December 12, 1953: Mitten applications

Why does Patty look so concerned in the last panel?  I think it's less because of Charlie Brown's inventive use for a mitten as the fact that it looks like Snoopy is wearing one of her dresses.  Check it out in the first panel here.

Patty's dress has the same wide-spaced crosshatching that Snoopy's sweater has here.  The pattern of Patty's dress is of course covered up by her coat, which is why Schulz can use it for Snoopy's attire; otherwise the reader would be left wondering if there was some point of connection between the two.  I think it looks very nice on the dog, as it gives his sweater a kind of quilted look.

December 11, 1953: World-shaking calamity

Read this strip on gocomics.com.

This is a bigger deal to Charlie Brown than the rest of us because such a large percentage of his hair is disarranged.  (75%, that one on the back of his head passed unmolested.)

This does seem to make it clear that Charlie Brown has exactly four hairs.

December 10, 1953: Limits to Lucy's fussiness

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Here Schulz subverts the pattern he's used several times, where Lucy finds fault with some kindness of Charlie Brown's and he upends something on Lucy's head in response.  Thing is this time Lucy has a point, but puts up with it anyway if there's no alternative.

Sunday, December 6, 1953: Snoopy appreciates the source of beta-carotene

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

It's amazing how much care Schulz put into Peanuts' backgrounds in the old days.  Look at all the different kinds of tree, the houses, the snow and the path.  Patty has a couple of very nice poses in this one too, especially with her shovel.  Charlie Brown running up to see her in panel 4 is also very good; panel 4 overall is one of the most beautiful of the whole strip's run.  The characters, despite their stylistic deformations, are realized in three dimensions very well.

Of course dogs will eat just about anything, but is it weird that Snoopy likes carrots so much that he'd swipe one off a snowman? 

December 5, 1953: Reciprocal slobber

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

There are a few strips that notice a basic similarity between the behavior of very little kids and dogs, and by my reckoning this is the first.  I seem to remember a few strips that played this up when Sally comes on the scene, when she and Snoopy team up to steal Linus' blanket.

Why is the noise of Snoopy licking depicted as "smack," and why is it in a word balloon?

When characters stoop over, like Lucy is in panel three, it seems easy to imagine them unfolding their legs and ending up much taller than they should be.

December 4, 1953: Winter in Peanutsland

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This strip has some very nice backgrounds in it.  Later on Schulz, for whatever reason, would largely abandon tying to depict his characters' world in such detail, so let's enjoy it while it lasts.

December 3, 1953: Some light cast on Violet's disdain for Charlie Brown

I suppose this shows us a reason Violet throws Charlie Brown out of her house sometimes; he won't keep quiet during a show.  Of course, it seems that Violet won't herself either.

I'm sure some form of time compression is at work here, but even so, it is difficult for me to see how she could find enough things to tell Charlie Brown not to do that it'd fill up a whole half-hour.

I think Violet's pigtail-look has pretty much vanished entirely by this point.

EDIT: Corrected typo in title

Sunday, November 29, 1953: Charlie Brown should see this

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Lucy's joy at being the best at jumping rope is wonderful.  Panel 2 is a bit strange for its abstract ground, but it works.  Panel 4 is terrific though, even if, when you look closely at it, Lucy's rope jumping isn't as fluid as it appears at first.  It's really several different, unconnected images of her jumping rope presented together in such a way that it scans as a continuous stream.  It does further the illusion of her skipping rope with a forward motion though, which is important since one jumping rope in place cannot come across other people.

He put so much work into this that I almost feel embarrassed to notice there's a small mistake here in the strip construction.  If you remove the top panels (like some newspapers do) the joke becomes much weaker, since Linus reaching 700 jumps isn't as impressive if we didn't know Lucy was so proud because she hit 600.  The boldface on "SEVEN HUNDRED" loses its relevance.  The strip is still understandable in that Lucy's change in demeanor implies that her brother has surpassed her.  I suppose, in that regard, the knowledge that she had reached 600 is extraneous information?

EDIT: Fixed gocomics link.

November 26 & 30, 1953: Two with Violet

November 26, 1953

 November 30, 1953

Violet was such a sweet little girl at first, wasn't she?  That seems long ago now, but it's been less than three years since then.

In the first strip here we have another case of Charlie Brown being thrown out of Violet's house.  Until now, usually Violet forgets what made her angry before C.B. is evicted or long gone, but not in this case.  In the second strip she takes naked advantage of Charlie Brown's lack of backbone, and doesn't even have the venom to make an evil smile about it.  It's just a business translation for her.  She wants what Charlie Brown has, so it becomes hers.  Wow.

It's difficult to feel sorry for C.B. in that one.  It's not like she threatened him or anything!

Charlie Brown's hat in the first strip is rather stylish. 

November 25, 1953: Wrath of Dog

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Snoopy only has a limited number of ways of expressing annoyance at this point.  His ears in the last panel are adorable though, in a Mickey Mouse kind of way.

Was it kids' habit back then to eat whole bags of candy at once?  I'm amazed the Peanuts kids didn't all become diabetics.