May 9, 16, 23 & 30, 1954: Lucy at the Golf Tournament

We've come around to that strange place in Peanuts history where Charles Schulz experimented with putting adult characters in the strip as background elements, with continuity elements, with a relatively serious storyline, with titling, and with making Lucy a golf whiz.

Thing is, we already covered these strips last year.

I'm taking the day off from the blog, feel free to go back and reread my comments on the sequence, which is among the stranger moments in Peanuts' run, right up there with the time Alfred E. Neuman appeared in the strip.

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Read this sequence at gocomics.com:
May 9 - May 16 - May 23 - May 30

Week of May 3-8, 1954

May 3, 1954:

A comment remarked that the "Red Red Red" strip from a few days back was probably, actually, a reference to the Red Scare current around that time.  The current events angle of this strip is rather more obvious to a reader 57 years in the future.

May 4:

One of the most enduring gags of the strip, that of Lucy's utter ineptness as a fielder, begins here.  It's a funny example of the type, too.

May 5:

That piece of candy must be incredibly rich.

May 6:

This is partly a callback to the very first Peanuts strip.

May 7:

The fussbudget plot continues.  Lucy still doesn't seem to comprehend sarcasm when it's used at her expense.  This is classic Lucy here, the (literally) wide-eyed little girl is almost gone.  Not completely yet, but she's getting there.

May 8:

This joke isn't one of Schulz's best right here, but it does give us another glimpse of the prehensile talents of Snoopy's ears.

Sunday, May 2, 1954: I guess that black tape didn't help much

Read this strip at gocomics.com.
A simple, funny strip.  The decrepit state of the ball is particularly funny.

META: Client problems

If you're wondering about the lack of updates for a couple of days, well....

I have been making them, they just accidently went over to my game dev blog instead.  I've been trying out a blogging client and it's made it easy to accidentally crosspost.  I'm trying to move the affected posts here, stand by....

May 1, 1954: Warping a little girl's mind

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

What is Charles Schulz saying, that Lucy is interested in Charlie Brown's "Mangle Comics," "Disease Comics" and "Gory Comics," yet he's not interested in "The Little Bunnies," "Billy Bluebird," and "The Funny Foxes?"

Some possible takeaway points:
1. Boy's comics are ridiculously violent (although "Disease Comics" doesn't seem like the most marketable title).
2. Boy's comics are more universally interesting than girl's comics, which implies Lucy considers girls' comics to be lacking.
3. Lucy is brushing up on her evil skills. Although Charlie Brown presumably reads them all the time, and he's kind of fragile.

April 28-30, 1954: Comics, stairs and hoops

April 28, 1954:

The latest in the "Charlie Brown, Cartoonist" sequence. This one, I think, has an uncharacteristically clunky final panel. I find it difficult to imagine how Schulz could have thought CB's statement at the end works, it's very un-Peanuts-like.

April 29, 1954:

This is more like it. After the "Big Kids" Sunday strip, I think this is the first one to have a full thought balloon from Linus. I find the stairs in the second panel a little problematic, though. It's like the stairs sort of "slope" down off the side, like a carpeted hillside or something.

April 30, 1954:

Is it any wonder Snoopy forgets the kid's name? Anyway, this strip only works because of the limited size of the panels. Presumably Snoopy can see ahead off-panel, so why doesn't he notice the hoop is only as large as his snout beforehand? Maybe it's why Schulz draws him with his eyes closed in the third panel.

April 27, 1954: With real working truck bed!

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This is a frequently-used structure by Schulz at the moment. It goes:

1. A character does or says something silly.
2. Another character, or in the case of Snoopy vs. The Yard plain old physics, shows why the thing done is silly.

It's not much by itself, so these strips usually have something else going for them, either funny art (as here), empathy with one of the characters (such as the silly one who realizes by the end his mistake), or in some cases the silly character bullheadedly persisting in his error regardless. This happens with Lucy a lot, but Linus also becomes susceptible to it, every Halloween....

META: Comments working again?

The previous post got a comment, maybe they're working again?  If you've had trouble commenting lately, try seeing if the comment form loads now.

April 26, 1954: Have you met Schroeder's brother, George?

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This looks very much like a pop culture reference of the time, the candelabrum on the piano being a trademark of popular pianist Liberache. Or maybe it's just something pianists did at the time? It is rare that Charlie Brown and Shermy are more disgusted with commercialism than Schroeder, Christmas specials notwithstanding.

Ominously, Schroeder's little gesture seems to have enraptured Lucy.

Sunday, April 25, 1954: Patty tags out

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Patty's only kicked CB's sandcastle once in the strip so far, but this implies a regular reign of terror has been going on.  It's a funny strip all together though, and is another step closer to the Patty/Violet team act some of us remember from the early compilations.