Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sunday, October 11, 1953: The CROQUET GAME

Peanuts

This is quite an interesting strip. In addition to carrying an extra title other than just "Peanuts," there are several different jokes competing for space in these eight complex panels.

- Every character appears except for Linus. However, Schroeder's only in the first three (in the third he hiding behind the tree), Shermy's only in two of them, and Snoopy's relegated to one.
- Although the major gag of the strip is Lucy's trying to bounce a croquet ball, the most interesting exchange is between Patty and Charlie Brown, which is a fairly good depiction of the direction Schulz is taking the round-headed kid. Patty's blunt statement is rather shocking; one can imagine her intent is to reassure Charlie Brown that it's not personal, but when put that way how could one take it as anything but?
- Lucy shows greater appreciation for experimental evidence here than she does in many later strips.

3 comments:

  1. Curious how this strip contains an entire collection of little gags; Schulz could have taken the material in this one strip and made it a series. Normally he steers clear of this kind of complexity, which makes one wonder about his motivation for creating it. Maybe Schulz believed the gags wouldn't stand up individually.

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  2. Charlie Brown is in 6 panels Patty in 4 Violet in 3 Schroeder in 3 Lucy in 7 Shermy in 2 Snoop in 1 just so you don't have to count

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