May 11, 1953: Snoopy and the realistic bird

This is only the second bird ever seen in the strip; the first was seen early on, and actually looked more like Schulz's adult bird design (which to clarify _doesn't_ look similar to Woodstock) than this one.

This is only the third non-Snoopy animal seen in the strip. (The second was a generic dog who chased a car.) The worm would be the fourth, I guess.

Sunday, May 10, 1953: Lucy and the Balloon

Here we get a glimpse at the struggle that roils just beneath Lucy's exterior. Notice how she alternates between pleading and threatening? Speaking in terms of the development of her personality, the threatening would eventually win out. Later Lucy would probably pop the balloon just from the dire intensity of her incredible wrath.

The lead panels, not printed by some papers and thus optional, are interesting here. What do put put in those panels so that it's still understandable from their absence, but still in some way contributes to the story? Schulz had yet to hit upon his trick of putting an abstract drawing in the first panel. Here, they're used to underline the point that Lucy has anthropomorphized the balloon.

This is also the first strip I've noticed in which Peanut's catch-all expletive "Rats" is used.

May 8, 1953: Mania, meet mania

For those of you too young to remember those strange things called "ree-cords," they were fragile platters of vinyl on which were engraved grooves which, when used in the proper player, could reproduce sound.

The shockwave coming off of Schroeder's head in the last panel, is one of those comic conventions, here as a depiction of surprise or dismay, that is mostly just accepted. But what is it supposed to represent? What is it a visual metaphor for? What's to stop us from creating our own such visual metaphors? (I think it'd be fun to do this but make them crazy and nonsensical.) How do these things get invented and agreed upon?

May 6, 1953: Snoopy in the outfield

Give him some time Charlie Brown. Eventually Snoopy becomes the team's star player, winning the admiration of the team and the respect of competitor "Peppermint" Patty.

May 4, 1953: Charlie Brown has a big, round head

More turnabout/chase shenanigans with Lucy. It's another version of the beach ball strip. (And in fact, it seems fairly easy to get CB's goat.)

By the way, May 3 is not up at comics.com. Does anyone know if the strip is in Fantagraphics' compilations?

May 1, 1953: This is why I like Schroeder

It's odd, isn't it? Here Schroeder decries commercialism, and in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" CB spends a lot of the time complaining about the crassness of marketing culture. And yet no strip has been merchandised and exploited even close to the extent that Peanuts has. Income from Peanuts made Charles Schulz a billionaire.

April 30, 1953: First reference to kites

The word "kite" isn't even mentioned in this strip, but it sets up, already, the most important thing about Charlie Brown's relationship with them: he can't fly one to save his life.

April 28, 1953: How does a cotton ball fly like that?

Other than from showing Peanuts' continued fascination with golf, the only real reason I picked this strip is that it has some nice drawings of Snoopy. All the versions of all the characters have their strong points, but in Snoopy's case I think I prefer this style most of all. It's a long time until the long, lean Snoopy of the "Snoopy dance" arrives, and longer still until we see the "balloon animal" Snoopy of the most recent era.

April 27, 1953: Dig that crazy rain

The sketchiness and wavering line of later Peanuts has a charm that goes well with the personality of the strip, but let’s never forget that early Peanuts showed great technical ability.  We saw that back in the golf strips a couple of days ago, and we see it again here in this wonderful depiction of a rain storm.

The thing that makes it really appealing to me is the darker hatching used to represent obscured scenery in the background.  It’s wonderfully suggestive without being too precise.  It actually looks better to me this way than the backgrounds that would usually be back there.  It must have taken a long time to draw.

Here's some more rain from a few days later, just because I probably wouldn't link to the strip otherwise:
May 2, 1953:

April 25, 1953: Dismissed!

Remember: at this point in his life Charles Schulz has served a full term in World War II. It's kind of surprising this hasn't come through more often, actually.