August 4 is Snoopy Day!

Happy Snoopy day!

Sunday, August 15, 1954: And cheap at that price

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Another chapter in the unfolding story of Lucy's mother's desperate search for peace and quiet.

This is a particular favorite strip for me. It has several funny drawings that suit the story perfectly, it reveals something about Lucy's personality, and along the way it paints a vivid picture of the dynamic between Lucy's mother (who needs Lucy to be out of the house sometimes) and father (who foots the bill).

Week of August 9-14, 1954: Things like that make my stomach hurt

August 9

As Lucy becomes more bullheaded and cantankerous, Linus would grow into the role of asking Charlie Brown science questions. In one memorable strip, he asks an angry-faced Lucy why the sky is blue. She snaps back at him "BECAUSE IT ISN'T GREEN!"

August 10

That coy smile on Pig-Pen's face in panel three is interesting, in a Mona Lisa kind of way.

August 11

This is a growing part of Lucy's personality, a refusal to acknowledge basic facts. At she isn't laughing about what a joker Charlie Brown is afterwards this time. Charlie Brown's stomachache of dismay when confronted with one of his friends' quirks is a developing part of his character, too.

August 12

It's been a little while since we've seen a fussy Lucy strip. This one fits right in with the pattern: Lucy looks a gift horse in the mouth, and the horse kicks. Charlie Brown's expression is a little different this time: it's a more introspective look of annoyance, more of a look of "why does this happen to me?" than "why do I put up with her?"

I might have to agree with Lucy, however, if there really are weeds in the lemonade.

August 13

Having trouble coming up with something to say about this one. Not the most complex joke we've seen.

August 14

This seems more like something Linus would do. Actually, Schroeder has been in a good number of non-musical strips around this time. He's catcher of the baseball team, he's Charlie Brown's cartooning audience, and he's also around as a bit character. I remember as a kind seeing Schroeder strips at the piano and wondering why I never saw him anywhere else. He seemed to exist in a piano-centered universe, with occasional visits from the Satan of his personal world, Lucy.

The first panel demonstrates a curious aspect of Peanuts' artwork from around the time. Characters wearing a neutral expression viewed front or from the diagonal are often drawn without mouths. I thought it was weird the first time I saw it, and I still think it's weird now.

Sunday, August 8, 1954: Lucy in right field

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This isn't the first time Lucy's played baseball, but it confirms her position in right field. This is the first bona-fide joke about how bad Lucy is as a fielder. Charlie Brown's comment in the first panel implies that Lucy already has a negative reputation as a ball player.

Week of August 2-7: Linus is very good at building card houses

This week, there is no sign of Patty, Shermy or Violet.

August 2:

The existence of fingerprints is a little convenient, don't you think?

August 3:

In 1954 Linus would be called a prodigy. Now, he'd probably get labeled autistic, or diagnosed with ADD. Although his ability to build things like card houses so quickly, or gravity-defying stacks of blocks, borders on the magical.

The first baby in the strip was Schroeder, who developed into a musical genius. Here we kind of see Schulz taking the same steps with Linus, although his personality became rather different.

August 4:

Do they have little flourishes at the edges of the ridges? Do the whorls form a delightful swooping pattern?

August 5:

Be careful what you beg for, Snoopy. I hope Linus didn't go back to sucking on that thing afterward. Notably, we don't actually see Snoopy link the thumb; we infer it from his reaction.

August 6:

Charlie Brown seeks to branch out into adventure comics. Adventure comic strips are a sad and moribund category any more so some of you might not be familiar with them. The real money now, such as it is, is in comic magazines*, with their X-people and their Superfolk and their Batguys and their....

* I've decided: I'm reviving this usage. Who's with me?

August 7:

Silly Lucy, everyone knows only the index finger contains a gun barrel.

Sunday, August 1, 1954: Whoops!

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Sometimes the heavy stylization of Peanuts works in the service of a gag. In this strip, it isn't clear what exactly it is that Snoopy is doing until he tells us in the last panel. Although "whoops!" is kind of a weird thing to say in response to something cold pressed against your back.

Snoopy isn't as long in these panels as he was a few weeks back, he looks to be of a more reasonable size compared to when he's sitting down. But we do have a few panels where we see his face in three-quarters' perspective and get that weird broad face. Snoopy's snout really only exists in profile.

Week of July 26-31, 1954: Astronomy class with Lucy

July 26:

Charlie Brown began as kind of a smart-aleck. We know his destination is to be a kind of downcast everyman. Here's a bit of a transitional state, that of being kind of paranoid about what others think about him.

July 27:

I image Snoopy moving here in much the same way that snakes do. It's a fun illustration.

July 28:

July 29:

In the first of these strips, Lucy doesn't have a good sense of relative distances. In the second, she's gotten the distance down but wonders, if Mars is so far away, why she should care. Lucy is the type of person who can make a leap from ignorance directly to dismissal.

July 30:

More Pig-Pen strips. Not being bothered by girls is a questionable virtue. I can see the mosquito thing, but I'd think the presence of other vermin might make up for it.

July 31:

Although Schulz returns to Pig-Pen periodically throughout Peanuts' run, it's without any great fervor. Jan in comments a few days ago remarked that, in all of Peanuts, there are only around 140 Pig-Pen strips. We've now seen ten of them.

While there's something admirable about Pig-Pen's lack of self-consciousness, as that prior commenter said, there's not a lot you can say about him. I think Schulz returns to him every once in a while because A. he's kind of a link to the early days of Peanuts, and B. it's a character quirk that never needed updating.

Peanuts lasted up to the dawning days of the 21st century, and throughout that time some updates to the cast were necessary. Lucy changed her dark blue dress for a track suit. Eudora's clothes would have been unthinkable in 1951. Need I even remind you of Franklin? Snoopy's typewriter was out of date at least a decade before he wrote that final letter.

There have always been, and probably always will be, messy kids, so Pig-Pen never needed revising or replacing.

It's funny to think of a dog as being afraid of getting his mouth dirty. Most dogs I've known haven't been what I'd call discriminating eaters.

Sunday, July 25, 1954: You crazy dog

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This is one of Snoopy's earliest moments of pure anarchy.

The lead-in panels on this strip, the two at the top that newspapers had the option of leaving off, are important this time. Without those panels, this strip is about Snoopy the crazy dog. With them, it's about how Charlie Brown doesn't take good care of his records. Even without the lead panels the second interpretation makes more sense than the first, but it doesn't have the necessary narrative weight behind it without seeing Charlie Brown sailing that record through the air.

When I first saw this strip in a compilation it was without the lead panels, and I was confused that Charlie Brown didn't see it was plainly Snoopy' fault the record was scratched up. (The reprint did have Charlie Brown rolling the record on its edge, but as a kid I just assumed, rather confusedly, that was a way people transported records back then.)

Week of July 19-24: Some more Pig-Pen

July 19:

There are certain problems with having a genius for a friend. Sometimes, when a melody strikes your head at just the right angle, you just have to get it out, your prized copy of Detective Comics #1 not withstanding.

I like how Charlie Brown still calls it a "comic magazine." I guess that term was current at the time.

July 20:

This is before Pig-Pen's messiness becomes a quasi-magical ability in later strips, where dirt appears on him spontaneously while he walks down the street.

July 21:

Snoopy's ear doesn't really have the pointy tip that a shark's fin has. But, then, it's a wading pool.

July 22:

Heh heh, I like this one. Reminds me of Lucy's gray jellybeans.

Pig-Pen is remarkably forward with his request for candy. Charlie Brown will hint and plead, but Pig-Pen (I'm not abbreviating it for what I take will be obvious reasons) just says "Gonna give me some?" Most Pig-Pen strips end up being about his messiness, which is really a shame because he has a unique personality among all the Peanuts cast.

July 23:

This is very much classic Lucy in personality. I joke about her incredible wrath and compare her to Cthulhu, but she's not all bad. She is funnier that way though. This is a pretty funny strip in all. It's not hard to invent gags about a really dirty kid, although later on they become less about the raw fact of his dirt and more about how comfortable Pig-Pen is in his own skin (and the layer of grime that covers it).

July 24:

I love the way Lucy looks at Snoopy in the third panel. I have to wonder about the source of Charlie Brown's "imitation people" comment though. Maybe it was something in the cultural air at the time.

Sunday, July 18, 1954: The nature of nothing

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

From the Wikipedia article on Virgil Thomson:
"[...] Thomson was famous for his revival of the rare technique of composing "musical portraits" of living subjects, often spending hours in a room with them before rushing off to finish the piece on his own. Many subjects reported feeling that the pieces did capture something unique about their identities even thought nearly all the portraits were absent of any clearly representational content."

A sly strip. Schroeder's looks of concentration, followed by his throwing his hands up, are important for understanding that he's giving up. I think it works better this way, allowing us to see him throwing in the towel, than being told directly that he's got nothing, which would seem a bit harder on Charlie Brown's feelings.