the complete peanuts (or fantagraphics: S/D)

groovy - thx

I came across the "spaghetti" one that I posted upthread (3 years ago) - it's just perfect.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/peanuts/images/7/7a/19580625.gif

Argh!

https://i.imgur.com/Bej1UAR.gif

https://i.imgur.com/BSPORcb.gif

The last one is v goth

November 19, 1961 has to be the pinnacle of something: https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/November_1961_comic_strips

The apparent home of the Great Pumpkin as per Charlie Brown!
https://essexnewsdaily.com/headlne-news/22270

xp I love that one, I remember reading it as a kid

fun fact: when my mom was a teenager in the 50's, her high school boyfriend wrote to Charles Schultz and told him how much she liked the strip. In return, Schultz sent him maybe three framed original strips. My mom kept them for many decades (librarians lol) and eventually donated them back to the Schultz museum. so I gre up totally steeped in the Peanuts ethos, I remember seeing the actual framed strips she had as a kid.

"grew up"

Woah - that's so awesome. And kudos to your mum for sending them to the Schulz museum.

Lord above that Sunday strip. Starting to understand the Chris Ware influence now

It's the "Mom..." lines that just take it to "that place."

Spring 1959 is a high point; Schulz was really in the pocket: https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/March_1959_comic_strips

My son asked what being "stoned" means... turned out he was looking at August 28, 1960.

that's pretty amazing

He also claimed a similar gag was used sometime in the '50s (the kids being freaked out when "Rain, rain, go away" actually works)... my kid, the number one Peanuts narc.

Was looking for another volume of Bushmiller’s Nancy strips—turns out Fantagraphics only published three volumes of dailies (and never any Sundays). We have the first and second volumes. Of the three, only the second is still in print; the other two are OOP and $$$. I guess interest was pretty low.

"The Best of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy" by Brian Walker is a fantastic collection if you can find it.

Thanks! I did see that in my online browsing... will try to find a copy at a reasonable price, appreciate the tip.

https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/10/23

that's a great one

https://biblioklept.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/unloved.jpg

One of my favourite depressing Peanuts has a similar “gag”

^^ me and my therapist talked about this strip in our session last week!

that's a great one. the way charlie brown gradually reacts to the rain is wonderfully paced.

and schulz drew rain just beautifully, maybe better than any other cartoonist.

The other night, we happened to land on a series of strips from October 1964, timed for the run-up to that year's election. Linus is running for class president (with Charlie Brown as his VP) -- and he's crushing it in the polls, until...

A few of the strips dealing with Lucy as his pollster are particularly funny.

"The Best of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy" by Brian Walker is a fantastic collection if you can find it.

I was bidding on a copy on eBay (“Also included is a copy of Nancy and Sluggo. Best of is in new new condition”)... someone swooped in at the last minute and outbid me :(

Good Lord @ Oct 12 - 14 in that election set

The more things change, huh?

Joe Cool is lame, and the strip had largely become half-baked gags and “hip” cultural references at this point — but this Sunday from September 1971 snaps into focus in the final few panels, and really captures something.

v Feiffer / Village Voice vibes

i get a really low res image at that link.

is this better?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/peanuts/images/f/f5/19710912.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/600?cb=20140217024403

link to page. it's the 12th

https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/September_1971_comic_strips

Was looking for another volume of Bushmiller’s Nancy strips—turns out Fantagraphics only published three volumes of dailies (and never any Sundays). We have the first and second volumes. Of the three, only the second is still in print; the other two are OOP and $$$. I guess interest was pretty low.

Circling back to this—my son is constantly rereading the two volumes we have, so I was poking around online for that old Brian Walker book or whatever else I can find. Turns out all three Fantagraphics books are now OOP, and going for $$$$. (Too bad ours aren’t in mint condition, or I’d sell ’em for his college fund.)

I don’t know anything about the economics of this stuff, but why doesn’t Fantagr. reprint when demand is (clearly) there? Have they lost the rights or something?

Well, filtering down to “Completed items” in eBay reveals that some of these listing prices on eBay/Amazon are grossly inflated/optimistic. The actual sale prices of the Fantagraphics volumes seem to average around $75 each. Still OOP, though!

Fanta are just kinda not super competent I think?

If the consumer demand is actually an order of magnitude greater than what they printed on those three volumes, hence it being worthwhile doing a second run on each AND committing to doing dozens more, wouldn’t that make either the retailers incompetent (for not getting them to customers), or the customers incompetent (for making their purchases online from third parties instead of Fanta)?

lol, knew sic would be bounding in to defend Fanta's reprint practices.

I won't challenge their competence because I love them but it's frustrating nonetheless. I'm glad I was able to get their complete Peanuts and Popeye collections but that was more a result of luck and timing than anything else (as my half-finished Krazy Kat collection looks at me sadly and urges me to drop mad bank on that OOP volume that brought my collecting to a dead halt). Never bothered with the Nancys at all although I'd love to have 'em.

not sure how supply exceeding demand for nine years (N I N E) (9) is any evidence of a drastic underprinting that requires defense, but happy to look at your spreadsheets to the contrary

PS:

https://i.imgur.com/LZ2ZZbx.gif

I gave up on trying to nab the Nancys before N I N E years had elapsed. It was probably H A L F that span of time.

I'd have to double check my spreadsheet to be sure, but I think the Don Rosa duck collections were the most recent thing I preemptively gave up on collecting after seeing volumes fall OOP super fast.

Also, tbf, Fanta is hardly alone on this front.

I was going to say, is that a long time for stuff like this to be in print? I have honestly no idea. (FWIW, the third volume was published seven years ago.) Those Complete Peanuts books seem to stay available, but Peanuts is Peanuts.

Guess I’m also comparing it to children’s books in general, which seem to stay in print forever (as there are new kids to read them every year). Of course, Nancy is no Corduroy.

I don’t know what’s going on here, but I just assumed money is being left on the table:

https://i.imgur.com/1gaNbyd_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

(F#%* yr .43 cents!! lol)

Books that shouldn't be out of print

the market for fancy reprints of decades-old funny books just isn't very large. publishers the size of fantagraphics can't afford to keep books in print in perpetuity for a relatively tiny audience.

wtf, I meant to post James Redd's $900 books thread but it won't let me

Out Of Print Book Price Sticker Shock

weird, the title changed. thanks.

i had the same problem... something about the dollar sign maybe which stopped me from posting so I took it out.

I don’t know what’s going on here, but I just assumed money is being left on the table:

that money is entirely imaginary! you yourself noted that nobody is paying those algorithmically-generated prices, to a seller that may not even have a copy of the book. what are the rest of Silver Ocean's listings like?.

even if someone was, and without knowing any of the actual numbers involved, from your and OL's account it looks like what happened is:

- the minimum profitable print run on a Nancy dailies book is (let's say) 3,000

- Fanta print 3,200 copies of Nancy Dailies 1, it sells strongly
- they print 3,600 copies of Nancy Dailies 2, it sells fine, maybe reorders at this point wipe out any leftovers from #1
- they wait two years because most of the overprint on #2 is still sitting in the warehouse
- they cautiously print 3,300 of Nancy Dailies 3 and sell them over a couple of years, but there's no retailer demand or customer feedback indicating that another 3,000 people want #1
- hundreds of copies of #2 continue to take up space in the warehouse, available at half cover price (twice a year) to online customers and 60% off to retailers
- five years after that the last of #2 get picked up, indicating the precise degree of thirst for Bushmiller that the market possesses.

Even if there's one rando out there willing to pay $970.43 for a copy, a publisher is still going to lose money by licensing, sourcing, restoring, editing, laying out, printing, shipping and storing the other two thousand and ninety nine copies.