July 4-9, 1955: Getting more unpopular every day

July 4:

The "fussbudget" joke continues. Despite what Lucy says this is far from the last we'll be hearing of it.

July 5:

But here we have the beginning of another running gag, that of Lucy teaching her brother about the world. This time, broadly speaking, her lesson is accurate (if a bit depressing). Tomorrow however....

July 6:

It's funnier when Lucy, who as we've already established with Charlie Brown has a somewhat tenuous grasp of the world, spreads well-meaning disinformation to Linus. It's only a matter of time before this is giving Charlie Brown headaches too.

Notice the different backgrounds in each of the panels here. I think Schulz changes them up as a way of illustrating that the "camera" in each is pointing in a different direction.

July 7:

Well, yeah. They're called adults. They still exist, even if we almost never see them in the strip.

When I first saw this strip I assumed the bike had to be a Penny Farthing bicycle or something, which would make Linus' reaction more understandable. But that's not an old-timey bike, that's a reflector on its front, or at least I think that's what it is.

July 8:

For being a comic strip about children, parents are mentioned seldom, probably because mentioning them too often might bring up questions about why we never see them.

The drawing of Lucy walking away in panel three is also a rarity; usually characters either leave the scene to the side, or they just disappear between panels and leave us to figure out they left the scene. We also have another example of serif lettering in panel 3.

July 9:

Charlie Brown is committing an error in his reasoning, conflating "not liking," with "dislike." You don't dislike people you've never met, but neither can you like them.

Yeah, I'm a real hit at parties. Bleah!

May 27, 1953: Falling off the Tricycle

This is a funny strip I think.

Charlie Brown is the most versatile, by far, member of the cast. He can by turns be a smart-aleck, a victim, a bit of a jerk, a bit stupid, sly, witty, determined or hopeful.

Patty is becoming less of a foil for Charlie Brown, and Violet is turning against him generally. Those two characters mostly exist to bounce off of CB; Schulz seems less able to think of things for them to do on their own. Shermy has even less of his own existence.

Schroeder probably has the deepest private life of all the characters. Lucy and Linus sometimes each get strips to themselves, although, strangely, not too many with just the two of them. Snoopy gets his own strip sometimes too; he hasn't made a habit of having his own thoughts yet, though, so most of the time his strips have to be pantomime which is harder to write.

How do you fall off a tricycle?

October 2, 1952: Two years

This brings to a close the second year of the strip.

In the second year were introduced both Lucy and Linus. Schroeder learned to talk. Charlie Brown's psychological problems began to become more evident. Shermy, already on his way towards irrelevance, only appeared a small number of times. Schulz's art style, fired in the crucible of a daily comic strip, has evolved considerably. Most of the characters have gradually eased into their classic looks, all except for Charlie Brown (who's oval remains as a vestige of the original style), Snoopy (who has so far changed fairly little) and Linus (who is currently the strip's baby).

In the next year there aren't any major character introductions, but Schulz's art style evolves a bit more. Snoopy and Charlie Brown both draw closer to their later forms. The very next month has the first of the strips where Charlie Brown fails to kick Lucy's football. But most importantly this is the year in which Peanuts' writing really matures into something recognizable and wonderful.

For comparison's sake, here is the strip from one year before:


And here is the strip one year to come:

July 14, 1952: Murmurs of Linus

This is the first hint as to Linus' existence in the strip. He doesn't actually appear for another week or so.

May 31, 1952: I RIDE YOUR TRICYCLE

There is just something very blatant about Patty's commandeering of Charlie Brown's tricycle. He loves his trike and pleads about how he was looking forward to tooling it around, but to no avail. She rides off, the look on her face indicating that she spares not a thought about CB's opinion. She feels no shame, and neither does she feel vicious pleasure. It is a tricycle; Patty likes riding tricycles; anything standing in her way, then, of riding the tricycle is an obstacle to be overcome.

This is really more of a Lucy move, but she has yet to come fully into her infernal powers.

Sunday, May 4, 1952: Great Scott! A land mine!

While overall this one is kind of meh, there are some great touches in this one, like CB's reaction to hitting the grate, his goggles, the text on the sign Schroeder hits, and Lucy's determined expression in the third frame, which seems slightly more Lucy-like to my eyes.

January 25, 1952: Charlie Brown figures it out

That is an excellent point. Special deals provided by companies tend to be cunningly arranged so that they sound great but only a tiny portion of respondents will ever be able to cash in. Those boxtop deals were fairly common at the time, but only bulk buyers would be able to take advantage of them. Most of them had no use for a tricycle, or whatever else was being offered, either.

Just so you know, I had to restrain myself from making a reference to the movie Punch Drunk Love here.

September 28, 1951: Can I have two tens for a five?

This is another of my favorite early strips. It's enough to make me wonder if Charlie Brown has a touch of dyslexia.

The root of this joke, alluded to in the title, is the same as in the old vaudeville routine where a sharp asks a rube for incorrect change. We take more notice that all the necessary things are in the proposition than of whether they're in the correct places.

September 20, 1951: War of the Sexes, Tricycle Front

Wow. First the girl takes his bicycle, then she basically mugs him for his tricycle! It's almost like they're married! zing!

But do you feel it? That tremor in the ground? That chill in the air? Yes, Patty here is a rehearsal for one of Charles Schulz's great creations: the magnificent, malevolent LUCY.

January 29, 1951: How does it handle in traffic?

Another case of adult words put into a kid context here.  Not a bad joke either, I'd say.

Let's take a moment to compare this with the first strip:

It's been around for just under five months at this point, but already the characters show considerable changes.  We're immersed in the early days of the strip so far in this blog, but although there is a winning style in these early strips, it really doesn't last long.  Already the character's eyes have enlarged into ovals, their hair has filled out, the faces are more expressive and the lines are darker.  Character heads are beginning to vertically expand into the near-circles we knew for over forty-five years of the strip's history.

Three years after the strip's debut, the original style will be almost completely gone: