Peanuts was in its prime before my time, but when I read it, it was cute but not funny. To me it seemed like a bunch of kids with adult neuroses, it seemed disconnected.

I loved the Far Side when it was at its peak in the late 80's, but it's just disconnected one-frame gags. And upon re-reading as an adult, they were very inconsistent, and the surrealism hasn't aged well. Maybe some comics just belong in childhood/teenage years, but it's clear that some really work for adults as well.

Family Circle falls into the cute one-strip category, but it didn't have much depth either--too saccharine. To me it didn't compare to European comics focused on family antics like Boule et Bill, or Mafalda (Argentinian).

I really think the American comics were hampered by the daily strip in the newspaper format. Many authors did try to make longer story arcs over a week of strips, and I preferred those. Calvin and Hobbes was the best at it, but there were other good ones such as Mutts and Over the Hedge. There were/are authors working outside the strip format, making whole book comics like in Europe, but I never got into those--too dark (Maus) or super-hero (Watchmen) or never-ending. For example, the more recent Amulet series started out well, but each book went deeper and deeper into the story and never really resolved the initial tension--I gave up after 7 or 8 books.