I just got back from seeing Guardians of the Galaxy, and can point out that among the many details slammed into the film, Snoopy makes an appearance in one small way. The opening scene is set in a hospital, and on a patient’s bedside table, a greeting card with Snoopy atop his doghouse can clearly be seen. Of course, this is not the first Peanuts appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as regular readers can remember that there is a similar sighting to be made in Iron Man 3.

In some way, this is part of a circle of inspiration. Snoopy is in Guardians of the Galaxy. One of the film’s main characters is referred to simply as “Rocket” in the comic is inspired by a Beatles song – he’s known as “Rocket Raccoon” in the comics, and his early appearances make clear references to other elements of the song “Rocky Raccoon”. And the Beatles took inspiration from a magazine cover, where they got the title line “Happiness is a Warm Gun”… which is itself a reference to “Happiness is a Warm Puppy”, a line from Peanuts popularized as the title of a best-selling Peanuts book.

Because it is a film starring a character co-created by Jack Kirby (Groot, a humanoid tree creature), and because the Kirby family isn’t compensated for all the billions of dollars of business that is being done off of these movie adaptations, I went and kicked a buck toward the Kirby legacy as part of my campaign, A Buck For Jack.

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