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

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.

April 3, 1952: How does Schroeder whistle chords?

This strip is really well-done from a storytelling standpoint. It sets up the premise, provides a comparison between CB's and Schroeder's abilities, shows Patty and Violet's opinion of those abilities, illustrates Schroeder's charisma and Charlie Brown's feelings of inadequacy, all in four panels.

Scribble of shame!

April 2, 1952: Lucy Pimps Out Her Crib

This strip is something that wouldn't work as well as a later-day Peanuts strip, since a lot of the appeal is in the illustration. The characters gained emotional maturity, but their world lost some of its physical flexibility.

Aren't those records at Lucy's feet in panel three? Didn't she just destroy Charlie Brown's just yesterday? Why can't she eat her own?

Lucy seems to be longing for sleeping in a bed, but once she gets one, she won't be able to keep herself from falling out of it for a while.

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

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....

March 31, 1952: First non-traditional layout

Newspaper comics, for all the (potentially) wonderful things about them, are also heavily restricted in format. Charles Schulz is recorded as saying that for a long time he stuck with a four panel layout because it allowed the newspapers the most flexibility in arranging them. They could be run in a two-by-two box, or as a column of single panels. But here we see him experimenting within the form by sub-dividing the panels into two sub-panels each.

It works well here because there is little speech in this one. It wouldn't exactly lend itself to Linus expounding on the Old Testament.

Sunday, March 30, 1952: Lucy's developing taste in music

Lucy is especially baby-like in this one. Since the strip has a new resident infant, it frees Schroeder up to solely be the musician. Weirdly, in this strip Lucy has probably said more than Schroeder has in the entire run up to this point.

This is the first strip to exhibit Lucy's early tendency to refer to herself in the third person. Of all the Peanuts characters, I think Lucy might be the one to change the most. Even more than Snoopy.

There are weirder things still here. Lucy looks extra creepy in the first panel up there, and her words in the next-to-last panel seem oddly chosen, if explainable by her lack of skill in the language. In the last panel Schulz finds a good compromise between the circled-eyes look and general character appeal. It is a prototype of the parenthesis eyes that Lucy would adapt for the majority of Peanuts' run, the same type that Linus has out the gate.

March 28, 1952: Lucy, Live on Stage

The curtains at the sides lend this strip an odd theatrical appearance.

The strip itself is another of those instances of Lucy pestering her father, who as we've noted before are reputed based on the childhood antics of Charles Schulz's daughter Lisa.

This may be the creepiest yet we've seen of Lucy's wide-eyed early look. In that first panel especially she looks like visions of Hell hold no secrets for her.

March 26, 1952: That's just-- an alibi!

It's Lucy's first strip with characters other than Charlie Brown or her unseen father. The girl looks pretty miserable in the second panel, doesn't she?

Also of note here, it's Violet's first strip with her hair done in a ponytail, probably done so she doesn't look so much like Lucy.

March 24, 1952: Bring me my bear, servant!

The fifth sixth Lucy strip. Another instance of Lucy's demanding interactions with her unseen father. Apparently Schulz got the idea for these strips from his then-newbown daughter, Lisa. I hope he didn't get the idea for Lucy's later personality from her as well!

Sunday, March 23, 1952: More Baseball

The first baseball-themed Sunday strip, and a foreshadowing of the career of Charlie "The Goat" Brown.

Patty playing umpire in the first panel is especially nice.

In panel 5, which base is it that Charlie Brown is running to? There seems to be some confusion between Patty and Violet on the matter. If you look closely, the drawing of Patty in that frame is a bit of a throwback; she's reverted to her old round-headed look. It's interesting that I didn't notice how all the characters except Charlie Brown have been slowly moving from having oval heads when viewed in profile or three-quarters to having recessed eyes and prominent foreheads.