Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I completely ignored this $20 hardcover when I saw it solicited because Charles Schulz had nothing to do with it. But when I flipped through it last week at my LCS I reassessed my opinion on the spot. It’s an adaptation of a TV special, so it is at least based on Charles Schulz comic strips. The artwork itself is a spot-on imitation of Schultz’s mid-60s style, but with varying panel sizes which help control the pacing of the story, more like a comic book or graphic novel than a comic strip. The story itself takes place over the course of a week. The main plot concerns the attempts of Linus’ grandmother to wean him from his security blanket, but the various subplots are taken from throughout Schultz career, some of them quite early, some of them preserved forever on Viewmaster reels. This book get my highest possible recommendation to all Peanuts fans and/or parents of young children.