Sunday, January 19, 1955: Nervous energy

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Charlie Brown started out very slightly antisocial. Now he's moved into obsessive compulsive disorder. He's shown some signs of depression, but it hasn't really set in yet. The market isn't yet large enough to support five cent psychiatrist booths, but it's coming.

Sunday, March 14, 1954: Snowball Fail

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Charlie Brown doesn't have it in him to make a really evil face, such that Calvin could or, closer to home, Lucy of a few years from now.  There is sort of that aspect of Calvin picking on Susie here, although it's usually more of an outside source that gives him his comeuppance.

Chagrimace!

February 20, 1954: Violet's short attention span

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Violet throws Charlie Brown out rather often.  She forgets why she was mad at him fairly often too.

Sunday, February 7, 1954: The nerve-wracking sled ride

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In an unusual inversion from the norm in later strips, here it's Charlie Brown's imagination that's active and Snoopy is the realist.  I can't help but think Charlie Brown realizes his little sled ride's kind of pathetic; otherwise why would he talk it up with exclamations like "Down! Down! Down!" or "Racing like the wind..."

The chain he's using to hang onto the sled is a nice touch, as is the care Schulz uses to draw the sled.  It's very well-rendered!

The lead panels, which can be kept or left off of a strip at the newspaper's option, are a continual problem with Peanuts' storytelling.  Schulz has to write each strip so that it works either with or without those panels, which sometimes messes with his timing.  Here he presents what is probably a little too much lead-in, which slightly damages the joke.

EDIT: As Sarah Loyd rightly noticed, Snoopy is sporting a chagrimace in the next-to-last panel.

January 26-28, 1954: Cold weather gear

January 26, 1954:

January 27, 1954:

January 28, 1954:

The first two strips here are reminiscent of the bits from A Christmas Story where Ralphie's brother Randy is so over-covered with coats and scarves he can't put his arms down, or get up once knocked over.  I suppose that kids aren't bundled up so well with heat-preservers these days.  Of course Schulz grew up in, and at the time was living in, Minnesota, which is rather infamous for its harsh winters.

The third strip is a demonstration of Snoopy's boundless enthusiasm, which I think became less apparent in the final years of the strip.  Shermy is in the first panel mostly to give context to the object Snoopy is chasing; hockey pucks don't real well if they just show up unheralded.  I think the last panel is a rare design misstep on Schulz's part; the motion lines produced by Snoopy look to more like a solid object than an effect of the dog's motion.

January 9, 1954: Counting stars gaiden

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Charlie Brown's exasperation at Lucy counting stars is one of the more iconic strip themes of early Peanuts.  So far by my count we've only seen one Lucy star counting strip, and she more guesses than counts in that one.

January 7, 1954: Anyone want to buy half a snowman?

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Wow, that's a smug look on Charlie Brown's face in the third panel.  Whatever happened to annoy Patty, anyway?  The "inside" of the snowman is shaded for some reason, like it was filled with chocolate.  The carrot and buttons are missing, so it actually looks like Patty took slightly more than half of it.

Chagrimace!

December 20, 1953: Sorry I asked!

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I love this strip!  It presents the world of the kids in a way that makes it seem all real, like there's always a dozen things happening at once.  My favorite joke in it, however, is the one in the lead two panels, which is just a throwaway but has some pleasing off-screen violence.

The metaphorical opening panel uses Charlie Brown's trademark zig-zag shirt pattern, but the zig-zag is nowhere to be seen elsewhere in the whole strip, and is in fact a little uncommon in the strip at this point considering the kid usually covers it with a jacket in the winter months.  Maybe he was just reminding the reader of it.

There is a lot of prototype Calvin and Hobbes here, both in the snowman gag and the humorous sled crash at the beginning.

December 12, 1953: Mitten applications

Why does Patty look so concerned in the last panel?  I think it's less because of Charlie Brown's inventive use for a mitten as the fact that it looks like Snoopy is wearing one of her dresses.  Check it out in the first panel here.

Patty's dress has the same wide-spaced crosshatching that Snoopy's sweater has here.  The pattern of Patty's dress is of course covered up by her coat, which is why Schulz can use it for Snoopy's attire; otherwise the reader would be left wondering if there was some point of connection between the two.  I think it looks very nice on the dog, as it gives his sweater a kind of quilted look.

February 4, 1953: Schroeder the Ordinary Kid

Nothing to do with music at all! Even at this early date a high percentage of the Schroeder strips concern music in some way, so it's nice to see the kid have normal childhood experiences.

February 3, 1953: Charlie Brown Learns the Hard Way

Lucy's arm, and the fist at the end of it, becomes quite a terror in the years to come.

Sunday, November 2, 1952: I've been tricked!!

A favorite strip of mine! Also a chase, this time after Lucy who is beginning to show her true colors.

February 20, 1952: OMG NEU CHARACTAR

Hey everyone meet Olsen!

I can't say he lasts very long. Especially once the sun comes out....

January 22, 1952: I bet she has a darkroom too

Overall the early Peanuts strips hold up fairly well. But there will eventually come the day when most people won’t know of the sometimes complicated decisions needed to take a physical photograph.

January 15, 1952; Snow-cial Injustice

There’s even a frowning face on the dejected snowman.

January 9, 1952: Mush! Mush!

It took me a little while to make sense of this one. At the size the strip is rendered by default in my browser, it was hard to tell Shermy apart from Charlie Brown. CB is the one driving the sled, not Shermy.

Beyond that, I think the word "mush" is interpreted by Shermy as short for "mushy."

Snoopy sure looks happy to be pulling Charlie Brown's sled. His question mark in the last panel adds a slight extra punch to the joke.

January 8, 1952: Schroeder steps out

Schroeder's first strip outside. No mention of music here. I notice that the baby Schroeder has a much better throwing arm than Violet. Maybe all that piano playing strengthened his arm muscles?

New Year's Day, 1952 : I think I see why Patty hates Charlie Brown now

I think Patty is fully due that Scribble Of Ire in the last panel.

New Year's Eve, 1951: Well, I hope so!

The last strip of 1951, and a funny one at that.

December 29, 1951: Where did he get tinder?

The icicle-dripping word balloon in the second panel is nice.

Let's talk for a moment about the Peanuts characters' repertoire of expressions.

1. Neutral: No mouth at all when viewed in profile, a small dot or dash when viewed from the front

2. Mild Surprise/Interest: Neutral, but with small, upside-down-U eyebrows over the eyes. See Violet in panel four here.

3. Happy: Triangular mouth in profile, standard smile from the front or a faked profile triangle.

4. Angry: Eyebrows drawn as one long line from the front ("unibrow"), diagonal eyebrows going down towards nose when viewed in profile. Mouth is Neutral if mild anger, or a horizontal line if stronger.

5. Worried: Similar to Angry, but with slanted eyebrows arcing up at the nose line. Also, no unibrow. Mouth as in Neutral. Charlie Brown in all frames here, also Violet in panel three.