SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Previews
  • Reviews
  • Manga
  • All Ages
  • Young Adult
  • Interviews
  • News

August 25, 2014 by J. Caleb Mozzocco

Review: Waiting For The Great Pumpkin

August 25, 2014 by J. Caleb Mozzocco   Leave a Comment

Waiting For The Great Pumpkin
By Charles M. Schulz
Fantagraphics; $9.99

It’s probably a toss-up as to what is ultimately the best-known contribution of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts into our pop culture, the animated Christmas special or the animated Halloween special. Which is appropriate, given that the second of those is based around Linus’ peculiar belief in The Great Pumpkin. That Santa Claus-like figure, as Linus would be only too happy to tell anyone willing to listen, rises out of the pumpkin patch on Halloween night and brings toys to all the good little children in the world.

The particular beats of that Halloween special, 1966’s It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, were all culled from Schulz’s original strips, of course, and in their latest Peanuts gift book, Fantagraphics has collected a batch of the 1959-1962 strips that first gave rise to the Great Pumpkin.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Read (or re-read) in 2014, Schulz’s Great Pumpkin strips offer a lot of interesting angles to an adult reader.

Certainly there’s the hard-to-miss, powerful reading of The Great Pumpkin as a stand-in for any applicable form of religion or belief, which elicits punchlines ranging from pointed gags to profound statements (“I was victim of a false doctrine” or “I’m always disturbed by denominational squabbling” or “The way I see it, it doesn’t matter what you believe just so you’re sincere!”).

By creating his own, humorous belief—one that, on its face, is so silly that no one could possibly believe it—Schulz was able to, first and foremost, tell funny jokes about the kid who does believe it and also comment or even just meditate on faith and belief in general, without offering any offense to anyone.

It also seems noteworthy that Schulz presaged the ever-increasing commercialization of holidays in some of his Great Pumpkin gags. These days, Halloween has turned into something of a fall mini-Christmas, with stores full of greeting cards and house decorations as well as the traditional costumes and candy. (Similarly, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day have become mini-Christmases, at least in terms of marketing and merchandising.)

While the Great Pumpkin might not have caught on, Linus’s insistence on treating Halloween like his own personal Christmas—writing letters to the Great Pumpkin, asking his sister if she wants to get the gang together to sing pumpkin carols—sure seems to have caught on.

Children encountering these comics for the first time might not stop to consider the tragicomic aspects of Linus’ belief in something that seems unlikely, something that he’s ridiculed over on all sides, that even he himself occasionally doubts (note the title of this collection’s echo of a certain Samuel Beckett play), but there’s still the comedic-comic aspects of a little kid so out-of-step with all of his peers. Waiting For The Great Pumpkin, like its antecedents Batter Up, Charlie Brown! and Charlie Brown’s Christmas Stocking, is perfectly sized for a child’s hands, most of its 60 pages containing a single strip quartered and set upon the perfectly square pages in perfectly square gags, divided into three sections.

Additionally, the dust jacket, covers, and chapter breaks include portions of Great Pumpkin jokes taken from other periods of Peanuts history, like a blow-up of a portion of a Sunday strip in which Peppermint Patty tells Linus what happens on Secretaries Day, when “The Great Secretary rises from her desk and rides through the city in a taxi cab with note pads for all the secretaries everywhere!”

She’s just taking the opportunity to make fun of Linus, of course. There’s obviously no such thing as The Great Secretary. The Great Administrative Assistant, on the other hand…

Filed under: Reviews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
Charles SchulzFantagraphicsLinusThe Great PumpkinWaiting For The Great Pumpkin

About J. Caleb Mozzocco

J. Caleb Mozzocco is a way-too-busy freelance writer who has written about comics for online and print venues for a rather long time now. He currently contributes to Comic Book Resources' Robot 6 blog and ComicsAlliance, and maintains his own daily-ish blog at EveryDayIsLikeWednesday.blogspot.com. He lives in northeast Ohio, where he works as a circulation clerk at a public library by day.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

September 2023

My Girlfriend's Child, vols. 1 and 2 | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

August 2023

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

August 2023

Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

August 2023

Team Trash: A Time Traveler's Guide to Sustainability | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

August 2023

Batman: Wayne Family Adventures Vol. 1 | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

The Bestselling Children’s Books of the Week

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

On Quiet Protagonists: A Guest Post from Jack Cheng

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Exclusive: New Sibling Adventure Story from Papercutz | News and Preview

by Brigid Alverson

Heavy Medal

Memoirs, big families and road trips, oh my: Wednesday Roundup: Graphic Novels

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Book Review: Kin: Rooted in Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford, Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Illustrator)

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Peter Brown Visits The Yarn to talk about The Wild Robot Protects

by Colby Sharp

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

8 Pitch-Perfect Manga for Music-Loving Teens | Mondo Manga

18 Superb Graphic Novel Adaptations for Kids and Teens

Best Graphic Novels 2020 | SLJ Best Books

Graphic Novel Series Updates for Both Die-Hard Fans and New Readers

Top 10 Manga of 2022

Commenting for all posts is disabled after 30 days.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023