February 21-26, 1955: Beware the Rhinoceros

February 21

Schroeder gets out of the house some.  Playing ice hockey on a frozen pond is sort of a winter analogue for vacant lot baseball. I wonder how much this happens anymore.

February 22

The second time Snoopy uses his imagination leads off a week-long sequence, and I think this is the bit that really causes it to "take."  They're a good opportunity to expand the character into something unique, and they have the additional virtue of making possible a lot of really fun drawings.  Snoopy's open smile upon finding his victim is my favorite part of this one.

February 23

In these early strips Snoopy usually restricts himself to being some kind of animal.  A rhinoceros is an interesting choice -- not a lion or a bear an elephant or something more usually recognized as a strong, powerful animal.  Not that rhinos are slouches of course -- just that I'd think they would be thought of iconically by their horn, not their strength and size.

Charlie Brown seems worried that Snoopy actually thinks he's a rhinoceros.  But how would he have been able to figure out what Snoopy was pretending to be?

February 24

WHOOPS!  I think this is the first time Snoopy has actually attacked anyone on-panel.

February 25

Some rhinoceroses are self-conscious about their appearance.  Anyway, a real rhino bump would be nothing to joke about.

February 26

Up until now Lucy's crabby personality has manifested in three primary ways: by reputation (her mother calling her a fussbudget), her dealings with Linus, and in defending her strange opinions against Charlie Brown.  Here is a fourth: the bucket of cold water on Snoopy's head.  It's also the first instance of her physically standing up to another character, here in the second panel.

I really love the goofy grin on Snoopy's face in the first panel.

December 20-25, 1954: Square Balloons and Christmas Day

December 20

Here's another early sequence, in which Linus confounds Charlie Brown by blowing balloons into cubes. I've joked about Linus having uncanny powers, but how else can you explain this?

December 21

At least you can stack them neatly this way.

December 22

Look at Lucy's look of horror in the second panel. This strip makes it a little more clear what Schulz is getting at with this sequence. Although blowing up balloons into squares is a marvelous skill, Charlie Brown seems to think it's something wrong somehow, and Lucy thinks it'll bring dishonor to her house. I guess people put more importance into balloon-inflating style back in 1954.

December 23

Even if he tries to blow it up into a rough sphere, it comes out square. This could be taken as a metaphor for something I suppose. Actually, multiple somethings.

December 24

What would happen if you gave Linus an innertube to blow up?

Christmas Day

"Hey! Come back with my pagan idol of music!" "Take it easy, I'm just replacing it with a good, honest Christian symbol! Er, that used to be an element of nature-worship. Merry Christmas!"

We'll have more of Charlie Brown and Schroeder and Christmas next 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.

March 25, 1953: More Marbles

This is one of the first genuine sequences in Peanuts, a set of connected, consecutive strips that present a kind of narrative.