In this week's New York Times Sunday Book Review, Douglas Wolk writes:

"Peanuts always had a bite to it; Schulz’s favorite source of comedy was the anxieties and humiliations of childhood. Still, some of these strips are unnervingly bitter even for him, as when Marcie destroys Snoopy’s doghouse in a rage, then screams at Peppermint Patty that she needs to 'face up to reality.' It provokes laughter, of course, but shocked laughter: you can tell these kids aren’t going to grow up happy."

"Jacob Covey’s design for E. C. Segar’s Popeye series is appropriately tall, imposing and sturdy, with a big die-cut in the middle of each volume’s front cover, as if the sailor man himself had punched somebody through it. ... ['Plunder Island'] is crude, jolting, scary and funny, and there’s nothing like it in the beaten-down funny pages of the present."