March 1, 1953: Obsolete furniture

The funny thing about this strip is that most of us today are probably more familiar with rocking chairs than many of the examples of modern furniture seen here, or the record player.

This strip is pretty rich in detail. Schulz wasn't afraid of putting in some quality draftsmanship in the early days.

September 16, 1952: Schroeder's dad is awesome

Watch Violet's arms in this one. Posing them in a way that looks natural and relevant to the scene is harder than it looks. There is an exaggeration to them here, but it's not too exaggerated.

Sunday, March 30, 1952: Lucy's developing taste in music

Lucy is especially baby-like in this one. Since the strip has a new resident infant, it frees Schroeder up to solely be the musician. Weirdly, in this strip Lucy has probably said more than Schroeder has in the entire run up to this point.

This is the first strip to exhibit Lucy's early tendency to refer to herself in the third person. Of all the Peanuts characters, I think Lucy might be the one to change the most. Even more than Snoopy.

There are weirder things still here. Lucy looks extra creepy in the first panel up there, and her words in the next-to-last panel seem oddly chosen, if explainable by her lack of skill in the language. In the last panel Schulz finds a good compromise between the circled-eyes look and general character appeal. It is a prototype of the parenthesis eyes that Lucy would adapt for the majority of Peanuts' run, the same type that Linus has out the gate.