March 21, 1953: Charlie Brown Is Not A Manipulator

Shermy's developed a fair amount since the early strips. Here's a strip with him from March 28, 1951, just two years before:



Of course Violet's changed a lot too, but we so rarely see Shermy.

The very earliest strips, to me, look like the kind of thing that might be drawn for a magazine periodical like the New Yorker, which fits Schulz's early sale to the Saturday Evening Post. The characters as we see them in today's strip up above are actually less stylized, they have proportions closer to the human norm, but they're also more obviously something of Schulz's own devising.

March 17, 1953: Mmm, cellophane

It's weird that Snoopy didn't notice the candy was wrapped until Charlie Brown told him. But this strip is most interesting for its continued cementing of the fact that Charlie Brown now seems to be Snoopy's owner, when he calls him "ol' pal." It's not been explicitly said, but it seems to be more heavily implied now.

March 16, 1953: Lucy's sense of propriety

More of Lucy's fussiness. What is interesting I think is that later on Lucy's fussy behavior is actually mostly taken for granted, it's more told than shown in later strips. (Her actual behavior is mostly Selfish-Evil.) So it's nice to see some genuine fussy behavior from her.

Sunday, March 15, 1953: Snoopy's Hopak

This is a strange and remarkable strip, and not just because Snoopy's using full thought balloons for either the first or second time now. (I think I remember a prior use of the bubble-tailed balloons, in a single strip. But up until now all of Snoopy's other thought bubbles have had tapering tails like speech bubbles.)

The hopak is a traditional Ukrainian dance. The MIGHTY PEDE says it is sometimes known as the "Cossack Dance." In the United States we tend not to have traditional national entertainments of that sort (except, of course, for terrible action movies, brainless reality shows, sports team blathering and Fox News). Anyway, Snoopy really sells this one, and other than for the folded paws this becomes what we might identify in the middle period of the strip as the Snoopy dance. I think we've seen him do it once before, but here it is identified as a dance.

Schulz probably chose a Hopak because it's entertaining to see a dog perform it, and to draw Snoopy doing it, and it's an especially nice trick for one, but it's still conceivable unlike, say, a waltz.

Most comic strips subtly change art styles through the years. The Peanuts characters change a fair bit, but most characters are recognizable in their later forms. Snoopy pushes this the most; he's much changed in these early strips and the furred, bipedal, typewriter-using, figure-skating, Sopwith-flying, moon-landing creature of the later years.

The Snoopy Dance is relevant to this because its primary identifying characteristics are the upright posture and the flapping hind legs. Both are no longer unusual in Snoopy's late bipedal stage. Perhaps recognizing that, Snoopy's dance moves become a more general, smiling prance rather than a modified Hopak, which is a shame.

Moving on to the other characters, they are quite lively in this one, with everyone clapping and shouting "Hey!" I think this is the best party atmosphere we've seen in the strip to this point. It's also another ensemble strip without Shermy, that loner.

Isn't that rather a lot of food Violet is giving to Snoopy? I don't mean for a dog, I mean for anyone.

March 13, 1953: Good luck with that, Charlie Brown

The argument concerning relative worth re: men and women sounds maybe a little more troubling today than it did back then. I usually excuse it as a childish kind of "go team!" cheering. (Thesis: sports team loyalty is taking the place of the casual chauvinism and racism of earlier decades. You have two hours. You may pick up your pencils... now!)

March 12, 1953: Head-over-heels

This is the first strip in which a character is thrown head-over-heels just from the force of some other action, usually a loud noise. We have had a case sort of like this back in the first Lucy football strip, but it didn't happen in the iconic Peanuts fashion. This is the first time in which it's mere noise that causes the tumble.

The head-over-heels motion will become one of the most distinctive elements of Charles Schulz's visual comic language. It looks natural on the page, but it doesn't animate very well; the implied force is away from the noise, so the subject can't stay on-screen long enough to read the motion well. Also, is the victim spinning, or just being thrown back? And what kind of sound should the somersault itself make?

Sunday, March 8, 1953: Towards a More Neurotic Brother

Security blanket aside, Linus ends up being perhaps the most well-adjusted of the Peanuts kids. I can only assume it's because, when Lucy is your sister, the slings and arrows of fortune just don't seem to be as bad.

March 7, 1953: Baby vs. Dog

My favorite thing about this strip is the exclamation points in the first panel. No attempt is made to justify or even explain the aggression on both sides. It's as if they're saying: "Oh. It's YOU."

The last panel is a little cramped. Although they're moving away from each other, they're actually closer together there than in panel three.

March 6, 1953: Who is Snoopy's owner?

This strip finally puts a solid finger on Snoopy's owner. If he's part of Charlie Brown's family, then he must certainly be his dog.

The drawing of Snoopy in the third panel is very appealing, I think.

March 4, 1953: When Charlie Brown was thawed out 1,000 years later, he found Snoopy fossilized in that state

This is just a great strip. Snoopy's in shock!

It's important to note that Snoopy isn't drawn exactly the same in each panel. His smile in the second panel fades in the third, and wears grieved eyebrow-lines in the last.