March 21-26, 1955: What did you expect?

March 21

This is an early version of a later strip in which Lucy complains that she didn't get what she wanted for Christmas, which was "REAL ESTATE."

March 22 

A callback to Charlie Brown's pretending to be a martian earlier.  It's interesting how television aerials were considered to be futuristic back then.  It's very much Jetson-chic.

March 23

This one's mostly an excuse to draw more funny pictures of Snoopy.  And I am not complaining at all.

March 24

Another serif'd word, the "Hey" in Lucy's speech in the first pane.  I wonder what it was that inspired Schulz to use serifs for emphasis.

March 25

This strip is the beginning of the long war between Snoopy and Linus -- to the victor goes the blanket.  Snoopy may hate cats, but he's definitely picked up this maneuver off of one of them.

March 26

But... then what prompted this exchange?  Does Charlie Brown really have that short an attention span?  TV is still young yet, so we can't blame that.

May 27, 1953: Falling off the Tricycle

This is a funny strip I think.

Charlie Brown is the most versatile, by far, member of the cast. He can by turns be a smart-aleck, a victim, a bit of a jerk, a bit stupid, sly, witty, determined or hopeful.

Patty is becoming less of a foil for Charlie Brown, and Violet is turning against him generally. Those two characters mostly exist to bounce off of CB; Schulz seems less able to think of things for them to do on their own. Shermy has even less of his own existence.

Schroeder probably has the deepest private life of all the characters. Lucy and Linus sometimes each get strips to themselves, although, strangely, not too many with just the two of them. Snoopy gets his own strip sometimes too; he hasn't made a habit of having his own thoughts yet, though, so most of the time his strips have to be pantomime which is harder to write.

How do you fall off a tricycle?