OK, you guys know me. Big fan of comic books, big fan of Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip. I know a lot of people think Charlie Brown and the gang are corny and lightweight, but I'd argue that no strip (except perhaps for the equally great "Calvin and Hobbes") was so riddled with pathos, all the while telling a decent joke. If you've been sad and lonely at one point or another, you can identify with Charlie Brown. And Schulz could spin a mean yarn - he's one of the great American visual storytellers.

But that's not what this is about.

Click on this link (or paste it into your browser):

http://www.popcultureshock.com/viewer.php?type=features&id=887&p=1

There's a series of cartoons on the other end lampooning a lot of the goings-on in mainstream super-hero comics circa 2005. If you know about Marvel's "Ultimate" line, or if you read DC's "Identity Crisis" arc (discussed in the New York Times and elsewhere), you'll get all the jokes. If you're a casual comics fan, you'll get some of the others.

Either way, the idea of the Peanuts gang visiting the Marvel universe was enough to crack me up.