Showing posts with label stomachache. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stomachache. Show all posts

Monday, September 19, 2011

November 15-20, 1954: I've known people like that

November 15

This strip begins a sequence where Charlie Brown frets over Lucy's willful ignorance of the world. Coupled with the Sunday strip we just saw, I think we're now just at the beginning of Peanuts' "classic" period, where Schulz comes to more fully inhabit his characters and deal with them as people, with developing personalities.

November 16

Sarcasm is no use; Lucy is impervious to it.

November 17

One interesting thing about this sequence is that Charlie Brown is depicted as really worked up over Lucy's ignorance. Could it be that she's trolling him? From a modern perspective, from all the willful ignorance we see in the world today, I think I sympathize with Charlie Brown a bit more here.

November 18

For some reason here, I imagine Lucy as Stephen Colbert and Charlie Brown as one of his guests. That's a pretty funny drawing of Charlie Brown there, although it seems to suggest he might have a neurological condition.

November 19

Panel three here, that's one of the most frustrated looks we ever get out of Charlie Brown, I think. Later on he's more the type to suffer with a sigh, but he boils over here.

November 20

To finish out the week, a bit of silliness with Snoopy. Every one of these drawings of him is a winner, but I especially like the ones in the first and last panels. Peanuts have to be drawn carefully, I'd say; the characters depend heavily on the angle they are viewed at to read properly. This is actually true of most comic strips, but it's especially true of Peanuts. If the top of Snoopy's head were facing away from the reader in the last panel, I'm not sure there's any way he could be drawn that would read well. (Although it's entirely possible there IS such a way; I just can't think of it.)

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

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.