Peanuts Begins by Charles Schulz for June 21, 2020

a great little salute to the EC Horror Comics of the early ’50’s

Yeah, Charlie Brown, perhaps the storekeeper should lay down and eat some chicken soup.

I’m going to guess that Mr. Schulz was a fan of the Comics Code. Seems like he went out of his way to make sure ‘average’ readers of the funnies would see the types of titles on the comic books.

No Dell titles, I see.

The druggist needs to invest in a spinner rack.

My little brother and I read the comics while our folks shopped for groceries.

My Dad and I had an agreement that every time I read three “real” books (mostly from the library), I could get one comic book. Or maybe it was four real books, or five, but you get the idea.

I eventually lost interest in the comic books, although never in “the comics”.

“For the Kiddies”. War, Hate, Mangle, Gore, Choke, …

When I was a Kiddie (‘60s), I don’t remember anything like this. Wow.

I love the names of these “comics for the kids”, like others here have pointed out. No, I don’t remember names like this either (“Choke”, “Hate”, “Gouge”, “Slash”, and “Hit!”…? Whoa..) but these look more like the magazines aimed at the 50s kind of “manly man” and not a 6 year old (I think that’s how old Chuck is supposed to be).

But try and sell any comic with “Hate” in the title nowadays ;-)

My Dad would gently remind me “this isn’t a library, son” if he caught me reading a comic off the rack while we were shopping.

CB is lucky to have escaped with just a glare! Back in the day, the druggist could’ve very well boxed his ears for creating that mess… :D

That ice cream soda for 15 cents is very appealing to me right now, much more than any of the blood-and-mayhem comics.

This was one of the very few times that Schulz indulged in satire or parody. Of course, SOME of the comic books back in the day WERE pretty raunchy, although Freddie Wertham himself is very easy to parody. He lumped in funny animal comic books with “crime comics”, for example!

Charlie was lucky that he was only a kid. He would have really been in trouble otherwise.

Gee, he glared at you? That is surprising, perhaps clean up after yourself next time.

I remember reading this strip in a book when i was a kid. The comic books with the horrible titles (“Kill”, “Mangle”, etc.) always made me laugh. At the time, I didn’t know comic books like that had actually existed.

A classic Sunday strip!