Who doesn’t know Charles Schulz’s Charlie Brown and Snoopy? We know about Charlie Brown’s yearly disappointment, trying to score even one run on the baseball diamond. We know about Snoopy’s rich fantasy life as a WWI aviator, wooing young women and drinking root beer. These characters are rich and detailed in our mind’s eye, but how did we come to know them? A comic strip only has four small panels, thin black and white lines, just a few short snatches of dialog. Not much to go on.

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