The notion of making Peanuts comics without Charles Schulz may seem to be a surprising or even controversial move, but that's exactly what's happened with the new 80-page graphic novel Peanuts: Happiness is a Warm Blanket, out this week from Boom! Studios. The first original Peanuts material since the death of Charles Schulz, it was created with both the blessing and involvement of the Schulz family based on the new Peanuts animated special out on on DVD last week, and we've got a 14-page preview.

Both the animated special and the graphic novel were co-written by Charles Schulz's son, Craig Schulz, and Stephen Pastis, who focused on Linus' relationship with his security blanket, and say "90 to 95% of the script" came from existing Charles Schulz strips. Whether Happiness will capture the magic (and existential dread) of the authentic Charles Schulz Peanuts experience remains to be seen, but it's pushing all the recognizable thematic buttons: Lucy being mean to Linus; the Peanuts gang playing baseball; Lucy making unwelcome advances towards Schroeder, and Charlie Brown getting hilariously entangled in some sort of physical comedy.

The biggest question, of course, is how does it hold up compared to the legendary comics strip? Judge for yourself below!

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