September 25-26, 1954: That other round-headed kid

Sorry this one's been a few days in coming, I've been trying to get some extra work done on the game project this past week, and yet it's still not coming along real well. Updates will probably be sporadic until after Labor Day weekend -- I'll be at DragonCon again this year, if any of you happen to be there and want to say hello.

gocomics' archive has another hole in it at this point. September 20-24 are all missing. Does anyone know what the missing strips here, or from last week, are?

September 25

This one is odd if you think about it. The only real reason Linus would have to move forward, assuming those being him don't have vision problems, would be so everyone watching TV could fit in the panel at once.

Sunday, September 26

Violet, holding out the chance for affection isn't nearly as useful for behavior modification as a guarantee. We have some more drawings of a clean Pig-Pen here. Other than the hair and clothes, he's actually fairly similar to Charlie Brown in design; he has a similar head shape.

September 6-11, 1954: The first weekday story

What do I mean by a "story?" It's a sequence of consecutive strips that tell a story that builds between them. They may stand alone, but you get something extra out of the strips if you've remembered the prior strips in the sequence. This is what separates stories from the sequences we've had before, which were not sequential and thus Schulz could not expect a reader to remember prior strips in order to get a joke in the current one. There might be continuity, such as with Schroeder's musical talents, Charlie Brown's checkers losing streak, Violet's mud pies or Patty's ability at marbles, but Schulz sets each strip up as if the prior strips didn't exist. These strips work alone too actually, but there is obviously a thread that connects them, they are meant to be read together.

We had one prior sequence that could count as a story, the "Lucy in the Golf Tournament" Sunday strips, which are atypical Peanuts strips in many ways. To my memory, this is the first story-related sequence to stretch over four consecutive non-Sunday strips. (One could consider all Sunday strips to be in their own sequence, since Schulz probably drew them on a different schedule and some newspapers only carried Peanuts on weekdays or Sundays.)

September 6

This is the first time we've seen a drawing of Pig-Pen clean, which is a different enough design to almost count as a separate character. He looks like a cross between Shermy and Linus, in overalls.)

September 7

Violet is talking about career; one could interpret Charlie Brown as talking about something more profound.

September 8

This is the first strip in the story I mentioned above. We had Pig-Pen drawn clean on Monday. Now we can imagine Schulz amusing himself by drawing some of the other characters dirty in Pig-Pen's usual style. Pig-Pen's messiness extends virally to several other characters. First, Schroeder.

The question of people admiring Pig-Pen is interesting. I think there is something admirable about him, but it's not specifically his messiness.

September 9

Next, Snoopy. Although a dog is kind of expected to be dirtier than people, here they seem to consider him of the same status as the other kids.

September 10

Charlie Brown speaks in bold, but he doesn't look angry. It looks to me more like he's dismayed that he's gotten messy like the other kids, only to find out it might not hold the advantages he was expecting. (Whatever those might possibly be.)

If the kids allow themselves to be "influenced" by Pig-Pen so easily, I can only say that they're unusually vulnerable to peer pressure.

September 11

The pay-off strip. This isn't the first strip in which we've seen Patty dirty -- there was an earlier one in which she and Violet were making mud pies. I don't know what it is, but I always thought Patty looked quite charming messed up like this.

August 30, September 1-4, 1954: Not short from choice

August 30

More consequences of Pig-Pen's extreme dirtiness. Nearly every Pig-Pen strip is a variation of this theme, in case you haven't figured it out by now.

August 31

This strip is missing from gocomics.com's archives. Hooray. Can anyone with the Fantagraphics collection fill us in?

EDIT: Myron found a scan of the missing strip! There are no words in it, just a sight gag of Patty jumping rope in eight panels with her hair up. Thanks, Myron!

September 1

This is an uncharacteristically energetic response from Charlie Brown. Even ignoring the fact that bombing and strafing is unlikely to be in his power, this seems somehow un-Charlie-Brown-like. He's looking very self-satisfied in the last panel.

One thing about the art from this age is that it's found a pleasing middle-ground between the extreme stylization of the first couple of years and the slightly more realistic proportions of later and modern Peanuts. The wide smiles, the shorter bodies, the looser art style, I think this is about as good as Peanuts has looked right here.

Yet I can't think that Schulz wasn't conscious that the art moved away to less cute figures over time. Is it possible that he purposely moved away from cute kid appeal to encourage readers to not trivialize these kids and their concerns?

September 2

You can tell everyone who's sent you that pass around email about using buttered toast strapped to the backs of cats as a source of infinite energy, or as the basis of a levitating train, that the toast part of the joke has been around for almost 57 years now.

The joke itself is another one about science, as usual in Peanuts from a layman's view. Schulz tends to view artists more empathically, maybe, than scientists, although I don't think he's really antagonistic towards them. One can certainly read the strip as just a joke about Lucy's misperception, anyway.

September 3

I don't think Peanuts' male characters ever went through a girl-hating phase like Calvin. In that way, they seem fairly emotionally mature (or immature, if you consider CB's question to show him to be clingy).

September 4

Snoopy vs. the Yard: Football edition.

Week of August 23-28, 1954: Charlie Brown still has an ego

August 23

Only the second bit of negativity we've heard from Pig-Pen, the first being in his introduction.

August 24

That's not Snoopy, someone switched his bust of Beethoven for a figurine of the RCA dog!

August 25

Is this sarcasm from Schroeder, or condescension?

August 26

Charlie Brown still has some of the old ego in him, I see. I wonder when is the moment when that's finally pounded out of him, and when it happens, if ultimately it's Lucy, or Patty and Violet who are the cause

August 27

Her beleaguered mother has resorted to trying to play her and Linus against each other. Lucy takes the long view here. Lucy is forward-thinking in the next Sunday strip too, although she doesn't look quite so far ahead.

August 28

This is a fairly standard comic inversion. Not really terribly noteworthy, but I've commented on all the other strips this week, so why not?

(If I do leave strips out, I will still link to the gocomics page for the absent strips. I don't think it's proper to present strips I don't have much to say about, since I'm hosting these copies to avoid hot linking gocomics, and not to provide an alternate archive of strips. As I said before, they are presented here for commentary purposes only.)

Week of August 16-21, 1954: Airplanes must fly around clouds or else crash

August 16

It is odd to think of Pig-Pen as going to kids and bumming sand off of them. I can understand if he's unnaturally attuned to the stuff, but it can't be that expensive can it?
August 17

Lucy is kinder here than she was back on February 15 16, but it's still a mean trick.
August 18

At this point Pig-Pen is rolling along as if he's going to become a major character. It won't be for too much longer I think.
August 19

One problem with the week-at-a-time format is, often there's just not much to say about a strip. I'll probably start leaving some out before long -- I didn't mean this to become a repost of every strip....
August 20

If Peanuts were still being printed er, I meant written today, Lucy would be denying climate change. Charlie Brown's reaction is priceless. I find this kind of reaction funnier than the headaches and stomaches the poor kid's afflicted with later.
In the last panel, Lucy's laughing expression, with the slanted eyebrows, is atypical for Peanuts.
August 21

Charlie Brown brings his hand to mouth in wonder in the third panel is nice. Peanuts kid arms are usually drawn as simple tubes, so I find the shape of his arm there interesting. Not hugely interesting, but still.

Week of August 9-14, 1954: Things like that make my stomach hurt

August 9

As Lucy becomes more bullheaded and cantankerous, Linus would grow into the role of asking Charlie Brown science questions. In one memorable strip, he asks an angry-faced Lucy why the sky is blue. She snaps back at him "BECAUSE IT ISN'T GREEN!"

August 10

That coy smile on Pig-Pen's face in panel three is interesting, in a Mona Lisa kind of way.

August 11

This is a growing part of Lucy's personality, a refusal to acknowledge basic facts. At she isn't laughing about what a joker Charlie Brown is afterwards this time. Charlie Brown's stomachache of dismay when confronted with one of his friends' quirks is a developing part of his character, too.

August 12

It's been a little while since we've seen a fussy Lucy strip. This one fits right in with the pattern: Lucy looks a gift horse in the mouth, and the horse kicks. Charlie Brown's expression is a little different this time: it's a more introspective look of annoyance, more of a look of "why does this happen to me?" than "why do I put up with her?"

I might have to agree with Lucy, however, if there really are weeds in the lemonade.

August 13

Having trouble coming up with something to say about this one. Not the most complex joke we've seen.

August 14

This seems more like something Linus would do. Actually, Schroeder has been in a good number of non-musical strips around this time. He's catcher of the baseball team, he's Charlie Brown's cartooning audience, and he's also around as a bit character. I remember as a kind seeing Schroeder strips at the piano and wondering why I never saw him anywhere else. He seemed to exist in a piano-centered universe, with occasional visits from the Satan of his personal world, Lucy.

The first panel demonstrates a curious aspect of Peanuts' artwork from around the time. Characters wearing a neutral expression viewed front or from the diagonal are often drawn without mouths. I thought it was weird the first time I saw it, and I still think it's weird now.

Week of July 26-31, 1954: Astronomy class with Lucy

July 26:

Charlie Brown began as kind of a smart-aleck. We know his destination is to be a kind of downcast everyman. Here's a bit of a transitional state, that of being kind of paranoid about what others think about him.

July 27:

I image Snoopy moving here in much the same way that snakes do. It's a fun illustration.

July 28:

July 29:

In the first of these strips, Lucy doesn't have a good sense of relative distances. In the second, she's gotten the distance down but wonders, if Mars is so far away, why she should care. Lucy is the type of person who can make a leap from ignorance directly to dismissal.

July 30:

More Pig-Pen strips. Not being bothered by girls is a questionable virtue. I can see the mosquito thing, but I'd think the presence of other vermin might make up for it.

July 31:

Although Schulz returns to Pig-Pen periodically throughout Peanuts' run, it's without any great fervor. Jan in comments a few days ago remarked that, in all of Peanuts, there are only around 140 Pig-Pen strips. We've now seen ten of them.

While there's something admirable about Pig-Pen's lack of self-consciousness, as that prior commenter said, there's not a lot you can say about him. I think Schulz returns to him every once in a while because A. he's kind of a link to the early days of Peanuts, and B. it's a character quirk that never needed updating.

Peanuts lasted up to the dawning days of the 21st century, and throughout that time some updates to the cast were necessary. Lucy changed her dark blue dress for a track suit. Eudora's clothes would have been unthinkable in 1951. Need I even remind you of Franklin? Snoopy's typewriter was out of date at least a decade before he wrote that final letter.

There have always been, and probably always will be, messy kids, so Pig-Pen never needed revising or replacing.

It's funny to think of a dog as being afraid of getting his mouth dirty. Most dogs I've known haven't been what I'd call discriminating eaters.

Week of July 19-24: Some more Pig-Pen

July 19:

There are certain problems with having a genius for a friend. Sometimes, when a melody strikes your head at just the right angle, you just have to get it out, your prized copy of Detective Comics #1 not withstanding.

I like how Charlie Brown still calls it a "comic magazine." I guess that term was current at the time.

July 20:

This is before Pig-Pen's messiness becomes a quasi-magical ability in later strips, where dirt appears on him spontaneously while he walks down the street.

July 21:

Snoopy's ear doesn't really have the pointy tip that a shark's fin has. But, then, it's a wading pool.

July 22:

Heh heh, I like this one. Reminds me of Lucy's gray jellybeans.

Pig-Pen is remarkably forward with his request for candy. Charlie Brown will hint and plead, but Pig-Pen (I'm not abbreviating it for what I take will be obvious reasons) just says "Gonna give me some?" Most Pig-Pen strips end up being about his messiness, which is really a shame because he has a unique personality among all the Peanuts cast.

July 23:

This is very much classic Lucy in personality. I joke about her incredible wrath and compare her to Cthulhu, but she's not all bad. She is funnier that way though. This is a pretty funny strip in all. It's not hard to invent gags about a really dirty kid, although later on they become less about the raw fact of his dirt and more about how comfortable Pig-Pen is in his own skin (and the layer of grime that covers it).

July 24:

I love the way Lucy looks at Snoopy in the third panel. I have to wonder about the source of Charlie Brown's "imitation people" comment though. Maybe it was something in the cultural air at the time.

Week of July 12-17, 1954: Pig-Pen

July 12

It's funny, but before Linus comes on the scene, Lucy fills many of the same rolls, as someone Charlie Brown can just talk to. Maybe that's why she's so cruel to Linus.

July 13

He's here! This is Pig-Pen's first strip, and it's also the first real sequence in Peanuts, by which I mean, a good number of strips in a row that all deal with the same thing. Schulz has done multiple strips on a topic many times up to this point, but he's spread them out. (Lucy in the Golf Tournament could be considered such a sequence I suppose, but it's only over Sunday strips.)

Pig-Pen is also the first of a long long of minor characters. (Unless you could the realistic bird that harassed Snoopy recently, who has been seen once before.) And he's the most persistent of all of Peanuts' side cast. Sometimes months or even years may go between appearances, but Schulz never completely forgets about the kid. Contrast this with Charlotte Braun, or 5, or Roy, or Molly Volley. Pig-Pen is also longer-lived than most later major characters. Frieda appears frequently for a while, as does Eudora for a while, but both of them eventually fade into obscurity, while Pig-Pen remains, as steady as the earth with which he is covered.

Pig-Pen's annoyed statement that he doesn't have a name is funny, but is largely accurate. We never, to my knowledge, get a name for him.

Notice that it's Patty that first meets the kid. Violet and Lucy were first met by Charlie Brown. Schroeder was first met by Patty off-stage, but his first strip also had Charlie Brown. There! That's enough OCD for one day....

Patty describes Pig-Pen as "little," putting his age less than both hers and CB's. We don't yet have any information on whether Lucy is older or younger. While the ages between characters tend to compress over time, the order remains the same I think. This puts the order of ages at (">" means "is older than"):

Shermy & Patty > Charlie Brown > Violet > Schroeder > Pig-Pen & Lucy > Linus

July 14

Pig-Pen is the most zen-like of Peanuts' cast, even more so than Linus I think. He's a one-joke character but is very self-assured in his quirk. He sees absolutely nothing wrong with his messiness, he's comfortable with it, and I think there's something admirable in that.

July 15

Pig-Pen also has a sense of humor about himself. That implies being able to see himself from others' perspective, which itself implies maturity. Alternatively we could consider that this means he's internalized his messiness and considers it an alterable part of his personality, which could be regarded as a problem.

July 16

Snoopy's got word bubbles for his thoughts again. He actually uses them here while around another character; we're expected to see, I think, that his comments are a kind of internal monologue, presented theatrically.

July 17

Pig-Pen must spend a substantial amount of his time in the cleanliness/messiness cycle. Again, he is fully cognizant of his "fault," and doesn't consider it a fault at all. Later strips make it clear that Pig-Pen's dirtiness is actually a quasi-magical attribute; he gets dirty just walking down the street.

Pig-Pen's untied shoes are a nice touch.