Gotta have my Pops ...and their gruesome comic strip?

Have you looked at a cereal box recently? There's a lot more going on there than just insipid giveaways and faux-nutritional advice.

At least there is on a new crop of Corn Pops boxes. Kellogg's has launched a Cinnamon Pops cereal and has slapped huge comic strips on both the regular and cinnamon-flavoured Pops boxes to share the origin story of exactly how the new variety came to be.

But unlike other cereal box cartoons, these comics might make you snort your morning coffee. Instead of a goofy you-got-your-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate tale, the comics show two pals, one a Corn Pop and one a cinnamon stick, on a play date that ends in death.

In one, the duo are toodling along, when they come across a big, scary snail. The snail pulverizes the cinnamon stick, sprinkling dust (yummy, no doubt) all over his rotund friend. To amplify the breakfast horror saga, the poor Corn Pop is left looking aghast. In another, the friends are reclining on the grass, scanning the sky for clouds when a big hairy foot stomps on the cinnamon stick.

Copies of the comics are popping up all over social media – and raising eyebrows.

As one cereal aficionado who blogged about the comic put it, "This is a kids cereal?"

"That's the origin of the cereal? A corn pop is smothered with the gory remains of his dear friend?"

A Kellogg's site announcing the new flavour shows just the front of the box and, at the bottom of the page, an image of two girls hugging in a far more conventional image of friendship.

But then again, maybe this is less an outrage and more a sign that children aren't actually allowed to eat this stuff anymore, so we probably don't need to worry about their delicate sensibilities. It's grown-ups – or at least hipsters with cereal blogs – who are the main audience.

Parents, would you turn the box around if you noticed this comic staring your child in the face?