October 13, 1952: Snoopy the Musician

This is one of the first strips in which a character actually shouts at another one, in larger letters. We've yet to see our first AUGH, though.

Sunday, October 12, 1952: Snoopy the Pointer

This duck features in another strip in a few months.

Interestingly, Snoopy is the character with the most expressive body language. There are not a lot of poses for the child figures in Peanuts, partly due to their distorted construction. Snoopy, maybe because he's a little more realistically depicted than the others, can adopt more poses.

October 11, 1952: Charlie Brown Hates Coconut

A little fact for trivia: Charlie Brown hates coconut. (Actually this has been mentioned before, in a strip in which Patty pretty uses the same logic against Charlie Brown.)

October 9, 1952: Paper Chase

I'm not sure if this strip should have ended on the second panel or as it's written. I think the real joke is in panel two; extending it further is just explaining the punchline.

October 8, 1952: Sick and Tired of Always Being the Bassoon

Another strip in which a character reacts to something undepicted that's just happened off-camera. Fairly funny I guess.

October 6, 1952: Lucy's Happy Dance

Lucy's developing her egotism nicely I see. I don't really get how CB can take solace in the fact he came in second. I assume Schroeder is peeved in the last panel because he knows coming in last is the true measure of ability.

Sunday, October 5, 1952: Bumpity-bump

I've already mentioned that the Sunday strips were almost certainly not done on the same schedule as the weekday ones, which is why this Sunday strip mentions that Lucy has been going all week even though she has been seen without the ball in a couple of the intervening weekday installments.

I'm not quite sure why Charlie Brown sees Lucy's quest as a threat to his sanity. Maybe it has to do with the noise, or maybe he sees her possible accomplishment as a threat? Maybe he just doesn't want to live in a world in which a little girl can bounce a ball for an entire week. (Speaking of which, doesn't she sleep?)

I am not sure, but this may be the last strip in which Lucy refers to herself in the third person.

October 3, 1952: Depressed kids

I'm rather glad to see a strip about depression in which Prozac or other pharmaceuticals do not come up.

October 2, 1952: Two years

This brings to a close the second year of the strip.

In the second year were introduced both Lucy and Linus. Schroeder learned to talk. Charlie Brown's psychological problems began to become more evident. Shermy, already on his way towards irrelevance, only appeared a small number of times. Schulz's art style, fired in the crucible of a daily comic strip, has evolved considerably. Most of the characters have gradually eased into their classic looks, all except for Charlie Brown (who's oval remains as a vestige of the original style), Snoopy (who has so far changed fairly little) and Linus (who is currently the strip's baby).

In the next year there aren't any major character introductions, but Schulz's art style evolves a bit more. Snoopy and Charlie Brown both draw closer to their later forms. The very next month has the first of the strips where Charlie Brown fails to kick Lucy's football. But most importantly this is the year in which Peanuts' writing really matures into something recognizable and wonderful.

For comparison's sake, here is the strip from one year before:


And here is the strip one year to come:

October 1, 1952: HA HA METAHUMOR

Peanuts has sometimes been taken seriously by folks, including Schulz himself, but there are moments like this every once in a while. There isn't really any connection, other than motive, between Schroeder's discovery and his remarkably knowledgeable comment. I can picture Schulz laughing at the idea of a character annoyed at being in a comic strip and looking for any excuse to work it in.