hcq's review
5.0
So, so wrong, and so, so fun.
I never really thought about the Peanuts characters growing up; I just left them in the eternal childhood of their world, with absent or unintelligible adult figures occasionally drifting by. But I’m not very creative or imaginative, and clearly Mr. Yungbluth is, because wowza.
The minute I heard of the concept I was in: Charlie Brown, a grown-up mercenary in a post-apocalyptic hellscape? Hell, yes. Shut up and take my money!
Some of the characters’ fates make sense, at first, but the author then pushes the line way, way further. Schroder grows up to play piano in a shadowy dive bar? Sure, fine. Linus turns into a religious freak? Totally works—didn’t he used to quote the Bible fairly often?
But wait, he’s not just a regular religious nut; he worships the Great Pumpkin, and is about to sacrifice a virgin to ensure His Appearance—with Sally as his adoring acolyte/ accomplice? Oh, yeahhhh.
And that’s just in the first twenty pages or so. Pretty much everyone from the funny pages over the past eighty years or so comes in for their fair share of crazy time.
Admittedly, I have perhaps a slightly better sense of comics history than some, just because I a) am old and b) had older parents who bought me compilations of the old comics they’d liked, but even so armed I’m sure I missed batches of clever references. Still, the ones I got were many, and marvelous (and the notes at the end were appreciated). This is definitely a book which will reward re-reading.
Calvin (and to a lesser extent, Hobbes) got an appropriately big part, which I was glad to see.
My only complaint (and it’s minor) is that as a graphic novel, there were pages on which the illustrations were so busy I couldn’t make out very well what was happening—it felt a lot like watching an action-movie fight scene, with so much happening so fast and in so many places that none of it really makes sense. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it generally happened in fight scenes.
I never really thought about the Peanuts characters growing up; I just left them in the eternal childhood of their world, with absent or unintelligible adult figures occasionally drifting by. But I’m not very creative or imaginative, and clearly Mr. Yungbluth is, because wowza.
The minute I heard of the concept I was in: Charlie Brown, a grown-up mercenary in a post-apocalyptic hellscape? Hell, yes. Shut up and take my money!
Some of the characters’ fates make sense, at first, but the author then pushes the line way, way further. Schroder grows up to play piano in a shadowy dive bar? Sure, fine. Linus turns into a religious freak? Totally works—didn’t he used to quote the Bible fairly often?
But wait, he’s not just a regular religious nut; he worships the Great Pumpkin, and is about to sacrifice a virgin to ensure His Appearance—with Sally as his adoring acolyte/ accomplice? Oh, yeahhhh.
And that’s just in the first twenty pages or so. Pretty much everyone from the funny pages over the past eighty years or so comes in for their fair share of crazy time.
Admittedly, I have perhaps a slightly better sense of comics history than some, just because I a) am old and b) had older parents who bought me compilations of the old comics they’d liked, but even so armed I’m sure I missed batches of clever references. Still, the ones I got were many, and marvelous (and the notes at the end were appreciated). This is definitely a book which will reward re-reading.
Calvin (and to a lesser extent, Hobbes) got an appropriately big part, which I was glad to see.
My only complaint (and it’s minor) is that as a graphic novel, there were pages on which the illustrations were so busy I couldn’t make out very well what was happening—it felt a lot like watching an action-movie fight scene, with so much happening so fast and in so many places that none of it really makes sense. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it generally happened in fight scenes.
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