When Snoopy Became Snoopy: A Trip Back to 1967

Titan Comics has a new Peanuts facsimile, Peanuts: Your Choice, Snoopy, and it is a beauty. It takes us straight back to 1967, preserving Charles M. Schulz’s original newspaper strips, lettering, layouts and even the look of the old paperback covers. I have the pleasure of owning most of the older editions, but not everybody can get their hands on these long-out-of-print books. That is what makes these reprints so much fun. Titan Comics is giving fans a chance to own them again, and I have been enjoying them all over again. They look damn good on a shelf.

But this particular volume is more than just another Peanuts collection. 1967 was an important year for Snoopy, and you can see his character changing right in front of you. Charles M. Schulz was moving the strip away from its early focus on neighborhood childhood anxieties and letting surreal, pop-culture-defining fantasies take center stage. Essentially, 1967 was the moment Peanuts transformed from a standard daily newspaper comic strip into the legendary, multi-layered pop-culture institution we recognize today. That transformation didn’t happen overnight, but this collection gives you a pretty good seat at the table while it was happening.

And here is where the story of that little yellow bird gets even more interesting. Schulz first introduced the storyline in March 1966, when a mother bird built a nest on Snoopy’s stomach, hatched two identical yellow birds and then left Snoopy to deal with the babysitting. Snoopy eventually sent the two birds off to find their mother. This book doesn’t go back to that original introduction. Instead, it picks up the story a year later, in April 1967, when just one of those little yellow birds returns to Snoopy’s doghouse alone. This time, the bird stays. As you read through these strips, you can see the character slowly taking shape into the lovable Woodstock we have come to know. The bird wouldn’t officially receive the name Woodstock until 1970, but this is where the partnership with Snoopy really starts.

Then there is Snoopy’s alter ego, the World War I Flying Ace. This was the period when Snoopy’s doghouse was becoming a Sopwith Camel in his imagination, sending him into battle against the Red Baron. Schulz had found another way to let Snoopy escape the ordinary world of the Peanuts gang and become whatever he wanted to be. The beauty of it is that Schulz never needed to explain the joke. Snoopy simply climbed onto the roof of his doghouse and, in his head, he was suddenly somewhere else entirely.

And that’s what makes a facsimile edition so interesting to me. You aren’t looking at a cleaned-up modern reproduction designed to make an old comic look contemporary. You are seeing the strips as they originally appeared, with Schulz’s hand-drawn lines, lettering and vintage newspaper layouts still intact. You’re watching Peanuts become the Peanuts we remember, rather than looking backward at it through a modern filter. There is something special about seeing those little details exactly as they appeared when readers first encountered them.

That is why I like what Titan Comics is doing with this series. So many of these older editions are difficult to find, and when you do find them, they can be expensive. These reprints give people a way back into that history without having to spend years hunting down the originals. For someone like me who already owns many of the older editions, there is something satisfying about seeing the collection grow while knowing that somebody discovering these books today can experience them too.

I highly recommend picking them up. I love the slipcase versions. They look amazing standing up on a shelf, and seeing the collection together makes them feel like more than just books. I bought both versions myself: the individual books because I actually want to read them, and the slipcase editions because they make such a great display. One is for the reading pile; the other is for the shelf.

Peanuts: Your Choice, Snoopy is Volume 21 in Titan Comics’ Peanuts Facsimile series. For me, that’s the real appeal of these books. They don’t try to make the past look new. They let you hold it.