from marrying her because her father didn’t approve of him; Linus loses his security blanket when he mails it to himself lest his blanket-hating grandma lecture him; in another sequence, the same blanket starts to attack Lucy and threat her (holy cow! that's delightful!); Charlie Brown goes to camp for the very first time and Snoopy is invited to give a speech in his family reunion; Sally has to wear an eye-patch to cure her lazy eye and starts to reveal feelings for Linus; Charlie Brown enters a spelling bee and ends up in the principal’s office – which never happened before – and then it is time Linus go to summer camp. A tragic fire burns to the ground Snoopy’s home, but it is rebuild by Charlie Brown one week later. In a tragically ironic fateful scheme, Charlie Brown is given the safety patrol badge in the same week he’s doomed to fail a science project for not being able to speak to his lab partner, the little red-haired girl. As usual, the psychiatric booth holds the best moments of the gang, specially when Lucy puts her assistant (that is, Snoopy wearing glasses) to help her patients.