EXTRA: Old-school Peanuts figures

Thanks to RAB of Estoreal for pointing me to these figures Dark Horse is putting out of Peanuts characters then and now.

Of course there is nothing wrong, exactly, with the modern representations. But there is a charm in the old depictions that is missing in the newer ones, and that's especially evident in Old-School Snoopy.

The evolution of a comic strip is an interesting thing.  The Garfield of today is unrecognizable compared to the Garfield of the strip's beginnings, and that was in 1978.  In that case, they began as remarkably unattractive characters, enough so that one can only think they were intended to be ugly.  Peanuts went the other way; strikingly composed and sharply designed characters, over the first few years of the strip, transitioned into slightly more realistic, yet definitely less attractive realizations.

Why would Charles Schulz move towards lessening the cute-factor of his characters? My theory is to stave off a perception that his work was kid's stuff, which would be especially important as the strip began to lift off to philosophical heights and cultural relevance. Of course, you may have different ideas.

March 12, 1952: Lucy is top-heavy

Lucy's third strip here. She looks fairly different with those huge eyes, doesn't she? Probably added to make her more visually distinct from Violet, they don't last very long.

March 11, 1952: Throws like a girl

It's a fairly funny joke here, not the usual source of humor in this one. Most comics (including Peanuts up to this point), it would just be enough to stretch the first two panels here over four.

Consider, for a moment, the comic strip Nancy. Nancy is, itself, a kind of classic, an endless elaboration upon a basic set of jokes. And yet, it cannot really be said to have evolved over time. Ernie Bushmuller was a craftsman. A really good one actually; few comic strips could have maintained the level of competence he provided for Nancy over that period. That is a good word for what Nancy is: competent.

Schulz, we see here, was not interested in mere competence. We can see here that he wasn't interested in applying a formula over and over again forever, that he was engaged with his work and responding to it in an iterative manner. In this strip, he comments upon a kind of joke that just a year earlier he would have made without second thoughts. This is why Bushmuller was a craftsman, but Schulz was an artist.

March 10, 1952: Because he is a dog

A dog eating half of a tiny piece of candy quickly is worthy of two exclamation points from Charlie Brown?

This one's posted mostly for the haunted look from CB in the last panel. Weird.

March 7, 1952: William Tell

It's been a little while since we've seen Snoopy. So, here: Snoopy!

March 6, 1952: Three-quarters angled down Violet head

This is a fairly ordinary strip, but it's worth posting for the view of Violet's head in the third panel, which is quite interesting. The angle works pretty well I think.

March 4, 1952: PLEEEESE?

Before her awesome rage-based powers became evident, Lucy was quite the charmer.

March 3, 1952: Dear god, it's HER

Aww, isn't she cute? Little did anyone, least of all Schulz himself, know that with the introduction of that (literally) wide-eyed little girl jumping rope, there was created perhaps the most concentrated entity of wrath ever to grace the comics page.

The Fuss-Budget. The Mistress Crabby. The Atom Bomb. She that doth provide the football, and she that taketh it hence.

So faint not dear reader, but yet be warned! It has awakened!

LUCY APPROACHES.

Sunday, March 2, 1952: This should satisfy the health inspector

"You've come to the right place... more or less."

It's another joke collage, and another chapter in Violet's obsession with mud food. Muud.

March 1, 1952: Whee!

How did he get out of his house so fast? How could the characters think they were hiding behind that tiny fence?

The third panel here is most interesting to me, since it depicts three characters running. It's not as easy to depict a cartoon character running, cleanly, as you might think, and those squat Peanuts characters have special issues with it. The general pose these running characters adopt is leaning forward slightly, front leg lifted up and bent, rear leg bent and folder under the body, and arms held out a little with hands crumpled. They are also shown "hovering" in the air. Note that their legs are a little longer when running, so they don't look too strange, but in the last panel their legs must be quite a bit longer for them to be holding that crouching pose.

Note that characters who are actively trying to run lean forward a little, but Charlie Brown, who isn't trying to run very hard because he's not intent on escaping and doesn't know why he's running, is leaning backwards a little. This post also helps to keep him distinct from the other characters, since his head is moved out from behind Patty's. Also note Shermy's pose in the second panel, with his right leg pulling away from the door a little in anticipation of his run. These are the kinds of things a good nuts-and-bolts cartoonist thinks about. It is hard to imagine, say, Scott Adams, whose cartoons are more about irony and banter, and who uses characters mostly as containers for dialogue, it is hard to imagine him spending much time worrying about these things.

Finally, did kids every say "whee" like that?