Showing posts with label wagon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wagon. Show all posts

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Sunday, June 27, 1954: Snoopy should lay off the sugar

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This strip sets a couple of precedents all by itself.

First, for a while now, there have been kind of two designs for Snoopy. One is when he's sitting down, where he is a cute, compact little dog. Then other is when he's doing anything else, in which case he'll stretch out into an animal more than twice the size of the other one.

This strip doesn't have any drawings of Snoopy sitting dog-style, which become less frequent as Peanuts continues. The other one, the one depicted here, eventually becomes predominant. It is difficult to think of a beagle so large as a puppy, which is probably why this part of Snoopy's character is allowed to be forgotten. This is a much looser style for the character, which in turn allows Snoopy to become much more expressive and energetic, which fuels the growth in his personality.

Second, this is the first strip in which Snoopy's energetic personality annoys Charlie Brown. Once it's conclusively stated that Snoopy is his, he'll say things about wishing he had a normal dog, but until then it's more like being annoyed at a weird friend (a "Kramer") than a family member. Notable is that Charlie Brown refers to Snoopy as a "person."

The drawings of Snoopy here are very attractive generally. I especially like the ones in the first two panels. The first one is iconic, the second shows him running dog-style, which we don't often see.

Friday, March 18, 2011

November 21, 1953: The Trepidation of an Engine


Read this strip at gocomics.com.

In those days, comic artists would draw all four panels of a strip, even if nothing much changes between them.  Notice how the scribble of the grass sort of trails off to the bottom-right of the frame.  I think Schulz was going for a stylistic effect there.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Sunday, August 3, 1952: I can taste that ice cream now coursing through my veins!

Peanuts

I love the second panel for this one. Simultaneously delicious and disturbing.

Lucy's confused copying of Patty and Violet, to me, are an unexpectedly important part of this strip. It's a mocking echo of Charlie Brown's torment! She is become Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos! Ia! Ia! ...

Oops, sorry about that. I should probably tone down the Lovecraft references, heh.

In the next-to-last panel, it is weird to see the girls hiding from CB's wrath. There isn't even any lead up to it; the girls are suddenly in the background behind those trees. Then in the last panel they're instantly back.

Oh, and how about that look on Lucy's face in the first panel? She really seems to be into that wagon.

Monday, January 4, 2010

April 4, 1952: Snoopy's Monolith is a Wagon

Peanuts

Snoopy moves ever closer to developing real thought bubbles. His dissatisfaction with his dogly lot in life in increasing, too.

Snoopy's dream seems to say that, while the kids may not know Snoopy's owner, Snoopy seems to think that Charlie Brown has a position of importance to him.

Friday, January 1, 2010

April 1, 1952: The Mona Lisa's Got Nothing

Peanuts

I like it whenever Schulz draws that bust of Beethoven, for how it breaks the art style, but more interestingly than that....

Take a look at that smile the statuette is sporting in its panel. Rather mysterious!

The bust of Beethoven works great as a punchline because it only has to be drawn once. For someone on a comic strip's deadline, reproducing it in detail, and consistently, would be difficult across a whole strip.

That doesn't mean he doesn't do it later on though, and in a Sunday at that....

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Sunday, February 10, 1952: Treace Peaty

Peanuts

The main reason this one is here is because it is the first strip appearance of the famous Peanuts logo in the first panel. Later on it'd get the words "Featuring 'Good 'Ol Charlie Brown'" beneath it, but those are a long way off.

In the intro panels, Charlie Brown seems a fair bit more affectionate towards Snoopy than you'd expect a non-owner to be. Concerning the content, well, these were the days before political correctness. At least Patty is allowed in the game.

Also seen here is one of the relatively few childish mispronunciation gags in Peanuts. I am referring to Charlie Brown's mentioning Shermy and Patty wouldn't be interested in a "Treace Peaty." This Sunday strip is, like some of the other Sundays we've seen so far, basically a collage of jokes erected to pad out what would ordinarily be a weekday strip. Schulz doesn't seem to have yet learned how to pace these longer comics.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Christmas Day, 1951: Singing In Type

Peanuts

Sure it's mostly sentimental instead of funny, but imagine how long it must have taken Charles Schulz to render the typeface in the fourth panel.

Note: Snoopy runs with Shermy in the first panel. The mystery of his ownership continues!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

December 11, 1951: Snoopy Lives His Dream

Peanuts

Snoopy can't talk. He hasn't even gotten thought balloons yet. So, how does Charlie Brown know that Snoopy always wanted to live in a trailer? At least the barely-verbal Schroeder can play Beethoven.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

December 4, 1951: Dog At The Wheel

Peanuts

This one's funny too.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Noveber 29, 1951: Comic books!

Peanuts

The kids' love of comic books is a staple of the early years of the strip. Part of this may be due to the fact that Universal Features Syndicate published comic books in those days, in which many of their newspaper strip characters, including the kids of Peanuts, would feature. I saw an issue of their classic title Tip Top on a dealer's shelf while at DragonCon a couple of weeks ago. It was selling for around $200 dollars, if I remember correctly.

Noteworthy is the fact that, as the decades rolled by and comic books lost their prominent place in kid culture, that nothing really moved in to replace them, except perhaps television. (As we've seen, in the earliest Peanuts strips the kids listened to radio instead of sitting watching TV.) Since then there's been rock music, action movies and video games, but the kids never really caught on to those things. One can only speculate what Schulz thought about those strange advents.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

August 7, 1951: Background detail

Peanuts

Panel two has one of the most detailed backgrounds seen so far. Just look at it. It's almost un-Peanuts-like.