Tip Top Comics #200
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTip Top Comics #200 is a numbered milestone within St. John Publications' stewardship of one of American comics' oldest anthology titles, and it carries Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts as a regular interior feature at exactly the moment the strip was building its national readership. Every St. John issue from #189 onward maintained Peanuts as a recurring color presence in comic books, making this run — #200 included — a crucial bridge between the strip's earliest comic-format appearances in 1952 and the original-story Dell era that followed. For Charlie Brown and Lucy Van Pelt, appearances like this one represent the strip's pre-television phase, when comic book anthologies were among the few ways readers outside daily newspaper circulation could encounter Schulz's characters in color. The issue also showcases the broader United Features Syndicate stable — Nancy, The Captain and the Kids, and others — as a snapshot of the mid-1950s humor-strip ecosystem from which Peanuts was quietly emerging as the dominant voice.
In "Must be a Good Book!", Ferd'nand drifts off while reading a copy of The Three Musketeers, only to find himself swept into a swashbuckling dream where he becomes a Musketeer in a tale of daring and honor. When he wakes, the adventure ends—but the park still needs cleaning, and Ferd'nand’s day goes on. Written and illustrated by Mik, with a whimsical cover by Ernie Bushmiller, this 1956 issue captures a quiet moment of imagination in a 10-cent comic.
In "3 Musketeers," Ferd'nand dozes off reading a swashbuckling tale and finds himself swept into a fantastical adventure as a daring Musketeer—only to wake up moments later, back in the park, still holding his trash picker.
ComicBooks.com Value
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Tip Top Comics launched in April 1936 under United Feature Syndicate, which used the title as a vehicle for color reprints of its licensed newspaper comic strips. United Feature published issues #1 through #188 before ceasing its direct comics line in 1954; St. John Publications then picked up the title with #189 and continued through #210, with the St. John issues reprinting Peanuts material drawn from earlier United Features Syndicate Tip Top installments rather than sourcing new strips directly from Schulz. After St. John's run concluded, Dell acquired the title with #211 and eventually introduced original Peanuts stories — ghosted by Schulz associates — rather than pure newspaper reprints.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Tip Top Comics #200 is part of the St. John Publications run of the title, which spanned issues #189–210 (roughly 1955–1957), before Dell took over with #211.
- The Peanuts content in this issue consists of color reprints of Charles M. Schulz's newspaper daily and/or Sunday strips — not original comic book stories.
- The St. John Peanuts material was itself reprinted from earlier United Features Syndicate issues of Tip Top Comics, making these strips second-generation comic book appearances.
- Tip Top Comics as a whole ran 225 issues from 1936 to 1961, with United Feature Syndicate publishing #1–188, St. John #189–210, and Dell #211–225.
- Peanuts first appeared in comic book form simultaneously in Tip Top Comics #173 and United Comics #21 (both cover-dated March/April 1952) — well before this issue.
- Co-features in the St. John-era Tip Top issues alongside Peanuts include Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy and Rudolph Dirks's The Captain and the Kids, both also United Features Syndicate properties.
- Issues in the St. John run typically ran 32 full-color pages, with Peanuts occupying several interior pages alongside the other strip reprints.
- Charlie Brown's Peanuts strips from this mid-1950s period depict the characters in their early visual style — rounder, more toddler-proportioned designs that Schulz had not yet refined into the form familiar from the 1960s onward.
Cast · 2 characters
Full credits
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.