> since I obviously could never get a degree in Peanuts

Now now now my friend, don't speak too soon :D

That being said, what you describe is essentially textbook amateur historian territory. An interested party with no formal training who has amassed knowledge in a particular subject area. You should feel no hesitation in using that term to describe yourself. If you are concerned about possible pejorative context, I direct you to this note from William Cronon, who was the president of the AHA (American Historical Association) back in 2012.

In this usage, the amateur is no less skilled than the professional, and is honored even more because that skill was acquired without financial incentives. In this, we glimpse the oldest linguistic root of the word amateur, which is the Latin amator, "lover," which derives in turn from amare, "to love." Understood in light of this most ancient meaning of the word, amateurs are those who pursue their interest not for money but for love.

This is an interesting point because new undergraduates usually ask this question in the sciences. ‘When am I a scientist?’ The correct answer is that you are a historian when you are employed by a body that recognizes you as a historian, and when you conduct formalized research on a subject. Yes you can say ‘I am a historian in this subject.’ But usually you have to be recognized and actively working in your field to be called an ‘ist’ or an ‘Ian’ (I.e, physicist, scientist, historian, logistician.) For example, at the Charles M Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa county, you could take a position as a historian and archivist whose job is to collect lost writings and drawings from Schulz (yes it’s a minor example but you get it) and archive them for historical purposes.

For me, the difference between a "history buff" and a "historian" is: do you generate new research questions and answer them to the level of rigor that would be accepted by other historians? If the answer is "yes," then great, you're a historian, congrats. If the answer is something more like, "well, maybe I could, but I've never tried," then you're still in buff-land, but you could imagine transitioning, though it might take more work than you imagine (it is far harder to generate novel research questions than most people realize; it is really the hardest part of the job, aside from, you know, getting said job). And if the answer is, "but I have encyclopedic knowledge!," that's great! But that's not the same thing that a historian is. That's still in the territory of the "history buff."

I don't use the term "history buff" disparagingly, and my own work has been greatly aided by the (sometimes obsessive) cataloging by such "buffs" (I did a project awhile back that involved a Pullman Porter train and my god, the buffs enriched my work on that). ABut there's a real difference in the type of work and the approach to history that buffs and historians have. Historians need not necessarily even know as much as the buffs do (at least about the details) — it's the fact that they are creating novel research questions and then writing them up and sharing them with a broader community of historians that makes the difference.

Note that this definition does not depend on your place of employment, degree, or anything like that. Those things are obviously signals of being a historian at times (because they won't give a PhD to a buff, usually, and they won't hire buffs at universities), but there are many respectable historians who do not have PhDs and who do not work in academia. And there are some jobs with titles like "historian" which, when you look at what the person does, really ought to be renamed "archivist" or something like that, if you used my definition.

That's just my definition, as an academic historian, so you can take it for what it is worth to you. There are no accreditation boards or anything like that who regulate the title of "historian."

Perhaps you can be an expert, but a historian is a person who writes history, I think the term you are looking for is history buff, one who reads the work of historians. Also, historians generally have at least a MA in history, although that degree is being phased out for the PhD. So my advice, get a degree in History, with a focus on Peanuts, and then publish you findings.

I am thinking of all that a historian could do in studying Peanuts and Peanuts related things. Go get the skills of a historian and put them to use analyzing cultural effects of the comic and vice verse. Find out if anyone uses Peanuts related analogies. What about the cultural impact of the Christmas special? What about sales of fake vs wooden Christmas trees? All sorts of fun stuff. You just need some mentorship in knowing the questions to ask and the places to find answers.

I think for many academics, particularly in the soft sciences, knowing of the subject isn't enough. Instead you have to be able to contextualise it along with relate it to other displinces to really be a historian.

You can be a guru but can you talk about why Peanuts resonated with American society, the origins of the character archetypes, why Snoopy doesn't have brown dots and more?