August 1, 1952: Snoopy wants to play

This is a cute little strip, cute enough to overcome my usual aversion to sports jokes. Poor ol' Charlie Brown. But then, I'm pretty sure dogs aren't allowed on golf courses, so doesn't CB only have himself to blame? It is in dogs' nature to fetch. To bring Snoopy onto a golf course is to invite disaster.

The last panel gives us one of the earliest examples of Charlie Brown exhibiting dismay. "I can't stand it" is one of Charlie Brown's unofficial mottoes, along with "Good grief!" and "Rats!"

July 31, 1952: The Doll Doctor

This strip looks a little familiar to me, like I've seen another strip like it, and recently.

A lot of this strip depends on technique. The punch comes from Patty's setting up the reader for expecting an actual medicine with a fancy, scientific name in the third panel. It's all but required that they be multi-syllabic words, so Charlie Brown can foil those expectations in the last panel with his single-syllable retort of "Glue!"

Sunday, July 27, 1952: You-you-you-GIRL-you

Patty pulls off what, later, would probably be a Lucy move.

We get a rare glimpse here of a really angry Charlie Brown, who hadn't yet learned to internalize life's slings and arrows.

To little things are particularly interesting here. Schroeder's expression is, except for a bit of a sad look in panel 5, neutral for the rest of the strip. He serves as a norm that sets off CB's anger. And Patty's expression in the last two panels is also neutral; she doesn't feel ashamed for her act, and neither does she gloat about it. All the emotion in the last half of the strip belongs to Charlie Brown.

Few cartoonists made as much use out of neutral expressions as Charles Schulz did. His kids could really play a scene down.

July 24, 1952: Lucy and Snoopy

1. Lucy's edging still-closer to the position of strip bully. That's rather a weird choice, I'd think, for a character who was introduced as one of the youngest of the cast, and a girl at that.

2. Snoopy's personality develops a bit too. That's a devious expression he's wearing in the last panel.

3. We also discover another thing he can say, and he can say it in serif lettering!

4. Scribble of ire!

July 23, 1952: Schroeder vs. Accordions

In case you didn't notice it before, Schroeder hates accordions. We'll see before long that, by extension, this means accordion players.

It is easy to place this opinion as part of Schroeder's character, but is it just me or does this strip also imply that Schulz himself doesn't care for the instrument? Might he be subtly letting us know about his opinion of popular art? What does that say about his own burgeoning career in cartooning? Please write your opinions down in the form of an eight-page essay and bring it to class next week.

July 21, 1952: Sad Sad Snoopy

I do think I prefer this age of Peanuts, in terms of art style, to all the others. It's true, when Peanuts' art became simplified and iconic it allowed the strip's humor and voice to aim for the stratosphere, but we also come to lose things like Snoopy's expression in the last panel here. Now that's a depressed dog.

This is a bit more confirmation for the idea that Snoopy belongs to Charlie Brown, I think.

July 20, 1952: The wishy-washy of days gone by

Charles Schulz reminds us, in nine panels, about an age of childhood receding into history with astonishing rapidity. This strip is approaching 60 years old....

July 19, 1952: Dog speech addendum: Heh, heh, heh

Snoopy can also laugh derisively!

A very cute strip involving the dog. His ears, particularly, are adorable here. They're like little wings.

July 18, 1952: Lucy's family

Peanuts rarely lets us know much about the home lives of its characters except where they relate to each other. This strip shows us that Lucy may be feeling a bit ignored at home. I don't think Schulz intends that Lucy's forthcoming anger issues arise from dissatisfaction with her parents... but it would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

July 17, 1952: Lucy answers the phone

This is one of those strips that relies on a character being very young and not quite grasping how the world works. These strips gradually lessen in number as Peanuts switches from being mostly about situations to which generic characters are exposed, to being more about characters with definite personalities and the ways they exhibit them.

At the moment, Schroeder is the character that leads the way in that direction. There are not very many generic musical prodigies in the world. Charlie Brown is also developing a definite personality, but there are still few strips using him that couldn't also be changed to feature some other character. Shermy is still (and would ever be) fairly generic. Patty's role as foil to Charlie Brown seems to be subsiding, and other than the occasional mud pie episode Violet doesn't tend to show a lot of individualistic behavior. Lucy, on the other hand, is a real hit and will only become more willful in the months to come.