February 26, 1954: Charlie Brown Cartoons Again

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Another "Charlie Brown, Cartoonist" strip.  Schulz used these a lot both to poke fun at himself and, perhaps, at other cartoonists.  At the time, I think he was still working at Art Instruction, Inc.

This strip is interesting for other reasons though.  The look on Schroeder's face the whole time is fascinating.  He isn't upset in the last panels; it's more like he thinks Charlie Brown has rejected him.  Or maybe he's just sad that his criticism didn't find reception in CB's round head.

February 25, 1953: The Peanut Butter Sandwich That Broke the Camel's Back

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I love this one.

How is Peanuts unlike other comic strips?  Look here.  It's not that Charlie Brown ripped the sandwich apart.  It's Lucy's expression of dismay, and her horrified observation, "He tore it to pieces with his bare hands...."

February 24, 1954: In sync, no less

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Do they mean to be insulting?  They said it at exactly the same time, and with wide smiles.  I'm guessing they rehearsed this.

February 23, 1953: At the Writin' Fence

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I think we can safely assume that the upper graffiti is Patty's doing.  It is important to the joke here that Lucy is depicted as very young, so as to provide an explanation for the illegible scrawl on the bottom of the fence.  In fact, I think Schulz is actually cheating Lucy slightly shorter than she usually is, so the joke is clearer.

The strip for February 12, 1954 (presented here, fourth down) has Shermy writing on a similar wall.  On that strip, njguy54 commented that Shermy's use of cursive was "interesting."  It was, there, since who writes in cursive on large, vertical surfaces?  But the use of cursive here is much more important, since it provides important visual similarity between the two writings.

Did Schulz plan the two strips at the same time?  Probably; there are many examples of similar strips separated by a small number of days, enough to suggest part of his creation strategy: to hit upon some idea, to mine it for joke potential, then to draw some or all of the ideas, ideally seperated by a few days to keep things mixed up.

At some point, I conjecture, Schulz realizes that he doesn't always have to spread the strips apart like this, and he takes to running "theme weeks," where a number of consecutive strips feature a similar premise.  That eventually leads to sequences of linear storytelling, such as Charlie Brown progressively leading his baseball team to failure.  (Another sequence leading to that is the upcoming Lucy in the Golf Tournament story that plays over consecutive Sundays.)

February 22, 1954: The sun is a mass of incandescent gas

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

We're here on the ground floor of another emerging Peanuts story theme, Lucy's willful ignorance.  She's come a long way from her doll-like, third-person-referring, self-pitying ("Poor Lucy") early personality.  Her mistaken knowledge of the universe, and her spreading that knowledge to Linus, is an upcoming cause of Charlie Brown's stomachaches.

The way the path behind Charlie Brown, in the first panel, curves up only to disappear is strange when you notice it.  I think it's being represented as disappearing over a hill and Schulz didn't draw the horizon.  My guess is, drawing the horizon line would connect the two characters visually, subconsciously connecting them when the whole theme of the strip is disconnection.

Lucy's pose in the second panel is great.  She puts a lot of energy into her mockery.

Ho ho ho!

February 18, 1954: Lucy's quest

Read this strip over at gocomics.com.

Charlie Brown's patience with Lucy over her misguided project begins to wear down here.

February 20, 1954: Violet's short attention span

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Violet throws Charlie Brown out rather often.  She forgets why she was mad at him fairly often too.

February 18, 1954: Baby Linus has a lot of energy

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Schulz uses a few different styles of large-form lettering, and we can see them all here in close proximity.  We find outlined and filled in examples of:

serif:

serif-ed

sharp-cornered (in the M)

square-cornered

rounded simulated pen strokes 1

rounded simulated pen strokes2

February 8-12, 14, 1954: The missing strips are back

The strips I mentioned yesterday as having been missing are back, so let's have a look at them.

February 9, 1954:

A nice inversion of the usual way these Schroeder vs. Charlie Brown strips go, with Schroeder proving to be the one who annoys Charlie Brown.  One of Schulz's particular observational gifts appears to be being able to see all sides of a situation.  No character is wholly admirable or horrible.

Scribble of ire!

February 10, 1954:

Snoopy vs., not the yard, but the living room.  Panel two is weird; it seems obvious that Snoopy is trying to pick the top up, but it's not something we often see Snoopy do.  Panel three isn't immediately readable, but thinking about it I think Snoopy is being pushed away by the top's rotational force.

 February 11, 1954:

Charlie Brown returns to the idea of perfection.  At first he thought he was perfect.  Now he aspires to perfection.  Soon he'll realize his faults (and those he doesn't see Lucy will be happy to point out) and despair of ever overcoming them.  Isn't this how it goes in real life?  There is no truth more clearly and bitterly seen than that which comes from disappointing disillusionment.

February 12, 1954:

Fence gags aren't common in Peanuts, but for some reason Schulz decided now was a good time for one.  There's another coming soon, with Patty and Lucy.

Sunday, February 14, 1954:

Lucy counting the stars.  This is the first one where she seems to be serious about it.  Interestingly here, the sky is not represented as solid black; instead the grass in the background is solid.  You can only really tell it's night from the characters' words and the moon hanging in the sky.

February 13, 15, 16 and 17, 1954: Lucy, Patty and Violet

The strips for February 9-12, and the 14th, are currently missing from Universal's website.  We'll skip those for about a week, then will probably try to get them from another source.

February 13, 1954:

Lucy seems to be exhibiting problems with her indoor voice.  When she's shouting, notice the post of dismay Violet is wearing.  But Lucy doesn't have "angry eyebrows" in any of these panels.
Sometimes Charles Schulz will draw a doll in one of the panels, and I'm always amazed by the effort that goes into them.  Like I said about the last strip, showing a character small isn't really like just drawing it at a smaller scale.  The doll here shows so much attention to detail looks like it could well have been a new character.

February 15, 1954:

 Here is what I meant by "angry eyebrows."
I assume this is before class started, or else I'd think Violet's outburst would cause a disruption.
The change in Charlie Brown's poses from panels 2 to 3, and from 3 to 4, are strange.  He goes from happy, to flinching like he's about to be hit, to a kind of casual leaning back.  Violet is still pretty angry in the last panel though.
For some reason my attention is drawn to Violet's exclamation in the third panel.  It doesn't have an exclamation point, and it has an apostrophe noting the removal of the "e" in "the."
This is not the first strip that shows characters in a school setting, but it might be the second.

February 16, 1954:

This is classic Lucy, and helps to show what a terror she's developing into.  Although there's no spite shown on her face it's difficult to avoid assuming some.  We also get a somersault here, although it's not the side-view one we usually get later.

February 17, 1954:

The question presented by this strip is, is Patty's long pause her intended to be hers, or are we just sort of seeing Charlie Brown's mental state illustrated?  The latter is a bit of a stretch, so I believe it's the former.
Note Charlie Brown's expression in the last panel is not a chagrimace.  It's more like a frown.