comics | The Complete Peanuts, 1965-1966, by Charles M. Schulz, designed by Seth, Fantagraphics, $28.95, 326 pages

One of the benefits of reading David Michaelis' "Schulz and Peanuts" is that it gives classic Peanuts comics an extra level of meaning -- above and beyond the approximately 11 levels of meaning the comic already encouraged. Fantagraphics Books is providing the chance to enjoy Schulz's great strips anew with its handsome hardcover reprints of Peanuts. Each volume contains two years' worth of comics -- every strip, daily and Sunday, in the order they appeared in newspapers.

The newest of these collections covers the years 1965-1966, a period in which Schulz struggled mightily with issues of faith, culminating in the triumphant December 1965 broadcast of "A Charlie Brown Christmas," in which Linus unprecedentedly recites a long passage from the Gospel of Luke in the middle of a TV program. Also, in 1966 the Schulzes' house burned down; the incident turns up as a raging inferno consuming Snoopy's doghouse (and his Van Gogh).

Aside from the sheer pleasure of revisiting these comics in order -- ranging from throwaway gags to nuggets of wisdom that made Schulz not only a popular favorite but also a longtime hero of the counterculture -- there's great interest in seeing patterns the perceptive Michaelis points out in Schulz's work played out on a day-to-day basis. Schulz's fear of travel manifests in Snoopy's chickening out of a speech he's asked to give at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm. Charlie Brown's first trip to camp -- where he finally makes a friend -- reflects Schulz's stint in the Army, where he briefly came into his own. Most touchingly in light of Schulz's eventual divorce, his stand-in Schroeder acknowledges affection for Lucy only when the Van Pelts briefly move to another town.

Sure, there are some clunkers amid the 700-plus strips collected here. By 1965, Schulz had sold more than a million copies of his uncharacteristically fuzzy book "Happiness Is a Warm Puppy," and the occasional strip indulges Schulz's sappy side. And as timeless as the strip feels on most of its pages, Schulz sometimes succumbed to the cartoonist's crutch of using the fads of the day as handy laugh generators. Annette Funicello, surfing and skateboarding make awkward appearances, only to quickly disappear when their one-week (or one-day) utility is exhausted. It's tempting to wish that the publishers had edited out some of the bombs, but any ill will toward Fantagraphics' completism is extinguished by the joys of the book's index, in which Daisy Miller lives near "darkness, cursing thereof" and Vivaldi immediately precedes "'Waaaahh!' or 'Waah!'".

These were two momentous years for Peanuts: Peppermint Patty is introduced; Sally wears an eyepatch; Charlie Brown loses the school spelling bee by spelling "maze" M-A-Y-S; and Snoopy climbs aboard his Sopwith Camel and battles the Red Baron for the first time. I had forgotten that Snoopy never defeats the Red Baron; his doghouse often winds up riddled in bullet holes and trailing smoke. (Though ditching behind enemy lines often gives him the chance to chat up beautiful French farm girls.) Even Charles Schulz's most happy-go-lucky character could never defeat the enemy who haunted him most memorably for all those years.