Have you seen Marmaduke Explained? In its fourth year now, it takes the daily Marmaduke strip and deconstructs it, summarises its core joke in 500 words or less, and shows it up as so much utter hash. Now, that’s grand fun, but I do wonder if even a high-quality newspaper comic would stand up to the same level of analysis. The natural choice is Peanuts – a strip I’ve loved since I was tiny and which is generally extremely well-regarded. Thus, I popped over to Comics.com’s Peanuts archive, grabbed the last week’s strips and applied the same methods to each.

Linus is alternately rude and polite; he also coins the phrase ‘raw toast’.

Linus is too accustomed to his new spectacles.

Nature sabotages Lucy’s attempt to find primal joy in its charms.

Linus and Charlie Brown discuss the history of criticism, unknowingly breaking the fourth wall in a self-deprecating twist.

Lucy over-analyses a public celebration, in a rant that doesn’t really go anywhere; Charlie Brown is having none of it.

Snoopy’s life remains unadventurous, but he makes a visual pun.

…do you know, I actually think it works. They’re not all winners, but hey, even a… clock that runs… is wrong… once a day…? In… daylight savings time? Greenwich Mean? Astrolabe?

Oh, I know! Even a good clock needs winding! Anyway, current verdict is that Peanuts is great, but if anyone else wants to test its mettle, go crazy.