May 26, 1952: Let's Remember Them When

Many times now I've mentioned how this strip seems like modern Peanuts, or this other strip seems like something Schulz would have drawn years later, or Charlie Brown seems depressed in this one like he does later on, or so forth.

In this strip it is particularly strong, I think. It is the interaction of two characters, one of the exhibiting a personal quirk, and understatedly referring to it in the last panel.

And then, why shouldn't we be having this feeling more and more often right now? Before our eyes it is transforming from early to classic Peanuts. Linus will be showing up before too much longer, who I think is the character who best illustrates the difference. Linus has the same parenthesis-eyes that Lucy has, but he never goes through that phase of having circle-eyes. And Linus's quietly philosophical personality is much in tune with the best qualities of Peanuts. Other comics have Charlie Browns, Sallys, Peppermint Pattys and many, many Lucys and Snoopys (strong characters are easy to write and popular with the crowd), but I can't think of any that have a Linus-like character in them. Often he is serene. Hobbes maybe has some qualities in common with Linus in his more reflective moments, I can't think of others.

By the way, unlike the last strip, Lucy again refers to herself in third person here. I suspect Schulz worked on the daily and Sunday strips on different schedules, and so changing character attributes might be a little out of sync between them.

Sunday, May 25, 1952: Listen: Lucy Van Pelt has become unstuck in time.

The title refers to the fact that, in this era of the strip, she is still maturing. For behold: she has stopped referring to herself in third person! If all the characters did that, then Charlie Brown would be over fifty in the last strip Charles Schulz drew.

The lettering on the crib is interesting. I can't help but think such a thing must seem awfully melancholy when the occupant grows out of it, and it takes up too much room, and it has sold or donated to charity, and so the named crib remains, forever a mute reminder of the childhood of someone obscure we you'll never meet and for all we know died a century ago.

How many stuffed toys does that girl have?!

In the logo in the first panel, there is a weird extra line between the A and the N in PEANUTS. Do you see where the line comes from? Here's a hint: look at the "b" in the word "by" below it.

May 24, 1952: Lucy is non-repentant

A rather different context for the chase/turnabout formula. This is a solid step along the way to Lucy's later personality. Her expression in panel two is like a shadow spreading over the strip. Lucy's on her way and she's not bring flowers and candy canes!

May 23, 1952: Snoopy is not weighed down by life

This is a great strip. It has a theme I heartily agree with, it's cute, and shows a hint of Snoopy's developing personality. It could pass for a strip a few years later all except for the art style, which looks even better, I think, with old-style Snoopy doing it.

Notice that word balloons with music notes do not count against Snoopy's no-talking prohibition.

May 22, 1952: Lucy requires a lot of supervision

Lucy and her long-suffering father again. It'll be nice when she loses those huge eyes.

Two strips seem to be missing from Comics.com's archive, May 20 and 21. Anyone know what we missed?

May 19, 1952: Snoopy chews out Charlie Brown

A very cute strip. I like that one "ARF!" that's rendered with serif letters.

Charlie Brown takes it so hard that he reflexively holds his hat in his hands in defense!

Suinday, May 18, 1952: FREAKISHLY HUGE EYES

Lucy in the second panel looks rather hideous with her big, circular eyes. The other strips show her from the side where she looks a lot more normal.

None of the kids really have all that good a hiding place. (Schroeder in the waste basket is funny.)

Here, "Rats!" is cemented as the Peanuts world's all-purpose curse word. Like most of these mild oaths it seems king of quaint now, which is something of a shame because there's a lot more variety to these milder versions than the strong examples turned to the most now. (Of course these are kids we're talking about, and not the ones from South Park.)

Lucy's system of counting is strange and non-deterministic. Still, if you're going up to eight million, it's probably better to do it that way.

May 17, 1952: Blocks have many uses

Lucy gets a lot of use out of her blocks.

The premise of this strip relies on Charlie Brown not noticing Lucy as she constructs her staircase. If he had looked over and Lucy making her ramp he probably wouldn't be scared. So, a subtext of this strip is that Charlie Brown gets deeply involved in books, and Lucy knows this well enough to rely upon it for her prank.

May 15, 1952: Exit, pursued by girls, stage left

It's another turnabout/chase strip, although the cause this time isn't Charlie Brown smarting off, or at least not on purpose.

What is it about comic characters chasing each other that works? What would they do if they caught him? Inflict violence? Is that funny?

I don't seem to remember Lucy being the chaser in many turnabout strips. Generally, she's probably more likely just to slug someone and get it over with.

May 14, 1952: Lucy in Profile

Slowly over the months, the character's shapes have been edging closer to the modern style.

All of the characters except Lucy have thick eye-dots, solid little ovals of black. Lucy instead has those wide circle-eyes, at least when we see her from the front. Here she's only seen from the side; when seen in profile, or when she's looking at something out of the corner of her eye, Schulz tends not to draw the complete circle, which makes her look a lot more like her modern look.

Thus in this strip, Lucy looks very much like she does in the years to follow.