The Complete Peanuts 1967 - 1968

During 1967–68, Snoopy accelerated his transition from simple family pet to World War I fighting ace (and secret agent, and figure skater, and golf pro). Schulz made a few stabs at contemporary relevance by introducing minority kids Franklin and José Peterson, destined respectively to remain a minor character and to disappear altogether, and a “hippie bird” that appears to be a proto-Woodstock. Most of these four-decade-old strips center on such comfortably timeless and familiar devices as Charlie Brown’s haplessness on the baseball diamond, his unrequited love for the Little Red-Haired Girl, and the kite-eating tree. --Gordon Flagg