Sunday, July 11, 1954: Cheese it, it's the fuzz

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Good grief! Is this the first time this trademark phrase has been used by a Peanuts cast member? I don't see it in my previous tags.

Lucy's personality isn't just a festering ball of evil, she has some rather weird quirks. (Fuzz? Really?) This strip helps to solidify Charlie Brown's developing role as long-suffering straight man. Schulz doesn't let him off the hook completely though; his fear of bugs at the end serves to unify his and Lucy's perspectives, showing they really aren't different.

Oh, one more thing...

WHY NOT WALK AROUND THE FUZZ?

December 20, 1953: Sorry I asked!

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

I love this strip!  It presents the world of the kids in a way that makes it seem all real, like there's always a dozen things happening at once.  My favorite joke in it, however, is the one in the lead two panels, which is just a throwaway but has some pleasing off-screen violence.

The metaphorical opening panel uses Charlie Brown's trademark zig-zag shirt pattern, but the zig-zag is nowhere to be seen elsewhere in the whole strip, and is in fact a little uncommon in the strip at this point considering the kid usually covers it with a jacket in the winter months.  Maybe he was just reminding the reader of it.

There is a lot of prototype Calvin and Hobbes here, both in the snowman gag and the humorous sled crash at the beginning.

November 13, 1953: Excitable, isn't he?

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Patty doesn't mean to drive Charlie Brown to hysterics, but it is kind of frightening to think about.  The space-filling overtelling of one of the characters here is acceptable, as it improves the joke.

It struck me just now that gender relations in Peanuts are already surprisingly equalized.  This is far from stereotypical girl behavior.  Patty gets used more as being a foil for Charlie Brown than for being female.  Maybe girls are considered to be more impish, and that explains why Patty is happy to point out C.B.'s mistake in the first panel; it's hard to imagine Shermy being happy there.

Look at that expression of fear in panel 3.  It's really a kindness that Charlie Brown doesn't realize that he'll actually be in school for 46 more years.

September 1, 1953: BIRD

I've seen this happen to cats. Probably on YouTube. It's really kind of a plain strip though. The premise is really just "Birds can dive on things that annoy them."

It is another step along the road to Woodstock, though.