Sunday, September 27, 1953: Snoopy vs. The Yard: The Slide

There's not an awful lot in this neighborhood that doesn't have it in for Snoopy.

That's a good question mark in the second panel. Schulz had a kind of ornate style to his type-inspired iconography: serif Zs, fancy question marks, tapered exclamation points. It's one of the little tells that the simplicity of the rendering is an artistic choice and not a cheat.

I've mentioned before that the top row in a Sunday strip are designed to be removed at an editor's option, say to make more room on a crowded comics page. Usually Peanuts will use these in a throwaway joke or just to lengthen the buildup a little, but here I think it actually harms readability a smidge to excise them. Without the top three panels here, we don't have it established that this is Snoopy's first slide, and without that knowledge his Slide Malfunction seems more like an accident than an element of his lack of slidal* experience.

* Not really a word.

Sunday, April 27, 1952: That was sensational, Lucy

Lucy refers to herself in the third-person again here. I'm glad she grew out of that. That is not the only other thing, of course, that is different about her here. Between the wide eyes, tendency towards accidents and meek demeanor, there is probably no other character in Peanuts that changes so much between its conception and final version. (Well, except maybe for Snoopy, but that is a question for later....)

I read a lot of Peanuts back in first grade, for our school's library had a good collection of 50s and 60s Peanuts compilations. In a way, these early strips feel more like "real" Peanuts to me than the strips from the 80s and 90s.

I kind of miss that people don't use words like "sensational" in casual conversation these days. Or, if they are, they're not in the conversations that I tend to have.

April 14, 1952: Schroeder's Adventures in the White Void

Wait, is he inside or outside? The lack of any background makes it difficult to tell.

There's another musical staff in this picture, I notice. No, I have no idea what song it is, although I have no doubt that it must be some song.

September 8, 1951: Slide, Charlie Brown, Slide!

For contrast, nine years later on May 20, 1960: