The case for memes as a new form of comics

They are certainly similar, but if you're choosing Peanuts as your main example of a comic strip that reuses some standard formatting... you're forgetting that in addition to the art, there's also decades of character and world building. Of course memes serve a similar function in terms of a multiple panel joke structure but there's a profound difference between those two at a core level. Maybe not so much with a Garfield or Beetle Bailey, though!