I think many people have seen only the commercially exploited peanuts imagery.

In fact the comics - especially the older ones are incredibly clever and funny and insightful and there’s long running threads and connections and strong characters.

Peanuts the tshirt/hat/poster/cup is crass.

Peanuts the comic is genius.

It exactly the same with Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. The commercially exploited imagery is crass and dumb. The comics written by Karl Barks were genius and often really entertaining adventure stories.

I have approximately one meter of snoopy books - collections of the comic strip - dating from the 70s and 80s. Now and again I read a few strips, but at least once every month I wear my snoopy watch, and seeing Snoopy on the dial makes me smile every time.

I've had more comments on the snoopy dial, and my casio terrorist watch, than any high-end piece in my rotation/collection. I struggle to think of other snoopy merchandise which is common-place, outside watches.

(I asked my eight year old son a while back if he knew the names of some characters from Peanuts, while showing him a couple of the cartoon strips, the only one he knew was Snoopy. I was sad to learn he didn't know the name of either Charlie Brown or Woodstock.)

I would think the closest comparison to my eye is the Calvin and Hobbes commercialization? As a child of the 90s, I almost exclusively knew of Calvin stickers pissing on Ford and Chevy logos growing up. The great comic was a pleasant surprise for my teenage self.

Speak for yourself, i enjoy both. :)

I mean, even originally, Garfield strips had some substance, but Jim Davis really liked money, I think...