Sunday, May 15, 1955: Linus takes out his frustrations

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This calls forward to Charlie Brown's dismayed reaction at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas. BTW, if when you watch that cartoon, after Charlie Brown walks off-screen, you immediately change the channel and pretend the show ended there, the outcome is a lot more realistic and also more in keeping with the general tone of Peanuts.

I think this strip is slightly stronger with the lead panels, as then there's a nice rule-of-threes progression up to the toy's deflation.

Cute determined expressions on Linus' face throughout here.

April 27, 1954: With real working truck bed!

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This is a frequently-used structure by Schulz at the moment. It goes:

1. A character does or says something silly.
2. Another character, or in the case of Snoopy vs. The Yard plain old physics, shows why the thing done is silly.

It's not much by itself, so these strips usually have something else going for them, either funny art (as here), empathy with one of the characters (such as the silly one who realizes by the end his mistake), or in some cases the silly character bullheadedly persisting in his error regardless. This happens with Lucy a lot, but Linus also becomes susceptible to it, every Halloween....

Sunday, December 13, 1953: Schroeder's ready for the big time

Read this comic at gocomics.com.

Sometimes with these I think Schulz throws in realistically-proportioned adult objects just to demonstrate that he can draw well technically.  Of course Schroeder couldn't actually play the adult piano because his arms are too short; he'd barely be able to reach the keys unless the bench were right up against it.

I notice that, in some of the Sunday strips we've seen, there's a blank spot between a couple of the panels in the bottom row.  It's really noticeable because it always seems to overlap two of the panels.  Is this the result of some problem with their source documents?

August 5, 1953: You gotta get the breaks?

Could someone help me out here? What is Schroeder's meaning here? Does it have to do with a specific way of playing? Does "the breaks" refer to randomly-assigned factors, like say talent, in sayings such as "that's the breaks?"

I think Schulz is almost done with the whole "how does Schroeder play Beethoven on a toy piano" gimmick. When he finds a joke he really likes he isn't afraid to use a few variations or iterations, but he does eventually tire of it.

April 9, 1953: The Mystery of Schroeder's Piano

One thing about Peanuts is how it plays sometimes with the line between cartoonishness and reality. Between the two, it usually sticks pretty close to reality, at least in its physics, which makes the occasional launches into surreal logic, such as here, more effective. That's important. If crazy things happen all the time, the reader comes to expect them, and they have much less of an impact. Lots of webcomics get this wrong.

February 10, 1953: Why, you're just dragging a mechanical duck

Another great strip, Schulz is on a roll.

(ACK, didn't mean to post this one right away, it's kind of out of order and my comment doesn't make sense without the other ones right before it. Still, I love the strip!)

August 11, 1952: Comic strip logic

Well, it makes a kind of sense. Presumably it wouldn't have worked if it hadn't been a toy telephone, or if Lucy had been talking to a person.

December 26, 1951: Charlie Brown has lips!

Doesn't Charlie Brown's mouth look funny in the first panel?

October 24, 1951: Dog vs. Toy

We've not seen much of Snoopy lately, so here. It's not really a very special joke, but we do get to see a little bit of a fang on Snoopy in the third panel.

October 2, 1951: Year 2

He doesn't get that the adult piano is so big Schroeder's tiny arms couldn't possibly stretch to the end of the keyboard from his seat?

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This strip marks the beginning of Peanuts' second year of publication. During that time:

The characters of Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty, Snoopy, Violet and Schroeder were introduced, and all are still in rotation, although sights of Shermy are already kind of infrequent.  We've also seen an anonymous bird (chased by Snoopy) and an unknown dog (seen chasing a car).  We've heard Charlie Brown talk about his dad, and characters have also with an unseen druggist.

Charlie Brown's already begun to settle into his eternally-pessimistic personality.  Patty is his main antagonist, and sometimes shows signs of malevolence, but not quite up to Lucy's later volcanic standards.  Violet is more girlish in general.  Shermy's pretty much a non-entity.  Snoopy is very doglike, although he sometimes gains human attributes when it suits a joke.  Schroeder was first the strip baby, but very soon became the strip musician, although he's still obviously younger than the other characters.

We've seen a fence a couple of times that CB's seen things drawn on, and he's drawn on it himself.  The characters have spoken of school, but no school scenes have appeared yet.  

Let's have another look at the first strip for comparison purposes:



Eye ovals have become thicker, characters are overall cuter, heads (except for Charlie Brown's) are less ovoid, and, although it's hard to tell with Schroeder's still ill-defined hair, its shape plays a bigger role in defining a character's head.

March 5, 1951: A toy beagle

What the heck is that thing Violet's dragging supposed to be?  For some reason I'm reminded of something Daffy Duck was once turned into during his fight with the animator in Duck Amuck.  Another character finally meets Violet here, although without comment.  Snoopy seems okay with becoming a toy in the last panel.