Wednesday, July 18, 2012
June 13-18, 1955: "Dot" is a sound effect
At this point the girls aren't always disgusted with, annoyed by or bored at the sight of Charlie Brown, as this strip shows. I think the thinness of the tree could be taken as a metaphor for the thinness of Violet's affections, which makes this strip poetic in a way.
June 14:
I had not heretofore suspected that "dot" was onomatopoeia. but it is a kind of appropriate noise for jabbing a piece of paper with a drawing instrument like a crayon or pencil.
June 15:
I expect that today's kids don't get messed up as much, on the average, during their summertime adventures.
June 16:
This is exactly the kind of thing a Lovecraft protagonist with unknown blood ties to fiendish creatures, ancient sorcerers or some godling's spawn would do, and it's also similar to such a being's probable reaction once he discovers the universe obeys his or her whims -- at least, if he didn't immediately faint from the shock.
June 17:
I think Charlie Brown just might not have been laughing at "Pig-Pen"'s ambitions. A bit of youthful can be good for a kid, although probably something along the line he'll probably have to clean up more. For example, I can't picture, say, Mitt Romney covered with dirt. (In fact, his skin looks stain-resistant, like maybe some kind of polymer.)
June 18:
Ah, the ease with which the winds of love turn when you're seven. The characters are seven now aren't they? Originally I think they were intended to be just before school age, but now we've seen some moments in school, they were probably aged to that point since school is a ripe source of storylines, although we haven't seen very many yet. (And when Rerun shows up and enters kindergarten both Linus and Lucy, being siblings, kind of have to age to make room for him.)
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Sunday, June 12, 1955: Chomp Chomp Chomp
META: Back after iPad trouble
Some searching around the internet revealed that iPad 2s are held together with hot glue. So I borrowed a heat gun from a helpful uncle and managed to reseal the cable. Except in the process of opening it, we accidentally severed the digitizer cable. ARGH.
I ordered a replacement and installed it successfully. But after it was in, the screen backlight stopped working!
The problem, it turned out, was simply that the backlight didn't want to work without a hard reset of the power running to it. Turning it off wasn't enough, it wanted zero power. I didn't know this, I thought it was broken and was looking into the best way to figure out what was wrong and finding out how much replacement parts for THAT would be. Then the battery finally died. I gave it a look to try to gather more information about it, and on the off chance that the complete cessation of power would start it working again -- which it did, which I was rather surprised by.
Anyway, we're back in action now. Thanks for bearing with me.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
June 6-11, 1955: Great Composers of the American West
A running theme in Peanuts in the early days is Charlie Brown being dismayed at some obviously false notion one of his friends has come up with, and their refusal to see sense regardless of all other matters. Up until now it's been Lucy who's been Chuck's opponent in this, but sometimes Schroeder sneaks in there as well in his uncritical idolization of Ludwig Van Beethoven. Later on a variety of other characters fill this role, and their notions take on differing levels of actuality. The most-remembered example of this, of course, is Linus' fixation on the Great Pumpkin, which became one of the trademarks of the strip.
June 7
The humor in this sequence comes not just from Charlie Brown's reaction, but the incongruity of seeing a fur hat on the head of Schroeder's bust.
June 8
Sometimes Peanuts' comedy is kind of like a mathematical formula that could be solved for a number of different variables. Character personalities, and cultural signifiers like Beethoven and Davy Crockett, are what realize the jokes.
Schroeder is singing the refrain from the famous song "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," written by George Bruns and Thomas W. Blackburn, written to publicize the Disney movie Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier. The song made the Billboard charts on March 26, 1955 and the strip was published June 6, so it was floating around the cultural mindspace at the time. Come to think of it, this explains some of the other Davy Crockett references in the strip. Here you go:
Incidentally, there is another, more recent, alternate-reality version of that song, written by They Might Be Giants:
June 9
Charles Schulz was from Minnesota, and although he moved around a bit (to Colorado and later to California), it typically expresses a midwestern kind of humor, self-deprecating and wry. For more, turn on A Prairie Home Companion on your local NPR station, or alternatively go get some Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs. Go on, I'll wait. (No I won't.)
June 10
Lucy's brand of evil is currently directly only towards her brother. It takes some time to fester and flower into the true breadth of its malevolence.
June 11
At the time Schulz's first son Monte would have been about four. I don't know if this is the title of a real book or one that Schulz made up for the strip.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Sunday, June 5, 1955: What's this? A piece of candy.
That's a good drawing of dismay on Charlie Brown's face in the next-to-last panel.
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It's been slow going here due to interference from other projects. The blog's not dead quite yet though.
Friday, April 20, 2012
May 29-June 4, 1955: Ol' Aerial Ears
May 30
Pinky Lee was the star of a children's TV show in 1954 and 1955. His catchphrase was "You make me so mad!" The Wikipedia page on him notes that he collapsed on-air later in 1955, which the audience of children had assumed was part of his goofy act. This basically ended Pinky's role on the show, although contrary to rumors at the time he didn't die until 1993.
June 1
By my reckoning, this is the first time Linus has ever had an attack due to the absense of his blanket. Lucy's attitude towards her brother's flannel dependence varies from warmly supportive to fierce antagonism.
June 2
June 4
He still COULD have licket Crockett, he just had something else to do.
June 5
Snoopy powers demonstrated: prehensile ears & improved auditory reception.
Monday, April 2, 2012
May 22-28, 1955: Scenes from an Illustrated Childhood
Shades of Calvin and his bicycle here. And a scribble of ire!
A character displaying affection, love, tolerance, pleasure, joy? These things are not funny. Conan! What is funny in life?
Lucy turns into quite the feminist later on, this attitude turns out to be fairly atypical of her.
It's possible to miss it if you just glance at the strip, but the joke here is that Lucy is missing one skate, which is the one that Snoopy's riding.
Violet and her mud pies again. Old habits die hard. Y'know, I don't remember if we've ever seen any of the Peanuts kids eat one of those mud pies. I'd assume that they're just playing, but that look of distaste on Charlie Brown's face implies that he at least has considered eating one of the things. I guess kids had stronger immune systems back then.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
May 16-17, 19-20, 1955: Lucy and the Clover
Charlie Brown's pose in the last panel is not the kind of thing he'd be seen doing in later years of the strip. There's still something of the old, more confident Charlie Brown still around.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sunday, May 15, 1955: Linus takes out his frustrations
Read this strip at gocomics.com.
This calls forward to Charlie Brown's dismayed reaction at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas. BTW, if when you watch that cartoon, after Charlie Brown walks off-screen, you immediately change the channel and pretend the show ended there, the outcome is a lot more realistic and also more in keeping with the general tone of Peanuts.
I think this strip is slightly stronger with the lead panels, as then there's a nice rule-of-threes progression up to the toy's deflation.
Cute determined expressions on Linus' face throughout here.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
May 9-14, 1955: That's the way it goes
Even Snoopy's vaunted candy-detection abilities have their limits. Serif Z! Also, a serif'd "sigh," in lowercase.