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With Apologies to Sparky

I have delighted in every page of Fantagraphics Books’ ambitious reprinting of The Complete Peanuts by Charles Schulz. It’s truly comforting that I can look forward to these volumes being rolled out over the next decade. As the strip rarely touched upon current events, there is a timelessness to it. But the next two books will cover the years 1961 to 1964. I wondered: Did Peanuts deal at all with the Kennedy assassination? Rather than do any actual research into the matter, I have imagined what those strips might have been like:

[Panel #1:]
LINUS: Charlie Brown, did you hear? The President’s been shot.
[Panel #2:]
No dialogue.
[Panel #3:]
CHARLIE BROWN: I’m usually a victim of character assassination.

(More after the fold.)

[Panel #1:]
SHERMY: Charlie Brown, did you hear? The President’s been shot.
[Panel #2:]
No dialogue.
[Panel #3:]
CHARLIE BROWN: I just got shot down by the Little Red-Haired Girl.
--------------------------

[Panel #1:]
SALLY: Linus, did you hear? The President’s been shot.
[Panel #2:]
No dialogue.
[Panel #3:]
LINUS: Next you’ll tell me there’s no “Great Pumpkin.”
--------------------------

[Panel #1:]
CHARLIE BROWN: Lucy, I still can’t believe that the President was shot.
[Panel #2:]
No dialogue.
[Panel #3:]
LUCY: I’d charge that Lee Harvey Oswald ten cents for psychiatric help.
--------------------------

[Panel #1:]
CHARLIE BROWN: Schroeder, please honor the President by playing “Taps.”
[Panel #2:]
Schroeder playing the piano, musical notes overhead.
[Panel #3:]
SCHROEDER: What? I thought the President would rather hear a selection by Beethoven.
--------------------------

[Panel #1:]
CHARLIE BROWN: Lucy, did you hear? Jack Ruby gunned down Oswald.
[Panel #2:]
No dialogue.
[Panel #3:]
LUCY: Wow, and I thought I was a fuss-budget!
--------------------------

[Panel #1:]
Snoopy eating, with thought bubble:
SNOOPY: In this time of national mourning…
[Panel #2:]
Snoopy eating.
[Panel #3:]
SNOOPY: It would be unpatriotic to skip suppertime.