Sunday, August 17, 1952: Ragequit

This is the beginning of a running gag in which Lucy builds up an incredible winning streak against Charlie Brown at checkers. It's a major part of the building of CB's defeatest attitude.

It is interesting to note Charlie Brown's reaction to his own behavior in panel 7. When he went on a rage tirade a few weeks ago, enough that the girls hid behind trees to get away (similar to Lucy's reaction here), we accepted it even though it'd look pretty disturbing in real life because comics exaggerate and illustrate emotions to enable us readers to more easily see them. Here, however, the comic takes his behavior and has him react to it with realistic dismay. It's a rather cool little deconstruction of the form.

Sunday, August 3, 1952: I can taste that ice cream now coursing through my veins!

I love the second panel for this one. Simultaneously delicious and disturbing.

Lucy's confused copying of Patty and Violet, to me, are an unexpectedly important part of this strip. It's a mocking echo of Charlie Brown's torment! She is become Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos! Ia! Ia! ...

Oops, sorry about that. I should probably tone down the Lovecraft references, heh.

In the next-to-last panel, it is weird to see the girls hiding from CB's wrath. There isn't even any lead up to it; the girls are suddenly in the background behind those trees. Then in the last panel they're instantly back.

Oh, and how about that look on Lucy's face in the first panel? She really seems to be into that wagon.

July 18, 1952: Lucy's family

Peanuts rarely lets us know much about the home lives of its characters except where they relate to each other. This strip shows us that Lucy may be feeling a bit ignored at home. I don't think Schulz intends that Lucy's forthcoming anger issues arise from dissatisfaction with her parents... but it would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

June 7, 1952: Violet has mood swings

Violet is one of the more generic Peanuts characters in the classic era, but in the early period she seems to be purposely more moody than her counterpart Patty. This is not the first time a joke like this has been used for her, and it won't be the last either.

May 24, 1952: Lucy is non-repentant

A rather different context for the chase/turnabout formula. This is a solid step along the way to Lucy's later personality. Her expression in panel two is like a shadow spreading over the strip. Lucy's on her way and she's not bring flowers and candy canes!

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 8, 1952: Beware the Wrath of the Prodigy

Can't really blame Schroeder for getting angry over this one!

Two things. First, Peanuts characters seemed to mellow out a lot over time. Even the mighty Lucy rarely seemed to wear an expression of this ferocity. Second, the rules concerning the depictions of adults and their communications was much less in force here. In many later strips, you wouldn't have seen a word balloon over the radio, and the joke probably would have had to be reworked into a conversation between two of the kids.

February 2, 1952: The Rapids Under The Bridge

It helps one feel a little bit better about Patty and Violet in their cruel years to think that they have such a short attention span that they can't remain angry at Charlie Brown for more than three panels.

January 24, 1952: Hammer-Klavier

German is a funny language when you think about it. I guess it is somewhat less funny when you try to spell something in it.

Schroeder gets annoyed with the other kids fairly often. ‘tis the curse of the misunderstood genius, I guess.

January 17, 1952: More wavy lines

Although he still barely speaks, Schroeder is out and about! An important step towards his becoming a full character. Notice his bed in the corner in the third and fourth frames; it is a weird quasi-crib with low rails.

The post title comes from the aura around his head in the third frame, which we also saw used yesterday to denote embarrassment.

December 20, 1951: Snowman Custody

December 14, 1951: She throws like a...

Setting aside the question of whether Violet's throwing range is realistic, this is a good example of the kind of strip that fueled Peanut's early popularity. It's just funny. Everything about it. The surprised pose from Charlie Brown in the first frame, the determined look on Violet's face throughout, the wide smile on Charlie Brown's face in the end, and the frustrated reaction from Violet.

There are a lot of funny strips coming up....

November 22, 1951: Starring Patty as the Queen of Hearts

It's the Scribble of RAGE! Grrar!

This seems very much like a Lucy maneuver. This seems a somewhat misogynistic strip, doesn't it? How would we feel about this if it was, say, Shermy who was his opponent?

November 15, 1951: The Girls of Wrath

It's been less than a year since sweet little Violet was introduced, and look at how well she hates Charlie Brown now.

Funny, if Violet and Patty didn't pick up their disdain for CB, then maybe it would have seemed less cruel over time, but probably the strip wouldn't have picked up the depth with which it is remembered for today. Little kids doing funny things day after day is funny, but it's not going to be remembered.

There are plenty of comic strips out there, some as old or even older than Peanuts, where the characters just sort of bumble along amiably. Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Smith, Garfield, which characters in those strips really hate each other? Which characters experience unrequited love? These are the aspects of Peanuts which are rarely copied. Everyone instead goes for Snoopy.

I recognize that there may be some selection bias in here. It might not be so much that people don't attempt to attain some of Peanuts' emotional depth, but more that those strips are less likely to be picked up for syndicates who care more about merchandising rights and greeting card sales than complex characters. In a way, part of Schulz's genius is that he was able to get it into papers. If Peanuts had started out the way it would become a few short years later, would Universal Features Syndicate have still bought it?

November 10, 1951: The claws come out

Another unexplained burst of rage from Patty and Violet, who in later strips would become almost defined by their disdain for Charlie Brown. When I was a kid reading 50s and 60s Peanuts strips in compilations, I thought the characters existed mostly to hate him.

This one implies that the two characters were reacting to something distasteful Charlie Brown did. Is it possible that the characters were always considered to be reacting to something CB said, offscreen, but in later strips the setup was just left out to save space?

November 1, 1951: Money or Eats

It's that profile doorstep scene that would play a role in so many later strips. I don't think this is its first appearance though.

"Tricks or treats, money or eats," did Trick or Treaters really use that line? Seems awfully mercenary to me. Around here I don't think it's common for people to give money for Halloween.

September 27, 1951: Cigar-Box Banjo

Schroeder actually doesn't do much in the past three strips other than play the piano. The humor comes mostly from the other characters reacting to it. A tremendously silly thing is not as funny as people dealing with it.

As the strip gets older, the characters eventually kind of become creatures of their settings. Schroeder eventually becomes seen in few places other than before his piano, which also means that Lucy, the other resident of their little two-kid pocket universe, becomes his main contact with the rest of the Peanuts world.

September 14, 1951: The wrath of Violet

This is the first strip (or one of them, anyway, I don't remember any others) in which one of the female characters shows unequivocal anger towards Charlie Brown without cause. Later strips would focus on the feelings of the wounded CB in these cases, but here it's just used as a punchline. So even though the subject is similar to modern Peanuts, the strip doesn't yet have the depth of introspection for which people remember it.

If I keep linking every strip like this, we'll be going through it roughly in real time!