March 31, 1952: First non-traditional layout

Newspaper comics, for all the (potentially) wonderful things about them, are also heavily restricted in format. Charles Schulz is recorded as saying that for a long time he stuck with a four panel layout because it allowed the newspapers the most flexibility in arranging them. They could be run in a two-by-two box, or as a column of single panels. But here we see him experimenting within the form by sub-dividing the panels into two sub-panels each.

It works well here because there is little speech in this one. It wouldn't exactly lend itself to Linus expounding on the Old Testament.

Sunday, March 30, 1952: Lucy's developing taste in music

Lucy is especially baby-like in this one. Since the strip has a new resident infant, it frees Schroeder up to solely be the musician. Weirdly, in this strip Lucy has probably said more than Schroeder has in the entire run up to this point.

This is the first strip to exhibit Lucy's early tendency to refer to herself in the third person. Of all the Peanuts characters, I think Lucy might be the one to change the most. Even more than Snoopy.

There are weirder things still here. Lucy looks extra creepy in the first panel up there, and her words in the next-to-last panel seem oddly chosen, if explainable by her lack of skill in the language. In the last panel Schulz finds a good compromise between the circled-eyes look and general character appeal. It is a prototype of the parenthesis eyes that Lucy would adapt for the majority of Peanuts' run, the same type that Linus has out the gate.

March 28, 1952: Lucy, Live on Stage

The curtains at the sides lend this strip an odd theatrical appearance.

The strip itself is another of those instances of Lucy pestering her father, who as we've noted before are reputed based on the childhood antics of Charles Schulz's daughter Lisa.

This may be the creepiest yet we've seen of Lucy's wide-eyed early look. In that first panel especially she looks like visions of Hell hold no secrets for her.

March 26, 1952: That's just-- an alibi!

It's Lucy's first strip with characters other than Charlie Brown or her unseen father. The girl looks pretty miserable in the second panel, doesn't she?

Also of note here, it's Violet's first strip with her hair done in a ponytail, probably done so she doesn't look so much like Lucy.

March 24, 1952: Bring me my bear, servant!

The fifth sixth Lucy strip. Another instance of Lucy's demanding interactions with her unseen father. Apparently Schulz got the idea for these strips from his then-newbown daughter, Lisa. I hope he didn't get the idea for Lucy's later personality from her as well!

Sunday, March 23, 1952: More Baseball

The first baseball-themed Sunday strip, and a foreshadowing of the career of Charlie "The Goat" Brown.

Patty playing umpire in the first panel is especially nice.

In panel 5, which base is it that Charlie Brown is running to? There seems to be some confusion between Patty and Violet on the matter. If you look closely, the drawing of Patty in that frame is a bit of a throwback; she's reverted to her old round-headed look. It's interesting that I didn't notice how all the characters except Charlie Brown have been slowly moving from having oval heads when viewed in profile or three-quarters to having recessed eyes and prominent foreheads.

March 22, 1952: About face

It's a turnabout/chase strip in which Charlie Brown didn't intentionally insult Patty. He seems to be growing out of his smart-aleck phase.

March 21, 1952: Charlie Brown before the great kite slump

Your eyes do not deceive you, he is actually flying a kite. And flying a kite low is a hell of a lot harder than flying one high. As the kid gets older his physical skills go to pieces.

Maybe we need a word for Charlie Brown's life before he became such a failure. Maybe we should call this his "pre-goat period."

March 18, 1952: Requiem for a composer

The second appearance of Schroeder's bust of Beethoven. While we remember that Charlie Brown introduced Schroeder to the piano pianoforte, this strip implies that he also introduced him to Beethoven.

I kind of wish I lived in a world in which little kids were up on major classical composers, although it'd be a little intimidating.

300 posts!

March 17, 1952: Lucy Lucy Quite Contrary

This is Lucy's fifth strip, and the earliest that tends to show up in abridged anthologies seeing as how it's the earliest glimmer of her fully-developed, ultra-antagonistic personality, and how it still has her saucer-eyes.

Those are some big thought balloons.

Sunday, March 16, 1952: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

If your opinion of Peanuts has been determined entirely by "Happyness is a Something Saccharine" plaques, then take a look at panel 5 here. SNOOPY in an ELECTRIC CHAIR. It is also Snoopy's first thought balloons, although there are no words in these. The dog has not yet learned the rudiments of human language.

Dogcatcher jokes have been a staple of cartoons since at least the Termite Terrace days. Snoopy, being ownerless at this time, would have a special cause for avoiding the Homeless Police.

An ice cream bone? Just this one I envy those papers that clipped off the top panels.

March 15, 1952: 100m Piano Toss

This strip is a variant of the same kind of sudden reaction as the turnabout strips brought up before. Tossing objects is still a common expression of cartoon anger, isn't it? Do this in real life and I don't like to think of how the police would react.

I'm pretty sure I have never heard the term "pianoforte" outside of Peanuts.

March 14, 1952: He's not THAT snoopy

Snoopy's appearance has been gradually progressing all this time, but this strip seems like one of the more obvious changes.

The later jokes of Snoopy acting a lot like a person, and being treated like one, evolved out of gags such as this one. When Snoopy has been half-human for twenty years it is hard to get humor out of his doing things not expected of dogs, or being treated as human.

Really, what could the girls be so defensive about? They're, what, six?

March 13, 1952: Suddenly materializing chair and footstool

Lucy's fourth strip.

Where did Charlie Brown's chair and footstool in the last panel come from? Did he pull them up and sit down just so he could luxuriate in the punchline?

EXTRA: Old-school Peanuts figures

Thanks to RAB of Estoreal for pointing me to these figures Dark Horse is putting out of Peanuts characters then and now.

Of course there is nothing wrong, exactly, with the modern representations. But there is a charm in the old depictions that is missing in the newer ones, and that's especially evident in Old-School Snoopy.

The evolution of a comic strip is an interesting thing.  The Garfield of today is unrecognizable compared to the Garfield of the strip's beginnings, and that was in 1978.  In that case, they began as remarkably unattractive characters, enough so that one can only think they were intended to be ugly.  Peanuts went the other way; strikingly composed and sharply designed characters, over the first few years of the strip, transitioned into slightly more realistic, yet definitely less attractive realizations.

Why would Charles Schulz move towards lessening the cute-factor of his characters? My theory is to stave off a perception that his work was kid's stuff, which would be especially important as the strip began to lift off to philosophical heights and cultural relevance. Of course, you may have different ideas.

March 12, 1952: Lucy is top-heavy

Lucy's third strip here. She looks fairly different with those huge eyes, doesn't she? Probably added to make her more visually distinct from Violet, they don't last very long.

March 11, 1952: Throws like a girl

It's a fairly funny joke here, not the usual source of humor in this one. Most comics (including Peanuts up to this point), it would just be enough to stretch the first two panels here over four.

Consider, for a moment, the comic strip Nancy. Nancy is, itself, a kind of classic, an endless elaboration upon a basic set of jokes. And yet, it cannot really be said to have evolved over time. Ernie Bushmuller was a craftsman. A really good one actually; few comic strips could have maintained the level of competence he provided for Nancy over that period. That is a good word for what Nancy is: competent.

Schulz, we see here, was not interested in mere competence. We can see here that he wasn't interested in applying a formula over and over again forever, that he was engaged with his work and responding to it in an iterative manner. In this strip, he comments upon a kind of joke that just a year earlier he would have made without second thoughts. This is why Bushmuller was a craftsman, but Schulz was an artist.

March 10, 1952: Because he is a dog

A dog eating half of a tiny piece of candy quickly is worthy of two exclamation points from Charlie Brown?

This one's posted mostly for the haunted look from CB in the last panel. Weird.

March 7, 1952: William Tell

It's been a little while since we've seen Snoopy. So, here: Snoopy!

March 6, 1952: Three-quarters angled down Violet head

This is a fairly ordinary strip, but it's worth posting for the view of Violet's head in the third panel, which is quite interesting. The angle works pretty well I think.

March 4, 1952: PLEEEESE?

Before her awesome rage-based powers became evident, Lucy was quite the charmer.

March 3, 1952: Dear god, it's HER

Aww, isn't she cute? Little did anyone, least of all Schulz himself, know that with the introduction of that (literally) wide-eyed little girl jumping rope, there was created perhaps the most concentrated entity of wrath ever to grace the comics page.

The Fuss-Budget. The Mistress Crabby. The Atom Bomb. She that doth provide the football, and she that taketh it hence.

So faint not dear reader, but yet be warned! It has awakened!

LUCY APPROACHES.

Sunday, March 2, 1952: This should satisfy the health inspector

"You've come to the right place... more or less."

It's another joke collage, and another chapter in Violet's obsession with mud food. Muud.

March 1, 1952: Whee!

How did he get out of his house so fast? How could the characters think they were hiding behind that tiny fence?

The third panel here is most interesting to me, since it depicts three characters running. It's not as easy to depict a cartoon character running, cleanly, as you might think, and those squat Peanuts characters have special issues with it. The general pose these running characters adopt is leaning forward slightly, front leg lifted up and bent, rear leg bent and folder under the body, and arms held out a little with hands crumpled. They are also shown "hovering" in the air. Note that their legs are a little longer when running, so they don't look too strange, but in the last panel their legs must be quite a bit longer for them to be holding that crouching pose.

Note that characters who are actively trying to run lean forward a little, but Charlie Brown, who isn't trying to run very hard because he's not intent on escaping and doesn't know why he's running, is leaning backwards a little. This post also helps to keep him distinct from the other characters, since his head is moved out from behind Patty's. Also note Shermy's pose in the second panel, with his right leg pulling away from the door a little in anticipation of his run. These are the kinds of things a good nuts-and-bolts cartoonist thinks about. It is hard to imagine, say, Scott Adams, whose cartoons are more about irony and banter, and who uses characters mostly as containers for dialogue, it is hard to imagine him spending much time worrying about these things.

Finally, did kids every say "whee" like that?

February 27, 1952: Ay, there's the rub

There is an unusual convention in this strip, the character who, out loud, comments on something happening in the strip to the reader, who cannot be heard by the other characters in the strip. Notice that Schulz isn't using thought balloons for Charlie Brown. It's a kind of theatrical effect, that of a spoken internal monologue.

February 26, 1952: Dolls are not good melee weapons

It's been a while since we had a turnabout/chase strip! Patty threatening to hit CB with her beloved doll is nice.

February 25, 1952: "Yes sir, this shampoo is just the thing for your fleas."

In the Peanuts backstory Charlie Brown's father is a barber, which mirrored the occupation of Charles Schulz's real-life father. You can't be blamed for not knowing this fact as it seldom factored into the strip in later years, perhaps due to the awkwardness of making use of the fact after Schulz's own father passed on.

Sunday, February 24, 1952: Sure I've heard of crocodiles

The throwaway first-panel joke, I think, is funnier than the rest of it, though Patty's comment in panel 5 is pretty good.

February 23, 1954: Hey, guess what it's made of!

IT'S MUD MUD MUD I TELL YOU MMUUUDD HEAP IT ON MY LAST PLATE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH WORM

At least now she sees that it's not edible.

February 21, 1952: *sigh*

I think this is the first "sigh" in Peanuts, but I could have missed one. It is another step along the way for Snoopy's personality though, growing out of the state in which something as simple as fetch could occupy him.

February 20, 1952: OMG NEU CHARACTAR

Hey everyone meet Olsen!

I can't say he lasts very long. Especially once the sun comes out....

February 19, 1952: So now he's an art critic

Real dogs don't laugh. Here's a fun exercise... try to imagine what Snoopy's laughter sounds like. In the cartoons, it was always a weird kind of squeaky, babyish voice.

There was an animated version of the play You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown I saw some time ago, and it was notable for actually providing a voice to Snoopy's thoughts. This has always been the big things the comic strip has had over the cartoons; you don't hear what Snoopy is thinking, even as a disembodied voice. But that cartoon of the play did, and it was a really weird voice for him too. One could see how one could think of that as Snoopy's inner voice, but at the time it really didn't sound like it fit the character.

February 18, 1952: Eulogy for the Neighborhood

After some years, the rest of the kids' neighborhood would fade into the background, and ultimately only be shown in a heavily simplified way, often as simple as a straight-on view. Schulz recognized this in his comments in Peanuts: A Golden Celebration. I kind of miss these types of settings. I think they really added something to the strip.