Aside from maybe Ralphie in "A Christmas Story," poor old Charlie Brown is just about the saddest little boy in fiction. Not that he's particularly depressed or bestowed with a bad life -- he's just a bit of a dud, one of those kids from elementary school that you paid little mind to because he was, well, boring.

At the same time, as outside observers, it's hard not to just want to bring Charlie in from out of the cold and give him a cookie or a warm bowl of tomato soup. Well, you can't exactly feed the kid, but you can take him home -- albeit in April 2010 -- thanks to Dark Horse's upcoming "Peanuts: Then and Now" series of $25 figures.

Two separate two-packs feature two separate versions of Charlie and his loyal dog Snoopy -- one based on their original 1950s appearance, and the other based on their modern incarnations.

While I'm partial to the old school versions, I'd happily have any one of these figures on my desk at home. Just look at poor, pathetic Charlie. God, I love that kid...

...God, I was that kid.

[Insert blaring saxophone solo from "Careless Whisper" here]

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