Peanuts #13

History

The Dell Peanuts standalone title launched with issue #4 in February 1960 (counting the three earlier Dell Four Color tryout issues as #1–3), and ran through this final #13 across just over two years. Charles Schulz supplied original cover illustrations for the entire run but left interior duties to a rotating team of ghost artists and writers — Jim Sasseville initially, then Dale Hale and Tony Pocrnick, and by the later issues, Dell house talent including scripter John Stanley, the celebrated Little Lulu writer. In 1962, Western Publishing dissolved its long-running partnership with Dell and took the Peanuts license to its new Gold Key imprint, ending the Dell series abruptly at #13; the original Peanuts stories then continued in Gold Key's Nancy and Sluggo #188. The interior content of this entire Dell run was excluded from all major Schulz reprint programs for decades, finally seeing collection in BOOM!/Kaboom!'s Peanuts Dell Archive in 2018.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Final issue of Dell's standalone Peanuts series, which ran from #4 (February–April 1960) through #13 (May–July 1962); the three preceding Dell Four Color issues (#878, #969, #1015) were counted as #1–3 in Dell's own reckoning.
• Cover dated May–July 1962; on-sale date verified via the 1962 Periodicals records at the Library of Congress Copyright Office.
• Cover art by Charles Schulz; interior stories and art credited to Anthony Pocrnich, Dale Hale, and John Stanley — Schulz had no involvement with the interior material throughout this run.
• Frieda makes her comic-book introduction in this issue (noted on the back cover feature), having debuted in the Peanuts newspaper strip on March 6, 1961.
• Confirmed interior story titles: 'Inside Dope,' 'Food For Thought,' 'Sled Race,' 'The Rain Maker,' 'The Diplomat,' 'Sluggo: Boo Hoo,' 'The Fourth Estate,' 'Loony Lunch,' 'Scared Skier,' 'Physically Fit,' and 'Girl Troubles.'
• Includes a Sluggo backup story scripted by John Stanley, who also wrote the Nancy material running concurrently in the Dell/Nancy and Sluggo title across this era.
• The Dell–Western Publishing partnership ended in 1962; Western took the Peanuts license to its new Gold Key imprint, and original Peanuts stories continued in Nancy and Sluggo (Gold Key) #188 (October 1962).
• The entire Dell Peanuts run — original material created exclusively for comic books and never drawn from the syndicated newspaper strip — was collected for the first time in the Kaboom!/BOOM! Studios Peanuts Dell Archive hardcover (2018, ISBN 9781684152551).

Cast · 9 characters

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