I was recently looking through scans_daily, and came across this post, wherein various posters debated the merits of Peanuts. One noteworthy poster claimed it was nowhere near as good as either Calvin and Hobbes or Dilbert. (Frigging Dilbert!)

People. Listen. This is not something I generally say, because I recognize there are many artistic works that I just do not “get” that I recognize are nonetheless of reasonable quality. (My Name Is Earl, anything Jane Austen wrote, most speed metal, et cetera.)

But if you do not like Peanuts, much less think it is in some way not good, then there are only two reasons this could be the case.

1.) You have not read much in the way of Peanuts and are ignorant.
2.) There is something the fuck wrong with you.

This is not up for discussion, unfortunately. These are your options. Sorry!

Also mentioned in this post, the popular - and wrong - concept that Peanuts was only good until an unspecified time and date (usually somewhere in the early 70s, although this is left indistinct by most people making the argument because they have no idea). True, Charles Schulz had a steady run of unparalleled greatness from 1954 until about 1978, and for the rest of his time spent drawing the strip was not quite that good (I mean, come on, that’s twenty-four years at the top of his game for fuck’s sake! Bill Watterson’s entire career only lasted ten! Berke Breathed burned out on a daily schedule after less than nine! Even Gary Larson only managed fifteen!), but even after his peak, Peanuts remained intelligent, introspective, and entertaining, with regular glimpses of where the strip had been in its finest years.

Just for the sake of argument, I’m going to present now a few Peanuts strips from the twilight years of his career.

I considered not posting this because I honestly don’t want to get a rep for being Scott Kurtz’s personal stalker or anything like that.

And before I say anything else, let me say that I thought the strip about Francis blathering about spit was pretty goddamned funny, despite A) being an old gag I’ve seen before and B) having some weird art issues with Marcy’s face. And I thought the face work on the creator’s panel strip was definitely a step up for him.

But today’s strip is just…

What the hell?

I have boiled this down to three distinct possibilities:

1.) Scott Kurtz is making fun of obsessive nerds in a horrifyingly un-ironic way.

2.) Scott Kurtz is drawing his “inner child” and forgot that he writes a comic strip and therefore is kind of obligated to write a joke somewhere.

3.) A confused, grotesque combination of A and B.

Discuss.

2004:

2008:

EDIT TO ADD: Since Teh Mighty Kurtz hisself has seen fit to link back to me, I feel it only fair to mention where I previously did not that I think this works more as a funny unintentional tie-in gag more than anything else (with Brent being exasperated with Cole because Cole is making PvP into a Serious Comic Strip). I don’t think that was the intention at all, mostly because whatever Kurtz’s pros and cons may be, “subtlety” isn’t on the list of pros. (And this is a neutral judgement. Gilbert Gottfried isn’t subtle either, and he is as funny as fuck.)All that having been said, I still stand by the comments made in this post, and Brent’s mouth looks terrible now.