Polygon is making the case that Charles Schulz peaked in the 1960s — and backing it up with receipts. The outlet has published a selection of six Peanuts strips from the decade it calls the best in the comic's history, framing each as evidence of Schulz's genius.

It's a defensible thesis. The 1960s were the stretch when Peanuts went from popular newspaper strip to cultural institution: the core cast dynamics locked into place, the strip's melancholy-under-the-humor voice matured, and the property exploded beyond the funny pages. Picking just six perfect strips from a decade when Schulz was producing daily is the hard part — the man drew thousands of them in that span.

List pieces like this double as an accessible on-ramp for readers who know Charlie Brown and Snoopy from specials and merchandise but have never sat with the original strips. The dailies hold up precisely because Schulz worked in small, humane observations rather than topical gags, which is why 60-year-old panels still read as current.

The full six picks, with Polygon's commentary on what makes each one perfect, are up on the site now.