OFF-TOPIC: Computer game Kickstarter project

It isn't relevant to Peanuts in the least, but it is something I've been working hard on, and I'm very excited about it, so I figure it should be mentioned here, like, once.

I'm working on a computer game project about exploring caves.  It's called "In Profundis," and I've just launched a Kickstarter project for it.  If you're interested in such things, why not go have a look, and maybe contribute to the cause?

In Profundis Kickstarter page

There, all done.  We now return you to our regularly-scheduled comic strips.

October 16, 1953: Er, how long have you been sitting there?

These strips where one character is doing something imaginative or outlandish and another character is revealed to be watching, and smiling, leaving the acting character to walk away blushing, are rather common. I can't help but speculate that maybe Schulz experienced an occasion like that when he was young?

(Still a bit slow, should be remedied in a couple of days.)

June 24, 1953: Snoopy vs. the Yard

Another of those strips in which Snoopy, naive in the ways of yard equipment, investigates something and gets surprised by it. Here the reaction shot from Charlie Brown is needed to complete the joke.

April 28, 1953: How does a cotton ball fly like that?

Other than from showing Peanuts' continued fascination with golf, the only real reason I picked this strip is that it has some nice drawings of Snoopy. All the versions of all the characters have their strong points, but in Snoopy's case I think I prefer this style most of all. It's a long time until the long, lean Snoopy of the "Snoopy dance" arrives, and longer still until we see the "balloon animal" Snoopy of the most recent era.

April 16, 1953: Playing Guns with Girls

The gender norms of Peanuts are worthy of examination. They're rather complex.

For decades, all the female characters wore dresses nearly all the time. Late in the strip's run Lucy's default outfit changed to what looks like a jogging suit.

Considering that the strip is still in the early 50s this isn't surprising. The girls, however, don't appear to be so traditional regarding to their choices of games to play. They play dolls and house (or Mud Pie Chef) sometimes, but they've been just as apt to play Cowboys and Indians, or Space Hero.

This is really progressive if you think about it: even as late as Calvin and Hobbes, Susie, when playing, is nearly always seen at some girl-oriented activity like playing Tea Party or House. (This is probably because it's so entertaining to watch Calvin react to stereotypically feminine things.)

September 12, 1952: Seven Spades

If you have a strong hand of one suit in Contract Bridge, you can bid strongly in it and try to make it trump. If you have seven cards of a suit, then the most any other player can have is six, guaranteeing you one trick and probably worth several more. And Spades is the strongest bidding suit, beaten only by No Trump.

Snoopy's reaction here is great.

August 8, 1952: Charlie Brown wins one

Is Snoopy actually playing, or is Charlie Brown playing both sides? For the most part the dog has shown mostly dog-like abilities. But if he's not really playing, then why does he seem invested in the game?

Charlie Brown certainly put the game away fast in the last panel.

July 1, 1952: "I won..."

Charlie Brown's losing streak in nearly all games has yet to be firmly established, but it's coming. He somehow loses thousands of games of Checkers against Lucy in the coming months alone.

The storytelling in this one's excellent. Charles Schulz uses repetition in Peanuts in a way that no other comic strip, that I can think of, does. It's a really complex idea to get across in four panels too, of Charlie Brown getting beaten down by Patty's dismissal of his victory, yet I don't see the strip making its point more effectively with more panels.

June 2, 1952: Sore Winner

I imagine that Puerto Rico would drive the poor girl insane.

Suinday, May 18, 1952: FREAKISHLY HUGE EYES

Lucy in the second panel looks rather hideous with her big, circular eyes. The other strips show her from the side where she looks a lot more normal.

None of the kids really have all that good a hiding place. (Schroeder in the waste basket is funny.)

Here, "Rats!" is cemented as the Peanuts world's all-purpose curse word. Like most of these mild oaths it seems king of quaint now, which is something of a shame because there's a lot more variety to these milder versions than the strong examples turned to the most now. (Of course these are kids we're talking about, and not the ones from South Park.)

Lucy's system of counting is strange and non-deterministic. Still, if you're going up to eight million, it's probably better to do it that way.

May 12,1952: Roll a d20 to resolve the attack

Role-playing games often use the question of who-shot-whom in a game of Cowboys and Indians to explain why they use die rolls to resolve those issues. They assume that most players aren't as fair-minded as Charlie Brown!

Calvin would not have let Shermy win like that. In fact, Watterson would have probably turned this into a Sunday strip, and have Calvin go to extravagant lengths to come up with reasons that Shermy could never have hit him with his ray gun. This is why Calvin was so popular with his non-tiger friends.

April 29, 1952: The birth of Charlie Brown's insecurity

We've seen hints of it before, but this is the first one in which Charlie Brown seems actually delighted just to be included with the others', like by default he is some kind of pariah, shunned by all.

This is also the first strip in which Lucy is used as a background character. It might also be the first strip in which Schroeder is used as such. That's an important step towards promoting them to full kid-hood.

Sunday, April 20, 1952: Strange mystery game

In this strip from the early 1950s, the kids are playing some bizarre game the origins of which being long lost to time. It appears to involve throwing several "horseshoe"-shaped objects (themselves artifacts from some activity or process now unknown to us) towards a stake stuck in the ground in an attempt to score a "ringer."

Judging from their progress, it seems likely that the kids must still be playing their game today.

April 12, 1952: Ball One

Poor Charlie Brown would never really get much better than this. This is the first strip that puts both Charlie Brown and Schroeder into their respective baseball positions as pitcher and catcher.

Of special note: Charlie Brown's pitcher's mound is a lot more subtle in this strip than it would be later on.

January 27, 1952: Blind Man’s Bluff

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I expect a lot of kids today have never heard of this game, either.

I just like this one, it’s mostly a collage of smaller jokes, like “At least I’ll be near home!” and “What trees?”

Decembet 27, 1951: Schroeder, not Snoopy

Not one of the funnier strips, but worth linking for the image of Snoopy sleeping in three-quarter perspective in the first frame, and his angry look in panels three and four.

Oh, and for the record: Parcheesi sucks.

November 26, 1951: Some Advice: Before Hiding, Make Sure You're Playing

How do mistakes like this even happen?

Check out the halftone in the second panel. You don't see that a whole lot in Peanuts.

October 22, 1951: You dig?

I find this one to be pretty funny. It's just the image of Charlie Brown digging furiously right behind Patty in order to evade her finding him in Hide-And-Seek. It's a well-constructed punchline too, with CB's words playing off of the traditional H&S line.

October 13, 1951: Bang! Bang!

How about Charlie Brown's look of annoyance at the mention of House in panel two? Or his rather overplayed enthusiasm for (singular) Cowboy and (plural) Indians in panel three?

September 15, 1951: Because Charlie Brown stands in the way?

It's funny, but also seems to suggest that either Charlie Brown is incredibly accident prone, or the other characters are resigned to him standing between them and the post.