August 8-13, 1955: How dare they sully the good name of Crockett?

Sunday, August 7 isn't on the gocomics site.

August 7:

Charlie Brown experiencing this kind of outburst is rare, through the overall history of the strip. This is more the kind of thing the other characters would do, although CB will do it if it regards someone he really admires. Less often Davy Crockett, more often Joe Shlabotnik.

August 8:

Linus hasn't spoken a word to another person yet, but he plays baseball. (Of course, Snoopy never speaks to another person -- or rather, doesn't say things other than "Boo.") Everyone remember Schroeder-the-musician, but Schroeder-the-catcher appears frequently, if less distinctively.

August 9:

Canine prodigies are disconcerting. Sarcastic ones moreso.

August 10:

Yeah Linus, I know how you feel. The blanket hasn't become a big element of the strip yet, but we're getting there.

August 11:

How does Schroeder know about used cars? I like how the kids don't refer to the baby sitters by name, just by their attributes and reputation. It's an impersonal relationship, that between the high school student and her temporary charges. The most legendary babysitter in comics would have to be Calvin's nemesis Rosalyn. It's really difficult to picture a character like her in Peanuts, and not just because she's an adult.

August 12:

Charlie Brown has mostly laughed at this kind of rejection up to now, but this is getting more to his familiar personality from later strips.

Aside:

Since the last post, the comics world took a grevious blow when Richard Thompson, creator of the best modern comic strip going by a wide margin, Cul De Sac, had to lay down his pen due to encroaching Parkinson's Disease. I'm sorry I wasn't about to work in more references to it in these posts; it is wonderful in a way that fans of Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes will find familiar, but still manages to be distinct from both of them in both style and tone. Alice is kind of like Calvin but more realistic and much more random; Petey is like Charlie Brown except much more introverted and nervous. The strip ended just after its fifth birthday, and in far fewer newspapers than you'd expect from its extreme brilliance, but I'm still suffering from a strong sense of deja vu from when C&H closed up shop. Thompson says he's quitting because the disease made it hard to keep up with the strong deadlines of a newspaper strip, so I'm hoping, kind of like Michael J. Fox, that we haven't heard the last from him, or his brilliant creation maybe in some other form.

Sunday, March 27, 1955: Bumpety-bump

Read this strip at gocomics.com. 

The best thing about this strip is the lead panels, the two that some newspapers would strip out.  That hilariously cold way Charlie Brown greets Lucy, who immediately shows why he's responding that way.  It's difficult to mistake "fussbudget" for a compliment this time.

Linus' display of skill is typical for him -- almost everything he tries he turns out to be great at.  Imagine Charles Schulz sitting hunched over his desk, thinking of all the ways be can write out the word "bumpety" and "bump."

Imagine him doing that, and imagine him thinking to himself afterwards, "How did I manage to land this wonderful job?"

Sunday, February 1, 1953: Lucy is sarcastic

I love Lucy's deadpan remarks in this one.

January 9 & 10, 1953: Onceuponatimetherewerethreebears...

Not to pile on the Calvin and Hobbes comparisons, but I seem to remember Calvin's Dad doing the same thing to get through a loathed reading of Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie.

Lucy's response here demonstrates her developing personality; she is becoming less reluctant to express displeasure.



Another story-reading strip makes a Schroeder & Beethoven joke without actually showing Schroeder. A strip like this doesn't work unless the reader brings into it knowledge from other strips, a type of gag that doesn't work unless the characters have strongly defined personalities. (Or, in Schroeder's case, a strongly-defined personality quirk.)

December 20, 1952: 4,000 games

The key difference between this strip and prior "Oh Those Kids" strips is the expression on Charlie Brown's face in the last two panels. Before, if Schulz did a strip like this, Charlie Brown would have a neutral expression at the end. Here, he's speaking sarcastically. With just a lowered eyebrow drawn over the eye, the entire point of the joke has changed.

The Peanuts characters are unusually difficult to draw in complex poses, due to their short arms and legs, but Schulz does a good job with CB's legs in the last panel.