November 26 & 30, 1953: Two with Violet

November 26, 1953

 November 30, 1953

Violet was such a sweet little girl at first, wasn't she?  That seems long ago now, but it's been less than three years since then.

In the first strip here we have another case of Charlie Brown being thrown out of Violet's house.  Until now, usually Violet forgets what made her angry before C.B. is evicted or long gone, but not in this case.  In the second strip she takes naked advantage of Charlie Brown's lack of backbone, and doesn't even have the venom to make an evil smile about it.  It's just a business translation for her.  She wants what Charlie Brown has, so it becomes hers.  Wow.

It's difficult to feel sorry for C.B. in that one.  It's not like she threatened him or anything!

Charlie Brown's hat in the first strip is rather stylish. 

November 23 & 28, December 31 1953: Sleepy Snoopy

November 23, 1953:

 November 28, 1953:

December 31, 1953:

I'm taking a couple of these out of order to collect some thematically similar strips.  All have to do with a sleeping Snoopy and all have to do with sight gags.

The first strip is another early thought balloon strip, and one that uses the standard tail on the balloon, too!  Schulz seems like he's finally decided to settle on this convention.

In the second strip, is that an indoor bed for Snoopy?  It would seem that would fix him as Charlie Brown's dog, but I don't think we can absolutely say that until a character states it explicitly.

The third strip is one that Schulz would come back to later, and is visually inventive in how it uses the size of the 'Z' to represent the loudness of Snoopy's snoring.  (It's also one of the earliest, though not the first I think, of a large serif 'Z' to represent sleep, which is a very Peanuts convention.)