December 5, 1953: Reciprocal slobber

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

There are a few strips that notice a basic similarity between the behavior of very little kids and dogs, and by my reckoning this is the first.  I seem to remember a few strips that played this up when Sally comes on the scene, when she and Snoopy team up to steal Linus' blanket.

Why is the noise of Snoopy licking depicted as "smack," and why is it in a word balloon?

When characters stoop over, like Lucy is in panel three, it seems easy to imagine them unfolding their legs and ending up much taller than they should be.

Sunday, June 21, 1953: Linus thinks

Being thoughts, this doesn't count as Linus' first words. I'm not even sure this counts as Linus' first thought balloons, but I can't find the strip in the archives in which he complains about "big kids," which is the prior use I remember so maybe that comes later. But I think it is the first example of Linus' voice really coming through clearly to the reader, even if it isn't audible to other characters.

Linus is interesting because we first get a few strips with him thinking before he actually starts talking. Sally also does this when she shows up. I think Rerun gets it too.