Sunday, May 17, 1953: Dirt, marvellous dirt

I think this is quite a charming strip, despite the return to the theme of mud pie baking. Frames 6-8 contain what I consider to be among the most winning drawings of Patty Schulz ever drew. I think it's the hair; the dirt lends it a shading that makes it seem a bit more real, a bit less stylized.

Patty's willingness to get messy echoes the character of "Peppermint" Patty. Schulz and Peanuts notes that the two are based on the same real-life person, making the flavored version kind of a revision of the original.

May 14-16, 1953: Comics, and the foundation of "Happiness Is"

This is mostly notable because it's Schulz engaging in more metacommentary about comics.



One of the more insipid trends in Peanuts is those cloying "Happiness Is..." pictures. I actually don't think they were ever that prevalent in the comics; I think they were used more in books and merchandising. Still, this is a step in that direction. It is also the first instance, to my eyes, of Charlie Brown bemoaning his fate in the recognized Charlie Brown manner.



I think that would actually be a funny strip, in a New Yorker kind of way. (Which means other people probably wouldn't think it'd be a funny strip.)

May 13, 1953: Baseball Blockhead

First use of the word "blockhead." Also, the first strip in which another character comments on Charlie Brown's lack of pitching skill.

May 12, 1953: Snoopy's duplex

This strip is a variant of those previous sight-gag strips in which Snoopy's house had a TV antenna and where he lived in a hotel.

It's funny, but it also slowly pushes the edge on what is seen as "normal" in the Peanuts world. Snoopy's growth into his vibrant later personality is gradual, the change accomplished slowly through strips like this.

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.