Saying good-bye to the Beagle Without Fear

While Neilalien uncovers a message-board thread that wonderfully reimagines the Peanuts cast as Marvel superheroes, the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal fumbles for the best way to tell readers the newspaper is dropping the strip from the Sunday comics.

The staff opts for slightly tearful pleading:

Now, don't go sending the Red Baron after us. Just hear us out. We love Peanuts. It was a terrific comic strip, arguably the best in comics history. But the truth is, it ended more than six years ago when Charles Schulz died. Schulz was adamant that no one else would do the strip after him, an admirable sentiment in an industry where some long-running strips become little more than cartoon mills run by ghost artists and writers.

The Journal has been running repeats of the strip since 2000 because no one wanted to be the person who put Snoopy to sleep.

But the fact of the matter is, the strip is taking up a spot on our comics page that could be handed over to a newcomer.

The Spot the Frog daily strip and the Sunday-only Beakman & Jax are also going the way of Charlie Brown and the gang, making room for Lio and Over the Hedge.