Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, 1953

December 25, 1953:

December 31, 1953:

The Christmas strip is another message to the reader, which I don't think generally work for Peanuts, but at least there's a joke to it this time. It's funny that, if you give him enough space, Charlie Brown draws his letters with serifs.

The New Year's Eve strip isn't holiday-specific, but is funny. It's something of a follow-up. I love Schulz's giant serif Zs, which we can take to indicate the sound, and loudness, of Snoopy's snoring. Schulz returns to this particular gag later.

The motion lines make it look like Snoopy is being thrown out of a basement.

December 24, 27 (Sunday) and 28, 1953: Three with Snoopy

December 24, 1953

December 27, 1953

December 28, 1953

Three good no-thought-bubble Snoopy strips, presenting the dog as annoyance, victim and helpful friend.

December 23, 1953: 10,000 games

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

I think this strip marks the end of the checkers winning streak series.  Poor Charlie Brown should have quit while he was (less) behind.

This strip implies strongly that all of Lucy and C.B.'s games have been against each other.  If the two tried playing against other opponents, maybe it wouldn't have gotten to 10,000 games?  Of course Lucy prefers it this way.

It's like Paper playing against Rock.

December 20, 1953: Sorry I asked!

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

I love this strip!  It presents the world of the kids in a way that makes it seem all real, like there's always a dozen things happening at once.  My favorite joke in it, however, is the one in the lead two panels, which is just a throwaway but has some pleasing off-screen violence.

The metaphorical opening panel uses Charlie Brown's trademark zig-zag shirt pattern, but the zig-zag is nowhere to be seen elsewhere in the whole strip, and is in fact a little uncommon in the strip at this point considering the kid usually covers it with a jacket in the winter months.  Maybe he was just reminding the reader of it.

There is a lot of prototype Calvin and Hobbes here, both in the snowman gag and the humorous sled crash at the beginning.

December 19, 1953: Really really really really....

This is just about Patty at her most charming.  Before she became half of the soul-destroying tag-team of Patty & Violet.  Peanuts & Schulz: A Biography implies that most of the strip's characters were based, at least originally, on real people.  I don't think it's necessarily useful or accurate to make this claim beyond the level of inspiration, but still.  I wouldn't like to think that happened between Charles Schulz and whoever Patty and Violet were based on.

(It's also possible, now that I think about it, that I'm conflating Patty and Violet's later roles.  Well, getting these things straightened out is part of the reason I'm going through the whole course of the strip.)

In the last panel there is an odd space in Patty's word balloon, like a word got whitened-out between Schulz and print.  (Also, for some reason I feel like there should be an exclamation point after her statement there, but that's not really a big deal.)

December 17 & 18, 1953: Two with Linus

December 17, 1953

 December 18, 1953

Both of these strips show off Linus' overalls, which would much later be seen on Rerun.  Whether they are hand-me-downs is unknown to me.

The first strip is another of the "Snoopy and Linus annoy each other watching TV" series.  The second has an unusual "Oh, my!" pose from Charlie Brown in the first panel.

December 16, 1953: For your calendars

View this strip at gocomics.com.

The old mania shows through.  This obsession with all things Beethoven only grows over time, until it becomes perhaps Schroeder's most endearing characteristic.  I don't think the teacher is going to buy it as an absence excuse though.

According to Wikipedia, we're not actually sure when Ludwig Van Beethoven's birthday is, but it does say that December 16 is our best guess.

Concerning the art:
How about that jacket Charlie Brown is wearing?  Is that leather?  Denim?  Or just (yawn) corduroy?  
Those are some pretty well-thought-out poses for Schroeder on the fence there.  Schulz draws him having to lift himself up to see over the fence, which is exerting, so he braces himself against his feet in a couple of ways.    Very nice!

December 15, 1953: When Lucy had a conscience

View this strip at gocomics.com.

Is this remorse from Lucy for scaring the heck out of her brother yesterday?

December 14, 1953: Lucy goes that extra mile

Read this comic at gocomics.com.

In this strip, we begin to see that Schulz is becoming more careful about showing emotions.  It's not just the hilariously shaken image of Linus in the last panel, it's that we can't get a good read on why Lucy did this.  She betrays no satisfaction or joy throughout the process.  It's like she's just doing what her mother told her like a good little girl.  But why is she sneaking up on her blissful brother?  Why is she shouting at him?  Later on the thrust of whole strips turn on whether a character's mouth was drawn with a slightly upturned stroke.

This is the third strip to use the "somersault" visual shorthand for violent disruptive motion.  The first time was in the first football strip (which has still yet to become a yearly thing).  The second time was, interestingly, another instance involving Lucy shouting near Linus.

Sunday, December 13, 1953: Schroeder's ready for the big time

Read this comic at gocomics.com.

Sometimes with these I think Schulz throws in realistically-proportioned adult objects just to demonstrate that he can draw well technically.  Of course Schroeder couldn't actually play the adult piano because his arms are too short; he'd barely be able to reach the keys unless the bench were right up against it.

I notice that, in some of the Sunday strips we've seen, there's a blank spot between a couple of the panels in the bottom row.  It's really noticeable because it always seems to overlap two of the panels.  Is this the result of some problem with their source documents?